Belgrade - night view - courtesy awams.com

The prehistory of the region dates back to some 6000 years B.C., when Starcevo culture resulted in an early farming settlement across the river from the present site of Belgrade.

Following many changes in the make-up of the region and its inhabitants, the region occupied by the Kalamegdan Gardens become the north western outpost of the Eastern Roman Empire in about 400 A.D.

The region now known as Serbia has changed hands so many times in the intervening 1600 years or so that it is almost impossible to keep up with who has been in control at any given time.

Since the beginning of the second world war, Belgrade has been bombed by the Germans, the Americans and NATO. Following WW2, Belgrade was liberated from the Nazis by the Soviet Red Army, and the installation of President Tito as the ruler of Yugoslavia saw the beginning of many years of socialist rule in the region, only terminated with the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

As a result of the many upheavals in its recent history, Belgrade has found itself with a significant task ahead of itself when it comes to moving itself, its inhabitants and its reputation into the world of tourism and freedom of travel.

Many have stated that in the past, Serbia has suffered from something of an image problem, and whilst Milosevic and his cohorts are no longer in the picture, many Serbs will still believe that the outside world considers them to be the “scourge of the Balkans”.

However, this attitude has changed somewhat over the intervening years, and many parts of Serbia including Belgrade (or Beograd as it has been traditionally known), have begun to see that it to everybody’s advantage to invite foreigners into their environment.

However, after some 36 hours spent doing our best to do the tourist thing in Belgrade, we have to admit a little frustration.

We’ve really enjoyed those things that we have managed to experience, but nevertheless have found ourselves working very hard indeed to find out how to locate most of the experiences that Belgrade has on offer.

We arrived at our accommodation in the evening, and after leaving our belongings, decided to spend some time exploring the region around the hotel (Stari Grad). We wandered in a northerly direction up Balkanska towards Terasije, considered to be the central square of Beograd.

A prime example of the problem in following up on tourism support is exemplified by the Belgrade website: http://beograd.rs – when we visit this site and select “Discover Belgrade/Tourism” we discover 4 links, none of which are operational.

We followed this up by visiting the Tourist Organization Of Belgrade site: http://tob.rs . This site was able to tell us something about sightseeing in Belgrade, but very little of which was of much use. For example, the city tour double decker buses only operate from May to October – our visit was in late April. Similarly most walking tours of the city only run on one or two days a week, and in many cases only on one day per month.

There is a free tram service that allows the visitor to discover more about the city and what it has to offer, but it has to be pre-booked, and only operates on Fridays and Saturdays (we were there on a Thursday).

When we visited a tourist information center to find out more, we were offered a map of the city, but found that this was not of the highest accuracy, nor did it incorporate public transport information and street information on a single map.

As a result, we bumbled our way around those parts of Belgrade that we could reach, and enjoyed those that we were able to find.

We are both of the very strong belief that what is sorely needed in Belgrade is for some authority to appoint an outside person or body to spend some time in the city, recommend those things that would combine to bring a brand new tourist culture to the city, and to have sufficient pull to convince groups such as the public transport authorities that the introduction of limited time multi- sector ticketing arrangements combined with informative information services (both online and on paper) would provide a whole new source of ticketing revenue to their systems.

Whilst we have enjoyed our time in Belgrade, we consider that the amount of work required in order to get the most out of the city is too much for a short stay.

We’d love to see the result should some group be capable of instilling a more effective tourism oriented culture into Belgrade and indeed all of Serbia.

Our recommendation for those planning to visit this city as an independent traveler is to undertake all of the needed research before you arrive, so that you are not left frustrated after your arrival.

Tren Italia train service 9715

Train 9715 is an express service to Venezia – the trip lasts about 2 hours.

First class reserved seating is excellent on this train, with facing seats, power for computers, chargers, etc.

We happen to be in seats 91 and 92, rather than in seat 61. Although this means that we’re at one end of the carriage, this has offered us a chance to store our luggage behind the seat, rather than needing to heft it up onto the overhead racks.

This train is clean, so the windows do offer a clear view out, and should be able to get some photographs en route.

We’ve noted that announcements are made in both Italian and English – so we have some idea of what is going on.

It’s interesting to note the number of Italian flags hanging from many of the flats and other accommodation units as we pass through the suburban regions of Torino and Milan. The people who live here are obviously very proud of their heritage.

The land around Milan seems very flat. We noticed on the way into Milan a large number of what looked a little like rice paddies, full of water. It would be interesting to find out what the purpose of these may be.

As we pass through the surrounding agricultural areas, we can recognise canola amongst the crops, a number of market gardens with hot houses and quite a significant amount of land let to fallow, and others with new crops just breaking through the surface of the soil with summer approaching.

Travelling by rail is certainly an improvement upon driving yourself around Europe – you can let somebody else get you to your destination on time and in a much more relaxed state.

The express train services are also much faster than private car, and you can often enjoy views that wouldn’t be available when travelling along the major roadways.

A nice touch has been the opportunity to enjoy a complimentary drink and snack as a part of the first class service. We have each enjoyed a glass of Berlucchi Vintage 2004 sparkling wine. Try doing that while you’re driving.

After a brief stop at Brescia, the route ran through a substantial area that combined light industrial activity with some market gardening.

Further along, we began to see many vineyards, and were lucky enough to glimpse Lake Garda in the distance. This brought back memories of a previous trip when we spent a week or so at Valpolicella just north of Verona, enjoying some local wine and and visiting Lake Garda during our stay.

Following a stop at Verona, the train is travelling towards Padua, and eventually stopping at Venezia, St Lucia. We alight at Venezia Mestre however in preparation for the next leg of our tour.

This trip is of course a reminder of many of Shakespeare’s classics, including Romeo And Juliet, The Merchant Of Venice and Two Gentlemen Of Verona.