We lined up at border control and it took ages! Fortunately, BK had popped into the supermarket before we left and bought pastries so at least we weren’t hungry…one of us needed the toilet though….

The Bulgarian border control lady saw our French number plated car and asked if we were going to France.
Us : uhh? Serbia?
The Serbian border control man smiled as our passports were handed over “New Zealand huh?”
Us : yep 😁😁😁😁

Such weird comments, just stamp our passports and let us through! Country number 50 for BK and I!

Our EU SIM cards stopped roaming, again. This game is getting a wee bit old!!! The used SIM card collection is growing! I’m very careful to keep my kiwi one safe, I’ll need that one! I think this is our final non EU country, so hopefully that’s the end of it! The EU roaming has been great when it’s worked. A great rule the EU put on phone companies in my opinion!

Then it was 4 hours drive up to Belgrade.

The highways, oh the highways. The speed limit is 130km and you sit at that speed undisturbed for hours. Our Peugeot purrs along beautifully and it’s such a wonderful smooth ride. Time just passes by. I let CK sit in the front beside his Daddy. I was surviving on a rough night of 5 hours sleep so was happy to be cocooned in the back.

The Airbnb host had told me the street number was 187, there wasn’t a 187!! Agh!!! That does NOT bode well with attention to detail me. With no data on our phones it was a mad dash back to a supermarket to use the free wifi, got better instructions and found out it was number 1 (??!!)
Back to the house, checked in and was very happy with my Airbnb choice that within a couple of hours I was extending our stay!

The following day we headed out to Ada ciganlija, it’s a manmade island in the middle of a river. We thought we’d hire bikes and cycle round. We stood in line, in the hot sun, for 30 minutes, only to get to the front of the queue and find out you need Serbian ID to hire. We were so shocked (to put it very politely!!) Why on earth you wouldn’t want foreigners’ money is beyond us! So we went for a walk to see what we could see. Little R had a swim. We had ice creams, we had hot chips. It was a lovely summers day with many families out enjoying the area and weather.

The next day we went into the city centre. I had booked a city tour on segways for me and CK as his reward for walking the Camino without a single word of complaint.
BK dropped us off and after a bit of practice off we went with only one other tour mate to see the central city sights. It was a fabulous way to get around. Zooming here and there, pausing for some history. We had great guide who could see Master teenager just wanted to be let loose!
BK stayed with R and they met us afterward, we saw more city sights then it was time to cruise back to our apartment, we’d been standing way toooooo long! It’s tiring being a tourist!

BK found himself, what he calls, the best co working space he’s ever stumbled upon!  If you’re new around here, BK has worked in co working spaces through lots of the 50 countries he’s visited so that’s really saying something! Along with the very cheap price tag of $54 NZD for two days! He was stoked!

One thing that has stood out to me the whole time we’ve been here in Serbia is the piles and piles of people waiting at bus/tram stops. Public transport is very very very heavily used. So I thought we should give it a try as much as it’s lovely being privately chauffeured round in our brand-new Peugeot.
To finish off our Belgrade stay I took the kids to the zoo. We used the bus to get to the zoo and the bus and a very old soviet looking tram (which was just awesome!!) to get back to the apartment we were staying in.
The zoo was fantastic, obviously not Singapore or London Zoo style but for a small city zoo it punched well above expectations! They had a fantastic variety of animals, some with only netting keeping dangerous animals from the public. We got very close to the tigers. OSH in New Zealand would have been absolutely horrified!!! We had mum on a video call and even through the phone she was surprised!
It was a great morning out with our animal crazed wee girl totally in her element…and fiercely judging every single enclosure and state of each animals’ welfare!! She then wrote her opinions in a Google review for her Daddy to post on her behalf!

I finished booking Airbnb’s for the rest of our trip while we were here, that was such a relief! Decision fatigue is real!!
So that’s all accommodation / transport / flights booked and paid for. Just need to glide through it now and find bits n pieces to do in each place.

Serbia, you surprised me! What a lovely time we’ve had. Belgrade is a great city and most definitely worth visiting! BK wants to stay another week – probably that co working space calling his name and the back log of work he’s pushing to get through, but he’s only meant to be working 2 days a week!

Onward we must go!

Till next time,

Claire