Bar, Montenegro

We took the train from Belgrade, Serbia to Bar, Montenegro. The train took roughly 13 hours to get there and it was late on arrival, just like the past 2 weeks of trains. The view was great from the train as it went through the mountains between Podgorica, Montenegro's capital, and the coastal town of Bar. There are a few beaches but the ones we saw were rocky and pretty crowded. We also visited the old town. We walked from the apartment we were renting to the old city, a good 14 km round-trip. The old town is still being worked on, and not developed for tourism quite yet, so we could walk everywhere in the ruins without restrictions for a small entrance fee. It was very interesting and we had a nice view over the city and the mountains. We had a great few days in Bar and relaxed a lot.

 

Belgrade, Serbia

When we got in Belgrade, we were a little lost. The directions we had were from the main train station. Apparently, trains from Romania get to a different train station than the main one. It was a 2 km walk to downtown and we managed to find our way. After checking in and dropping our bags at the Goodnight Grooves hostel, we went for a walk around the pedestrian area and to the gypsy street. We ended up having supper in an English restaurant, the Little Bay, which was a lot fancier than what we are used to these days. We had great food for a reasonable price. We spent the rest of the evening talking with fellow travelers and the great staff at the hostel, tasting some rakija, the traditional Balkan drink. Rakija is a homemade alcohol from various fruits. The next day, we visited the citadel, walked to the buildings bombed by NATO in 1999 and all the way to the big orthodox church, which looks great from the outside, but is not finished inside. We also had an afternoon lunch at the ? pub. And yes, that is the pub's name. We enjoyed our stay in Belgrade, on our way to Montenegro.

Belgrade Fortress Entrance

Belgrade Military Museum

Military Museum

Confluence of River Sava and Danube

View from Belgrade Fortress to Novi Belgrade

Ruins in the Citadel

Fortress Tower

Fortress 

One of the Fortress entrance

Fortress

Main pedestrian street, Belgrade

Moscow Hotel

Bombed government buildings downtown Belgrade

Bombed government buildings downtown Belgrade

Cathedral of Saint Sava 

Street Art

Timisoara, Romania

We were supposed to arrive in Timisoara at 7:07am and catch the connection at 7:25am but as it is in Romania, we assumed the train would be late and... it was! Good thing we had planned this ahead and had booked a hostel for the night.  In the afternoon we went for a walk in Timisoara, through the squares, Roses Park and Kids Park. The Kids Park was actually amazing with lots of different games for all ages, and hammock type chairs for parents. Back at the hostel we had a few beers with local architecture students in training in Timisoara. We had a good time.

View from the night train to Timisoara

Piaţa Victoriei

Piaţa Victoriei

Piaţa Victoriei

Canal surrounding old town

Piata Unirii

Piata Unirii

 

Bucharest, Romania

Today, we visited Bucharest. It was way easier to get around in Romania than Moldova as they don't use Cyrillic alphabet and Romanian is a Latin language close to French. Between two night trains, we had 15 hours to spend in this huge city. We walked a lot to see all the sights we found interesting in one day. There are quite a few areas with really old and interesting architecture. The walk from Gara de Nord to the Palace of the Parliament is over 4 kilometers via the Calea Victoriei. After the Palace of Parliament, we walked slowly toward the Kiseleff Park, where we  tried to read for a while but ended up having a nap as we were really tired. Sometimes sleeping in night trains isn't enough and it was also really hot outside so a break in the shade of the trees was well deserved. When we woke up from our "reading break" we decided to go see the Arcul de Triumf. We didn't know but they have one here too, just like the one in Paris, but half the size. It was rebuilt as a better version a couple times since it's original wooden version built in 1878. The walk back to the station was long and under a very hot sun again and we got there around 7 PM, 12 hours after our arrival. We then sat down in an air conditioned Mc Donald to have a coffee and use their free Wifi until our departure time to Timisoara.

Random Old Building

University Library Carol

Dambovita River

Playground / Castle in Izvor Park

The corner of Boulevard Natiunile Unite / Libertatii

Palace of the Parliment

Coltea Hospital

Arcul de Triumf

Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic or Приднестрóвская Молдáвская Респýблика

Today we visited a country that doesn't exist. It is not recognized by most countries in the world as an independent country, even though it has been 20 years since they fought about it. Transnistria has it's own capital,  border control, money, government, etc. We got to meet with a local that showed us around and gave us a real insight on Transnistrian life. We also bought a bottle of their own cognac made in the only Kvint factory in the world for 27 Transnistrian Rouble (about 3 CAD). We visited the main sights of the city in a few hours and came back with the minibus to Chisinau. 

The minibuses to go and back were really crowded, and the drivers don't seem to care about the lines on the road. They will drive on it, pass when they feel like it, but surprisingly, we didn't see any accidents on the way. We read about Transnistria before deciding to go, and we weren't too sure on what to expect, especially at the border. For example, Wikitravel gives a number to call in case of corrupt officers, so we were a bit worried on the way there. Turns out, it was really easy. We filed out the little piece of paper, handed it to the Moldovan officer with our passports. She then looked at it for a few minutes while entering our info on the computer and gave us back the paper with our passports. We were now officially outside Moldova. We walked to the next building, and gave our paper to the Transnistrian officer who looked at it along with our passports and gave us the second half of the stamped paper back. On the way out, same process, but even easier as the officer actually spoke English.  He looked at our documents and we moved on to the Moldovan border where the officer left with our passports for a few minutes in order to add some info on the computer. 

It was an interresting day where we learned about the Soviet time and about life in Transnistria. It is actually a pretty quiet place, where even crossing the roads seemed safer than Chisinau.

Kvint Factory 

Tiraspol City Hall

Disney store with fake castle on the bottom floor of a Soviet looking apartment building

KBAC, or Kvass is a traditional Russian drink made of fermented black or regular rye bread

Transdniestria, Founded to Live! 

Suvorov Monument

Soldier statue in memory of the war of 1990-1992