It was an early start catching the bus from Sarajevo at 6 am , with our packed breakfast from the hotel. The countryside out of Sarajevo was again spectacular with us climbing out of Sarajevo over the mountain range and finally down onto the flats near the Serbian border. There was a brief stop for coffe/breakfast at the top.After the border formalities , which didn’t take too long , there was a distinct change in the quality of the roads for the worse – explaining why the last 150km to Belgrade would take over 3 hours. The land in this area is dead flat and full of corn fields. They must use the corn to feed livestock because it was rare to ever see it on a menu anywhere in the Balkans . Finallly we arrived at Belgrade which is really just a typical big city – the train station however when we found it suffered from a distinct lack of trains! We bought tickets for the train to Sremski Karlovci which is on the line to Novi Sad . The platfroms have no signs indicating where the train is going on the platform and you will almost certainly not understand the Serbian announcement – as the locals have trouble getting it , but there is a screen in the ticket area which we were able to work out. There was a conductor on the platform whom we asked whether this train was to Novi Sad as did 90% of the locals that walked past him. The train was appalling and crowded , much worse than Melbourne. There were no announcements about where the train was stopping ( in Switzerland they announce it in about 6 languages) , at some of the stops you couldn’t make out the signs on the platform , at many of the stops there was no platform! Somehow between a combination of smart phone technology , asking locals who possibly might know , we got out at the correct place. There was another lone Australian travelling in our carriage , as we were about to get out I said ” Hey mate , this will make the trains back home look really good .” He said “I’m glad my stop is at the end of the line ” .When we got off onto the very narrow platfrom Lily’s aunt Anka was there to greet us and a friend drove us the short distance to her house in the town of Sremski Karlovci.
[jj-ngg-jquery-slider gallery=28 effect=fade animspeed=1000 pausetime=5000 ]