Day 10 (July 28, 2015): Homeward bound

We were up at 3am this morning, before many of you had even watched last night's news hour and had gone to bed. Our taxi left for the Belgrade Airport at 4:25am, and our Lufthansa Airbus A-321 pushed back right on schedule at 6:05am. It arrived at Frankfurt on time, two hours later, and by 8:45M, we were on the train to Frankfurt Haupftbanhof (train station), arriving 9am on the dot. We threw our carry-ons in a locker and set out to explore Frankfurt. 

Our Lufthansa Airbus A-321

Deutche-Bahn is fast, clean, efficient

The Hauptfbanhof (train station)

80% of Frankfurt was destroyed in Allied bombing raids in 1944.  When the post-war reconstruction began, Frankfurt quickly grew into a modern city. It is well-planned and organized, with gleaming financial towers and a small Old Town core that shows how life was in the 14th and 15th centuries. 

The ultra-modern Frankfurt in the background, with the older city in the fore

The Romer area is at the heart of the old town and was restored to its 14th/15th century glory post-WW2

St. Peter's was rebuilt shortly after the war

The Altstadt is the historic administrative area for the city

Besides the above sights, showing both the old and new cities, a highlight was climbing the 328 stairs to the top of the Cathedral's spire - wonderful views!  (Amazingly, the Cathedral was spared in the bombing raids.)

The Imperial Cathedral or the "Dom" as it's called in German. We climbed the 328 steps of the spire

The city is split into south and north by the Main River, with many bridges connecting the two.  One is a pedestrian bridge, which affords great views of both the old city and the financial district. 

The pedestrian bridge, linking south and north portions of the city

Cruise boat on the Main River, with the "Dom" and Altstadt behind

Other highlights of the morning were:

...having coffee and pastries in the Romer square while watching the hordes of tourists pass by

...drooling over all the goodies on offer at the Kleinmarkthalle

...taking in the large and impressive An der Hauptwache square 

...and finding the house of Goethe (famous German poet).

At 12:15pm we hopped a tram back to the Haupftbanhof and caught the oh-so-efficient Deutsche-Bahn train back to the airport. Unlike our late departure from Halifax, the return Condor flight left Frankfurt and arrived Halifax on time. 

Our Condor Boeing 767-300ER

Vacations leave many memories which take awhile to process and which feed the emotions for a long time into the future. We thoroughly enjoyed the Balkans and would highly recommend any of the four countries we sampled for a trip.  Indeed, we hope to return to take in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Montenegro. 

Thank you for taking the time to tune into this blog and for sharing the journey. 

Day 9 (July 27, 2015): What a city!

We woke up early and eager to take a chomp out of Belgrade.  After breakfast at the hotel, we left at 8am and tried to figure out how to buy a bus-pass card at one of the news kiosks that are everywhere here. English is in short supply though, and the kiosk clerk couldn't understand a word we said. We luckily found a passerby who was willing to help - a South African woman with Serbian roots who spoke English and French. People have been very helpful and kind throughout the Balkans. We have been impressed. 

Our bus ride ended at Republic Square, which is at the heart of Belgrade. And that's where our exploration began. Knez Mihailova is a pedestrian street that runs from the Square to the huge Kalmegdan Citadel, which dates from Celtic times and has seen 115 battles. It made for some great walking around and offered an excellent view of the point of convergence of the Sava and Danube Rivers. 

Republic Square

The Transformers had taken over the Square temporarily 

The Knez Mikailova pedestrian zone

What an ingenious 21st century use for a moat, at Kalemegdan Citadel. 

Main gate to Kalemegdan Citadel

The convergence point of the Sava and Danube Ricwrs, as viewed from Kalemegdan Citadel. 

West gate of the Citadel 

After the Citadel, we walked to the Saborna Crkva Orthodox Cathedral and the Palace of Princess Ljubica.  It quickly became clear to us that choosing to visit Belgrade on a Monday was going to limit what we could see. There are more museums here than you can shake a stick at, but ALL are closed on Mondays!

Saborna Crkva Orthodox Cathedral

Palace of Princess Ljubica

From the Citadel, we started a 4-km walking route that took us to the Gallery of Frescoes (closed), the only remaining mosque left in Belgrade -- Bajrakli from 1575, St Aleksander Nevsky Church, and St. Mark's Church. 

Bajrakli Mosque 

St Aleksander Nevsky Church

St. Mark's Church

From St. Mark's, we cabbed it to the largest Orthodox Church in the world - Sveti Sava.  

Sveti Sava - world's largest Orthodox church 

Another cab took us to the "Parliament of Belgrade" (a.k.a. city hall), with the Serbian National Parliament across the street.  The latter had many large protest banners at street level, shaming the Americans for the NATO bombing deaths of Serbians in 1999.

Parliament of Belgrade

Parliament of Serbia

By this point, we were feeling peckish and decided to join the ranks of such historial figures as Albert Einstein, Indira Ghandi and Alfred Hitchcock by eating at the historic Hotel Moskva (Moscow).  

Hotel Mosksva

From there, we took another cab to see the mausoleum of former Yugoslav President Tito, only to arrive and be told even the mausoleum was closed on Mondays!  Back in the same cab to the West Bank of the Danube for a short river walk.  Enroute, we saw several large buildings that had been bombed out by NATO forces in 1999, when Belgrade came under heavy bombing for three months.

Untouched reminders from NATO'a bombings in 1999

The view from the west bank of the Danube

We then walked the bridge back over the Danube to Republic Square, where the day began, for frozen yogurt. 

We returned to our Hotel Zira to freshen up before a planned Danube River cruise at 6pm. But the heavens opened up just before we were to leave for the boat, so we cancelled. A late afternoon cappuccino in a trendy coffee shop near the hotel, followed by a great end-of-vacation dinner at the hotel, complete with piano player, rounded out the day.

It's going to be a 3am rise for our flight to Germany, so I will sign out from Belgrade and hit the hay.

A fun Belgrade pic to close off an excellent day

Day 8 (July 26, 2015): Good bye, Albania. Hello, Serbia!

We had planned to get up early and go to Mount Dajti National Park, 25km outside Tirana. But on sober second thought, we determined Mount Dajti would push the limits time-wise and would risk us missing our flight to Serbia. Instead, we spent the morning wandering around Blloku, an area filled -- and I mean FILLED -- with cafes, bars/coffee shops and stores. The bizarre thing, however, is that, despite the many people in these cafes on a Sunday morning, we didn't see a single person eating. Everyone was drinking coffee. But there was nothing on the menus to eat. 

After wandering for an hour, and starting to think breakfast would be a lost cause, we finally located a French patisserie/restaurant mentioned in our Lonely Planet guide.  They offered omelettes and the best chocolate croissants I have ever tasted in my life. And right in the heart of Tirana, Albania! Who would have ever guessed!

Uh, hello??  La Patisserie Francaise in Albania?!

Truth be told, I think one of the reasons Pam "gives in" to some of the crazy places I propose to take her is that she knows, in some of these places, the women tend to be petite and she can actually find clothes that fit. And that's exactly what happened after the chocolate croissants!  She found two perfectly-fitting dresses within 10 minutes of shopping.  After 23 years of marriage I know how pleased she is to successfully complete a bit of retail therapy, and how the unpleasantness of brutal heat and horrible trains is quickly forgotten as a result.  Everyone wins!

We returned to the Sheraton at noon to get organized and checked out. It was really a beautiful hotel, and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay. 

The Sheraton Tirana Hotel - excellent!

A final walk by the gardens out back of the hotel revealed that many of the trees are turning yellow already. Wow... It's only late July! Surely Mother Nature can wait a bit more before bringing about autumn colours?

Trees changing colour already

By 1pm we were in a cab to Mother Teresa International Airport for our 3pm flight to Belgrade.

The logo of Albania in cast iron enroute to the airport

Our driver was quite the dynamic fellow. His English was scant, but he wanted to know if we had found Albanians friendly. "Very friendly," I assured him. He wanted us to know that Albanians accept everyone, no matter what their country or religion. That was THE message he adamantly wanted us to leave with. When we neared the airport, I asked him what his thoughts of Mother Teresa were.  "Poco poco," he responded.  Which means he didn't care for her one way or the other. I was shocked! I mean, Mother Teresa is one of the best things that ever came out of Albania. How can one NOT think the world of Mother Teresa?!  Oh well. 

Our Air Serbia ATR-72 flight to Belgrade left 30 minutes late. But upon arrival, everything from baggage retrieval to customs to getting Serbian dinars out of an ATM to getting a taxi arranged was fast and easy. We arrived at our ultra contemporary, snappy Zira Hotel in central Belgrade by 5:30, and enjoyed the hotel's buffet dinner. 

Boarding our Air Serbia ATR-72

Belgrade is by far the largest city we have visited on this tour, with 1.6 million people. As we flew in, we were impressed at the size of the city, the magnificence of the Danube River flowing  through it, and the masses upon masses of Communist-era apartment blocks. Oh, and the red roofs that are typical of the Balkans!

The Danube flows thorough Belgrade

The typical red roofs of the Balkans

Tomorrow is the last full day of vacation, and we have a lot of ground to cover. An early-to-bed beckons. Good night from country #4 on this trip!

Day 7 (July 25, 2015): Albanian Railways to Tirana (almost)

My wife is a saint. Not only do I drag her to all these crazy countries, I also subject her to a lot of uncomfy situations. And she is such a good sport about it all. Take this morning:  I have a thing for trains. I love experiencing public transit and national railway systems in countries I visit. There isn't much left to Albania's rail network and what does remain is perhaps worse than India's. (We've trained it in India and concluded nothing could be worse!)  Well, today we found worse.  Lonely Planet warned us that Albania's trains are "decrepit at best". They weren't being too harsh in that assessment. 

The rail station in the capital, Tirana, was closed back in May. Now, the train from Durres on the coast only goes as far as the town of Kashar, 12km from the centre of Tirana. We could have taken a taxi from Durres and made the journey in an hour. But that would have been no fun. So here is what we did:

A.  7:45am - cabbed it from the hotel to the train station. 

B.  8:25am - Albanian Railways from Durres to Kashar. 

C.  9:35am - bus from Kashar to Skanderbeg Square. 

D.  10:00am - taxi from Skanderbeg Square to Sheraton. 

All that to feed my train interest! Now can you see why I say that Pam is a saint?

The train journey was, however, fascinating. And Pam agrees. We stood the whole time during the trip because the seats looked too disgusting. But we had an entire car to ourselves, since no one takes the train!  And the fare? 75 cents Canadian each!

Here are a few sights from the train journey...

Preparing to board. Several windows in every car were smashed, that's how bad it was!

We had the entire car -- not just this cabin -- to ourselves!

"2" stands for second class. There was no 1st class!

Typical station enroute

I think the sheep move faster than Albanian Railways. 

When we got on the bus in Kashar, we caused quite a stir, because we only had 2000 Leke ($20) notes and a couple Euro coins. We couldn't pay the 50 Leke (50 cents) fare in Lekes and that was a no-no. In the end, the ticket-taker accepted a 1 euro coin and felt like he was on the winning side of things.  

Our hotel here in Tirana is the Sheraton. Quite posh indeed, and they upgraded us to a huge room to boot. We set out around 10:30am in the blazing heat to see the key sights.  Here are the highlights...

T-Mobile has erected this "world stage" a couple of blocks from our hotel and there was a heavy metal or grunge -- I dunno what's what anymore -- deafening concert that rattled our tranquility until midnight. 

The Congress Building, which the former communist dictator's daughter and son-in-law erected as a Communist Party elite hang-out. 

The former residence of the dictator, Enver Hoxha

This decaying monstrosity is called The Pyramid. The dictator's daughter and son-in-law built it in 1988 as a museum to him. After communism fell, it became a night club and is now, well, you can see..

The National Art Gallery had a lot of socialist propaganda art, which was interesting to view. This one is called, "Declaring the Republic".

This section of wall is all that is left of the Byzantine-era castle. 

A massive mosque is being built in the Center of town. You really notice the absence of religious buildings, as almost all were demolished in the Athiestic Campaign of the 1960s. 

Lots of new construction is underway in the city centre, including some very appealing architectural designs. 

This is the Statue of the Unknown Partisan 

The beautiful ceiling of the Et'hem Bet Mosque, which the Communists spared from destruction in the Athiest Campaign. 

The Clock Tower was restored by the Americans about 10 years ago

... So maybe that's why Bush has a street named for him?!  Imagine this when the Communists were in charge!

Skanderbeg Square is the hub of the city. Enver Hoxha's statue was pulled down here in 1991 with great gusto by the people

The Palace of Culture, built by the Russians in the 1960s

The Museum of History was like a sauna. So we raced through. It has a disturbing section on communist atrocities. 

By mid-afternoon we were so over-the-top hot, we packed it in and went back to the hotel to sit by the pool for a couple of hours before celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary with a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant.  All in all, a very interesting day. Signing out from Tirana!