Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
economic upheaval. Inflation was in the hundreds of per cent and the dinar was being devalued daily,
sometimes two or three times daily, to the almost embarrassing benefit of the tourist and the detriment of
the locals. A generous dinner of soup, steak, vegetables, salad, bread, beer and a coffee cost just $8, and
yet I was evidently the only person in town who could afford it.
The service, as everywhere in Yugoslavia, was indifferent - not so much hostile as just past caring. The
waiter dribbled my soup across the carpet and tablecloth and disappeared for long periods between
courses, leaving me to stare at empty bowls and plates, but I couldn't entirely blame him. The difficulty with
being a visitor in a place where you can live like a prince is that your wealth makes a menial of everyone you
deal with. In Split, I had noticed some Germans tipping a waiter as if it were play money, almost teasing him
with it, and I trusted he had had the sense to add some spittle to their meal. I just hoped that this wasn't what
was keeping my waiter now.
In the morning I returned to the station and tried to find out about a bus to Belgrade, but the girl behind
the information window was having such a delightful conversation with someone on the telephone that she
was clearly not going to answer any enquiries. I waited for many minutes, and even said a few words to her
through the mouth-hole in the glass, but she just looked at me blankly and carried on talking, curling the flex
around her finger. Eventually I trudged off and found a bus by asking around among the drivers.
The trip to Belgrade took eight hours, and it was even hotter, slower, duller and more crowded than the
bus the day before. I sat beside a man whose concern for personal hygiene was rather less than obsessive
and spent much of the day wishing I knew the Serbo-Croat for 'Pardon me, but your feet are a trifle
malodorous. I wonder if you would be good enough to stick them out of the window.' Gradually, to escape
the smell, I fell into the mindless oblivion that seemed more and more to sustain me on these periods of
getting from place to place, and patiently awaited the appearance of Belgrade through the front window.
I stepped off the bus in Belgrade feeling cheated. The trip had taken two days and had offered none of
the reckless speed and adventure I had been hankering after. I found a room in an old-fashioned hotel
called the Excelsior, rather expensive but comfortable, and immediately embarked on the usual business of
acquainting myself with the city. I spent two days wandering around and found I remembered almost nothing
about Belgrade. For old times' sake, I tried to locate the hotel where Katz and I had stayed, thinking I might
dine on the rooftop terrace if it was still there, but I soon realized the quest was hopeless. I didn't remember
enough to know where to begin to look in such a sprawling city.
Still, I was rather taken with Belgrade. It is the quintessential Mittel European city - long avenues of
stolid, gloomy, five- and six-storey buildings, interspersed with parks and monumental buildings with copper
domes. There was a certain indefinable sense of the dead hand of central planning everywhere, but
alongside it a refreshing shortage of Western enterprises - McDonald's, Benetton and the like.
There was not a great deal to do in Belgrade. I strolled through the main shopping streets to an inner-
city park called Kalemegdan, built around an old fortress and neatly arrayed with trees and benches and
statues of Yugoslavian, and more particularly Serbian, heroes. Most of the benches were taken up with men
hunched intently over chessboards, each of them with a congregation of onlookers freely offering advice to
both players. At the park's edge was a high terrace with an unobstructed view of the city and of the spot
where the Sava and Danube rivers flow together to make one truly monumental river.
One afternoon, I walked some distance out to Hajd Park, a wooded and rolling estate where Tito had
his executive compound and where he is buried now. A long paved path led up to his mausoleum. I was the
only visitor and there wasn't much to see. Tito was not, as I had hoped, preserved in a glass case. He was
safely hidden beneath a marble slab covered with scores of fresh wreaths and flowers. A lone soldier,
looking desperately young and bored and uncomfortable, stood at attention beside the tomb. He was clearly
supposed to stare straight ahead, but I could see his eyes following me around the room, and I had the
terrible feeling that my visit was the high point of his day. 'Mine too,' I mumbled.
I went outside and felt the sudden weight of not knowing what to do with myself. Before me lay a
panoramic view of a city I had no keen urge to explore. I spent most of the afternoon sitting in a park by a
playground watching young parents pushing children on swings. I kept telling myself to get up and go do
something, but my legs wouldn't respond and anyway all I wanted to do was sit and watch children play. I
was, I realized at length, homesick. Oh dear.
