Something of a culture shock for we comfy travellers as we started our adventures in the Balkans. Sofie, the capital of Bulgaria with about 1.5 million inhabitants most certainly shows the effects of having been heavily influenced by inexpensive Russian supplied building materials with a lot of places looking like they're right at the end of their usable lives.

But, before I get ahead of myself, the narrative needs to begin. After our hotel breakfast, we met out tour guide Biljana, bus driver Borislaw, and fellow travellers and boarded our bus, bound for Serbia. It was explained to us a bit more about how the former Yugoslavia was effectively held together in the post WWII Nazi occupation by a fellow called Tito, a legendary unifying leader who seemed to have done a pretty good job. Communist sure, but certainly there wasn't the sort of conflict that was to ensue.

After he died in the 1980s, the various countries like Serbia, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina etc, combined with the fall of the USSR, saw a period of extreme unrest as the countries inevitably sought their independence. The first two to break away were Croatia and Slovakia, with swift military response from Serbia in particular with their leader Slobodan Milosevic being the aggressor. These conflicts were short lived though and they were uneasily independent from then on. Not before a lot of damage was done.

It seems to me, that there is a big challenge when country borders and independence is clouded by the reality that within each country there are a range of people from outside its borders. For example, in Croatia, there are about 50:50 Serb origin and Croat origin (Serbs with "ic" ending to names) and hence religious leaning (Serbian orthodox and catholic). These tensions become apparent not in daily life, but more so when ambitious powerful people look to increase their wealth and influence and control of resources. The strategic location of the slavic countries linking Asia with Europe makes this a tricky region historically.

Anyway, back to the tour. Our bus trip took us through the Bulgarian countryside, that also looked like there was a lack of genuine industry and general agricultural "push" as we drove through. We heard about the workers agriculturally mostly being a group of nomads that we would call gypsies, but who form an important part of the modern agricultural workers in Bulgaria. Apparently, Bulgaria has the highest GDP/capita of the Balkan nations as our tour leader (who is Bulgarian) proudly stated.

Soon enough we were at the border crossing into Serbia. A queue of buses in front of us, and a need for 2 passport checks and stamps...one to leave the EU (Bulgaria) and one to enter the republic of Serbia...a solid 2 hours sitting around.

Onto our lunch stop next. Something of a culture shock to find that smoking is allowed inside in restaurants and there are a lot of smokers here.Yipes! There is also a clear preference for meat and meat related products on their menu. Along with a more favourable exchange rate for us and I could be consuming excessive lipids in the next little while.

We rolled into Belgrade, capital of Serbia, at about 4pm, checked in and got ready for our walking guided tour at 4:45pm. Our guide took us to the walled city that overlooks Sava river and its confluence with the Danube. Plenty of pride in the city, showing us the Orthodox church and the Serbian equivalent of the pope's house, also a hill above the bunker where Tito hid during WWII and the walls of the city. Apparently it has been attacked 117 times and not once has it fallen. I struggled a bit to see what all the fuss was about and didn't really agree with our guide the only reason it isn't Unesco listed is because there's a zoo inside the walls. It appears to show the effects of multiple different influences over time and I couldn't really warm to it. We did enjoy the tour though and stopped for tea in the Bohemian quarter for some tradtional veal soup for Bronnie and for me, a local treat of crumbed rolled pork snitzel with a yoghurt/dairy/sour cheese filling, fried. Quite nice along with a Serbian beer and some live musicians serenading other guests. We escaped before they got to us thankfully...a bit much tbh.

Back to the hotel and ready for tomorrow's journey to Bosnia...let's see what's next.