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Belgrade

I didn’t get round to passing comment on Belgrade yet. I liked Belgrade, what I saw of it. IMHO any city on the water AND built on hills is pretty much already half way there.

There was one particular street, who’s name very helpfully I cannot remember, but if you are ever in town I do suggest you go. Think it begins with C, but that could be their C, so an S between you and me. Then again it might not. Think it ends in ‘ska’, which again narrows it down considerably for Belgrade. Cobbles leading down a gentle slope; al fresco dining; lots of Serbians playing their folk ditties, and good fodder to boot. Actually now I describe it, it sounds like the perfect tourist trap, well maybe it is and maybe we were tourist-trapped but it was nice, really it was. I couldn’t grasp any distinct Serbian food out there but then as a Brit we haven’t got a lot to make our mark about, other than roast beef I guess, and roast chicken, and roast pork, and roast lamb. I do like a bit of lamb, me. Never been massive on mint sauce though.

One thing I found clever was how the main road comes sweeping over a bridge directly into town. Like the M4 going in as far as Hyde Park Corner. The place was a lot more western, a bit more with it than Sofia. Not saying this as being better or worse (it’s better), merely an observation.

Look, the truth of the matter is that I haven’t got a great deal to say about the place as it was mostly either work or the hotel. Seems I just have some compulsion now to annotate wherever I go. Timewaster.

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Sofia II

Was due to fly home on Frankie’s year and a half birthday but stayed out there an extra 5 days whilst the project continues to behave erratically. It went a little groundhog day for us, only without the fun of telling people what you think of them and there being no comeback.

A couple of things worth mentioning though:

Between the hotel and the embassy we’d walk through a leafy park where chess is a massive spectator sport. Maybe up to 25 old boys gathered around one little table, with maybe 10 tables thoughout the park, all these elderly gentlemen wearing concentrated frowns and giving it some the strokey-beardy. I’d say that a more worthwhile spectator sport is spectating the spectating.

Said park has a resident moustachioed accordion player, even at 8am. No rest for the wicked.

And if you ever find yourself in need of a meal in Sofia, food will always be served in the order it’s cooked so that as you start to eat, your mate’s just finishing up. And don’t expect any food to be delivered hot, you get luke at best.

Although I can’t really comment on the rest of Bulgaria and it was a shame I didn’t get to see any more than Sofia, I’m afraid to say that won’t be rushing back there.

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Sofia

I’ve been in Bulgaria for a week now so it’s time I JUDGED my time here so far. May even be some top tips here for others heading this way, but unlikely. Excuse my ignorance where applicable.

  1. First off, coming into the airport, I didn’t even realise they used the Cyrillic alphabet here. That script helps to give the place a hint of the Soviet, combined with the 8 story, dirty grey concrete buildings, trams, the accent and waking up to a veritable blizzard on the first morning here
  2. Tourist trail so far: Large domed Eastern Orthordox cathedral named after Alexander Nevski no less(?): impressively large but a 5 minute looksee
  3. The National Art Gallery: what was there was very nice but there just wasn’t a great deal to see.
  4. The National Cultural Centre had a DIY expo on, showing off marvellous wares such as concrete donkeys and all the latest in guttering, pots and tiles. It was packed and people seemed fascinated
  5. The National Military Museum was excellent though, a lot of big cold war hardware and Thracia and 20th century war history here
  6. Veering off topic here but I just looked up the Danube,  which doesn’t come through Sofia but does create most of Bulgaria’s northern border with Romania
  7. Speaking of signs, I’ve also never previously had a bloke standing there at Arrivals with a sign saying SPRATT on it). Quite a moment
  8. Beer is good and cheap, less than £1/pint, which is very welcome. Best so far is Zagorka
  9. I’ve never been offered tripe soup before but this evening’s menu at a great little restaurant called ‘Manastirska Magernica’ made me try some. I gave it my best, then covered it with chili and tried some more but no, not really for me. The soup part probably didn’t help, just boiled full fat milk really. I would try it again, hoping for a better recipe, but nah
  10. The reindeer for main however was very nice, gamey, tastey stuff

[Update, 01.04.2009: Meant to include this amazing site, saw the link at the restaurant I mentioned:  press play on some of the videos, this is exactly what all of Bulgaria is like]

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Slovenia

Haven’t been away enough this year so booked us a Ryanair flight to Trieste. Hired a car and did 1192km around central Europe in 7 days, getting back this Friday just gone. We did it like this:

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&hl=en&s=AARTsJqsZs6h4KV-p8cewcZbPUivTV4Lmw&msa=0&msid=114441967077137183817.00045e799c04a55800df6&ll=46.038923,14.875488&spn=1.334618,2.471924&z=8&output=embed&w=450&h=350

Hotel in Stansted for an easier Friday 7th Dec morning start. A short cattlemongous flight to north-east Italy, Trieste. Drove through the town, sorry Triestians but from what we saw, didn’t think much to the place, industrial, nothing special. Decided to keep on trucking up and over to the nearby boarder with Slovenia and on to it’s fairly central capital Ljubljana. Found a central hotel fairly easily, checked in and walked into a compact, picturesque and Christmassy town. Drank: mulled white wine, ate: game. Good start. Moved hotel the next day, went up to the castle, walked about, ate, drank, made merry. Drove down to Zagreb the next day, casually cruising through the open toll stations, laughing at how they don’t make too many a euro by leaving them open for all and sundry to drive on through. Came to a stop at the border for not having a ‘vignette’. A vignette, you say? “Well Austria and Switzerland have them”. Oh, right. €150 later we found out that a vignette is their version of road tax which all toll road users must purchase. Either for €35 for 6 months, or for us a total of €185 for 1 week. So, a tip from the top for anyone driving in Slovenia; buy yourself the cheaper version at any petrol station as soon as you hit the motorways. Arseholes. But anyway, hit Zagreb, found a hotel, ate, drank, walked about, made merry. Unless we missed something, we didn’t miss anything. Nothing particularly attractive about the city and maybe a hint of people not paying Frankie quite enough attention, which was quite extraordinary. Speaking of which, all along, she was pretty much as good as you can expect a littl’n to be whilst sat in the back of the Punto. The odd whinge here and there but then who doesn’t get a little testy after prolonged journeys? Headed back into Slovenia, up to Ptuj, over to the snowy pass up on Logarska Dolina, devided it was too snowy for the car and us to continue, back down to Kamnik, nice little town, stayed in a very nice little Penzion there. On to Skofja Loka, up to the castle, museum, on to Lake Bled where Kate had holidayed as a little girl, down to Cerkno to check out a WWII hospital but the roads became unpassable due to snow. That took us up to day 6/7 so back to Trieste for the night before the flight home. So we drove around a lot, pleasantly impressed by Slovenia, ate a lot of pizza, drank quite a bit of Union lager, spent a little more than someone who had planned their journey properly would have but had a decent little trip.

And now, on to Xmas.

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Parking in Tower Hamlets

Saturday morning, woke up in good time to drive down to Sussex for the wedding of Matt and Bry. Went to drive the car round to load it up and… couldn’t find it. Walked all over the manor, thinking that I’d maybe parked it a few streets away when I arrived back from skydiving last Sunday evening. Nowhere to be found. Called Tower Hamlets parking and sure enough, they had it in the car pound. Bloody bloody bastards.

And they’d had it since Monday. This meant that I had almost a week’s worth of storage to pay for also. Apparently there had been a ‘parking suspended’ notice there at the time which I simply didn’t see. Total cost: £420. Four hundred and twenty pounds. FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY OF YOUR HARD EARNED POUNDS. STERLING. An absolutely disproportional punishment for a relatively innocent, tax paying monkey like me. 

And this is on top of the £150 that I paid the day we moved in, almost 1 year ago to the day. I’d hired a van, eventually unloaded it with the old man. Parked up in the ‘visitors’ bay. Had a sit down for 15 minutes to gather our breath and a quick drink, came down, van gone. Bloody bastards, the lot of them.