Travel: A short glimpse into a tiny part of Eastern Europe in Balkans. Budapest- Belgrade - Sofia.
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| Budapest. Foto: Elina Nomad |
BUDAPEST - BELGRADE- SOFIA
2 flights, 2-night buses, and a rental car.
2 hostels, 3 Airbnb homes.
21H in Budapest and a night-bus ride to Belgrade, Serbia.
In October, we traveled to the Balkan countries. These destinations we picked as it was cheap airline tickets, obviously, and we have not traveled there before, except Budapest. It was a short but active trip. I needed an energetic trip than visiting just one place, as our life is calm in Malmö.
During this trip, we ate very good vegetarian and vegan food, we saw beautiful countryside, and we learned about the history of the Balkans a little more and heard funny stories from our friends and the new friends we met there. We went with night buses and we rented a car. We drove through the mountain road and rested in a quiet 'off-grid' rural house... It was a great trip, but we wished if it could have been longer...
The mundane tourist in Budapest.
Budapest is our favorite city, we have been there before and we will go again! Budapest has bewitched us. In Budapest, we met our dear friends, had a morning coffee in the Espresso bar and later in the cafe Madal, and had lunch at our favorite all-day breakfast cafe "Bluebird Cafe". We also went to see "World Press Photo Exhibition 2016" which my dear friend Kinga was suggesting. A wonderful young lady I met when I went to Budapest on a solo birthday trip in may 2015. The exhibition was held in a very, very majestic building The ethnography museum. Even with my academic roots into the photography field, I have not much to comment on it as it is press photography. I am not fond of press-journalism photography. I get it why we need it, but I could not be that sort of photographer. I could not take photos at these dramatic, painful and emotional moments when I knew I should rather help than capture. It is a long discussion on ethics and so on that I know we have different opinions – which is good, we need reasons to discuss and promote our brain thinking ;)
21 hours in Budapest. I missed to get the earlier planned airline tickets (wizzair) so we only had one day if we wanted to travel more into Balkans. We walked by the river Danube. By the river you can see many other important historical things - Halaszbastya, Hungarian Parliament building and the view is magnificent. We ate the best ice cream - Levendula Fagylaltozó. Levendula ice cream is special! They add fresh ingredients. They had many vegan tastes. I tried "aloe vera" taste and the others I've forgotten now. It is our highlight of the trip to Budapest! Coffee and ice cream all day long.
For dinner, we went to a vegetarian/vegan Napfényes Restaurant. They had improvised with Hungarian food without meat. We waited so long for our food that I get a little worried about whether we will be eating in the time as we had a night bus later to catch. They noticed that we had been waiting for over a normal time. We do not know what happened, they said they had a problem in the kitchen. Due to that, they paid for our soup. We had very basic soups, he took some pea soup (and admitted that my made one is better, ha ), and I had ordered “Hungarian” kitchen but improvised into vegan. I would recommend this place, as there are plenty more V dishes to choose from, but it is just a normal restaurant with reasonable prices, nothing “Hungarian” to experience if expect it.
The night-bus. I found this company: FUDEKS. I thought about the night train, but I had read many bad stories about a night train trip on the internet in various travel blogs. So I thought the best is to find bus tickets. FUDEKS. You can not pay for tickets through the Internet, you must reserve by e-mail. It was a bit funny and interesting experience. :) We thought Budapest is the first stop, but no! When the bus came, there were only three vacant seats on the bus. So if you plan to take a bus, you must reserve it for several weeks. About the journey with the night bus, I will write more in my Part 2.
What we like the most about Budapest: really good coffee! There are many tourist things to go see and do. Also, I have more photos from my pre-visits. Now I only wrote about the places we went to, maybe next time I can write more about Budapest as a tourist. On this "Balkans in October" adventure we were focusing on how easy it is to find V food, that's why I mention the places we went to eat.
Yes, it is harder for vegans for sure, but be creative and also understandable that you can’t expect everyone to have all types of diets in their restaurants. If I find vegan dishes somewhere, I notice that they are added more for interest, curiosity and “trial”.
It is a wild, creative and progressive city which really finds it the way how to hold together the mixed history and culture parts with the modern hipster demands. This was my very plain description of this wonderful city, as it was our 3rd visit, and the fun tourist impressions have already experienced in the past. Go and visit! You’ll dislike it or love it!
Budapest <3
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Airport Taxi: Wizzairbus services.We arrived around midnight in Budapest from Malmö, so we booked wizzairshuttlebus, but now we know that the next time we take public transport or shuttle bus because we waited extra hours for the wizzairshuttle ... We arrived at around 2 am in Budapest.
Stayed: With our friends at VI. Kerület.
Eat: Esspresso bar, Madal Cafe Bluebird Cafe, Napfényes Restaurant, Levendula Fagylaltozó
Travel: Nepliget bus station. Budapest - Belgrade.
Fudeks: 2 people: 25 € x 2 = 15,500hf
Platform 5, 23:00 to 5:00 // 6:00
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| Budapest. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Budapest. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Budapest. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Budapest. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Budapest. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Budapest. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Budapest. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Monument Victor. Foto: Elina Nomad |
BUDAPEST - BELGRADE- BULGARIA
A city where we expected nothing, but left with a feeling - worth to come back!
Heading to Belgrade from Budapest our friends wished us good luck and “be safe!”
It a little bit awakened us to the reality that we are stepping into
unknown countries where none of us have been before or we knew much
about. But at the end of the journey - Belgrade surprised us! It was
much more positive than we were “warned” by very few people. We did not
have any expectations or we did not picture it. We heard from locals we
met in Malmö that it is a fun city! Having two opposite opinions, it was
a good reason to find out ourselves.
Ironically, at the beginning, we did not like the city. As we had heard
good things about Belgrade - we could not believe that we do not like.
Later our first impression changed as we discussed the idea of “first
impressions” that usually are wrong, so, we decided to give another
chance to the city. Why we felt uninspired? Belgrade seemed too busy for
us, a contrast to Malmö. I think we still were on a cultural-jetlag. As
we were only 21 hours in Budapest on Sunday, the contrast there did not
seem so big as compared to Belgrade. But our adventure begins with the
night bus…
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| Belgrad. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Belgrad. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Belgrad. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Belgrad. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Belgrad. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Belgrad. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Belgrad. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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The night bus. All information was in Serbian – ah, oh! Noone around us seemed to speak English as when we had to ask a lady to leave our seats who was sleeping in our numbered seats, everyone just yelled something in Serbian to her. I looked around and at that moment I felt so “western” tourist as the ones I had noticed before when I was a young eastern European kid in tv movies. The drive was fine, it was difficult to sleep, as inside was too warm, but if all day we had been walking around and a night before we had the late flight, we eventually did fell asleep until we arrived at the borders… All out into cold, long passport control and confusion! To me, it felt like I was back in ’90s when we crossed Latvia’s and Lithuania’s border.
As I have a bit of a habit to observe people and have a little bit “humanitarian” student interest on cultures, people, everyday life, etc, I was observing other passengers around us. Living a long time in western-developed countries than somewhere closer to my native culture, I sometimes feel I fall out from that “picture” on eastern European. Even though I couldn’t see the similarity with all these other passengers to Latvians, but firstly in my mind came the picture on Latvians the late 90s and early 2000s. Also – so much smoking around us as it would be Americans in their 1960s. Anyway.
After
crossing borders there was nothing much to see as only darkness and
looking into the clock, I was wishing we were not arriving so early, but
later as we had no plan – where we will go at 6 am in the city? In a
vague vision I imagined it to be like back in days when London Stansted
airport was my bedroom. While I had mundane thoughts and 50% sleep,
suddenly the bus stopped and 90% of passengers stepped out. My partner
next to me was asking me what is happening, so here we began to guess
without questioning anyone. Suddenly that silly Swedish mentality had
reached us – do not speak to strangers – thing. “It is only 5 am,
according to the schedule we should arrive at 6 am, so, I guess we are
in Novi Sad.”, I said. I had to be the smart one and get out to ask, but
I was half asleep and just had warmed up in my jumper, and had found a
reasonably comfortable position, that I really hoped we have one more
hour… The bus started to run again. Okay, so maybe it's okay? No, it was
not, we noticed through our window a big sign "BELGRADE HOTEL". OOPS!
:)
Now we arrived outside the city at the bus garage. As my Russian
language skills are very low, I could not explain why we followed the
bus. If you have Russian language skills, you can communicate with an
older generation, and with English with younger generations. it is
common around Eastern Europe. But just by saying “taxi?” it helped
enough that a guard called up and said it will come in 10minutes. What
happened was that people did not need to drive to Novi Sad, so, the
driver continued to Belgrade, that is why we arrived earlier in the
city.
I was in divided emotions, as he was suggesting to maybe walk back
to town, and I was thinking how odd is that he does not take initiative
on sorting out. Sometimes I do have a very anti-modern way of thinking
compared to Swedish – I was not raised in so strong gender equal
country. It was dark and cold, but to focus on positive not to make this
mistake as something bad, we joked to "great start on our Balkan
adventure already". When
the taxi arrived – he also spoke no English. As google translator did
not help us, then our driver called his young friend to speak English
with us. We really started to feel like two "western dummy tourists" :)
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| Belgrad. Foto: Elina Nomad |
The city. The driver left us "somewhere" in the city. It was only 5:30 in the morning. Luckily around the city, there were several open-air wifis around us so we could follow the map to the hostel I had found online while on the bus. I think because we were exhausted and we had a low energy, our first impression of the city made us feel a little bit afraid of it, as in the old good American movie “Eurotrip”, when the gang arrived in Bratislava. Belgrade is different from the Scandinavian cities, obviously. But as I learned from my hitchhiking life – it was important to work on setting your mindset on good, bright and positive vibes! I imagined that I knock off from my shoulders a heavy coat in which I was hiding and feeling “afraid”, so, I start to feel safe and not focus on things I see unusual to me in a negative sight. After a while, I noticed small things that reminded to me my hometown Riga. While to him the city seemed a bit of a mess, to me I was almost singing in my head “trlalala, this mess is so alike to Riga!” Oh, and now we know – we can not stay awake long, we are we are old now. haha!
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| Belgrad. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Belgrad. Foto: Elina Nomad |
And the tourist part?
As it was monday, all the museums were closed. Unfortunately, we could not visit the Nikola Tesla museum, maybe next time! So we wandered around the city. One of the intentions before the trip was to visit the Nikola Tesla museum, so knowing that I won't be able was a sure answer that we will come back. The city is similar to many other eastern Europe cities - the mixed time period architecture with a lot of Soviet era, of course, wide streets, chaotic traffic, and unfinished cities look. The only good difference was that Belgrade has the view spot at the Fortress. That is a huge -yes- for me when traveling through cities. There you can see that the city is divided into two - the old and the new. For architecture geeks - yes, there are a lot of nice buildings. The same I could say to for those in interest for nightlife – just go for it, it indeed has multicultural, alternative and creative bars and nightlife worth to experience if coming from western countries. Also for culinary fans – definitely worth to find. As vegetarians, we survived well, but I think it is more difficult to be vegan around these countries for now. I was a bit lose on my milk product allergy, so, at the end of the whole trip I did feel the consequences At the end we enjoyed our time, because of the locals we met.
Belgrade city is good for wandering around, even if everything for tourists was closed. As we did not mind it, we enjoyed our search for a café and walking around the Fortress where were included several other tourism objects. Places/things we saw on our wander around:
- St. Mark's Basilica
- The Belgrade Fortress
- Belgrade Military Museum
- Festung Kalemegdan
- "Skadarlija - best BOHEMIAN street in the world"
- Knez Mihailova
- Trg Republike
- The National Assembly
- Sava River
No,
we did not spend money on excursions, we just walked around as we had a
map and mobile app with historical stories of Belgrade. I thought we
will join the free-tour-walk of Belgrade, but we missed to attend it.
Our friend Sanja works as a guide for the "pub crawl". She also works
for the "escape rooms". In the evening we met Sanja and Bojan who we met
before in Malmö, for the dinner. They took us to a pizza restaurant,
and later they took us to see two creative and incredible bars as I
asked if they could show some places where locals would go. If at first,
we did not like Belgrade so much, then later through the day, we
changed our mind and we said we'll come back!
It is indeed a fun and energetic, creative city!
LINKS:
The hostel Garden40
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
Budapest - Belgrade - Sofia
A day in Sofia. A city "I know it is boring, but I will try to make it sound good", said a tour guide.
Sofia, Sofia! What a beautiful name, but Sofia city ... Hmm! Even our tour guide said she will try to show us this city as interesting! Sofia is perhaps not the best tourist destination. It was not interesting to be Belgrade and Budapest, also local people said that we met where it is boring city. Maybe yes, maybe not. We found really nice vegan restaurant, and we tried the best coffee in Sofia, and we bought the cheapest pizza (2kr!)! We saw the most important historical sites, like Sofia has very diverse history, so much diverse monuments from so many centuries as you can see in Italy, Greece and Turkey ... With a history that spans seven thousand, is a ruin-rich Sofia of Europe's oldest cities.When I read the tourist information online, it is always said, "Sofia blablabla town with beautiful resorts". So, it says that Sofia is great for a day visit. In the area around Sofia are many beautiful natural places that I thought should have been better to visit, but next time! So, if you intend to go to Sofia - you need to plan to travel out of town. Visit some "healing water" places in the mountains area, so, you can also go hiking.
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Hejdå vacker hostel gård! Foto: Elina |
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| På vägen till flygplatsen. Foto: KVN |
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
Our map:1 Sveta Nedelya Church
2 Theology Faculty of Sofia University
3 Coat of arms of Sofia
4 Saint Sophia Statue
5 Saint Joseph Catholic Cathedral
6 Church of St Petka of the Saddlers
7 Central Department Store
8 Banya Bashi Mosque
9 Sofia Synagogue
10 Central Sofia Market Hall
11 Mineral Water Springs
12 Central Public Bathhouse
Food. In Sofia there are many good vegetarian / vegan restaurants. I do not remember the name of restaurung we went, but here are great, and great list through tripadvisor.Hostel. And somehow by chance I had booked an amazing hostel. I could not find a nice Airbnb, and we had a few days left for the trip, so I booked just quickly something that seemed good. But I do not expect that bee that great when we got there. 5 Vintage Hostel in Sofia!Mainly because of the nice hostel, I did not want to explore the city. Sometimes I enjoy staying at home more when I travel, but it is often it is couch surfing or Airbnb, not when a hostel. So I was very surprised. We both liked it! They also prepares great breakfast, you will have access to the kitchen all the time to cook for yourself, and it was just too perfect! :))))
Public transport. We went to the airport to pick up our rented car. But to understand the Sofia public transport - metro, was not easy, we paid twice. All information before the subway is only in Bulgarian. We bought tickets at the entrance, we used them, but then it turned out that we have to go through the other entrance. And prove to the other input need another ticket! So we spend the extra money, but their prices are really low, so there was nothing to compare to Sweden if it happened there.When we were in the underground, it was all good and easy. Information
was in English, but we were on the way to the final destination, it did
not matter to us, I just made this observation we traveled elsewhere. The only thing was that the subway map looks strange, maybe even a little messy. Two lines and two roads, but both have numbers 1 and 2, and red or blue, and we thought it must be disconcerting. It turned out that even locals admit it is sometimes confusing. :)
In general, I thought I might like to come back and walk more, but Sofia is not the city that impressed me, but I trivde good there! Good
atmosphere. Maybe if Malmö-Sofia has super cheap flight sale with
wizzair I would buy just for a weekend escape, and then explore more the
city, but if I could for longer - definitely visit the nature!
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Sofia. Foto: Elina Nomad |
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| Free Tour Sofia. Foto: Tour guide Viki |
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| Vår hostel, wow! Foto: Elina |
After the cities we drove into the countryside. About that follow here:
Driving through the mountains.
Driving through the mountains.
and
Thank you!
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