*This post includes affiliate links to accommodation
The night train from Zagreb arrives at the main train station of Belgrade.
The area around the station is rough and the police chase away two old drunks from the travelers’ route.
The sun is just rising – it’s not even 6 a.m. yet.
We noted that the paper is the same that is used by the railways in Finland!
Does this mean that there is some sort of a global train ticket publisher?
First time in Belgrade
June 15th, 2016
We started our tour of the Balkans the day before this.
Our plan is to spend a month touring the former Yugoslavian countries.
When planning the route, we had thought of skipping Serbia altogether.
The country’s bad reputation had caused us to have slight prejudices as well.
In that case Serbia would have remained the only Balkan country we would not have visited at all, not now or earlier.
So we decided to at least pop over to Belgrade for a few days.
After all, you can easily spend a couple of days somewhere, no matter what the place is like.
Arrival into Belgrade
Tired as ever, we started walking on the bumpy roads toward Novi Beograd, where the day before we had booked accommodation for two nights.
We crossed the bridge over the Sava River with trams rattling past us. The whole bridge seemed to rattle in a worrying way.
On the way, we passed a worn-out-looking fast-food grill and apartments in need of repair.
The knobbly asphalt finally changed into a grassy lawn under our feet.
We crossed through a large, empty park, and after an hour of walking, we finally arrived on the banks of the Danube River.
Yes, this is a license plate from Belgrade – the floating buildings are indeed classed as vehicles.
Resting on the waves
There were several ferries or barges floating by the docks.
One of these would be our floating hostel.
We looked at the signs on the barges and found ours, *Arka Barka.
The name simply means an arch ferry.
It was too early to receive our private room, but as we had nowhere else to go and we were sleepy, we decided to check in early anyway.
The friendly receptionist told us that we would get our room as soon as it would be ready and cleaned. While we waited, we could eat breakfast for free.
After gobbling up some sandwiches and coffee, I plopped myself down onto the couch of the terrace.
The waves of the Danube made the barge float smoothly and I fell asleep.
After a couple of hours we got into our room, which was more like an apartment: It came with a separate little bedroom and a living room with a kitchenette.
Our balcony was right at the water level.
Being a generally poor sleeper, this place has remained in my mind as one of the best places to sleep.
A few years later I also slept great on the Trans-Siberian railroad trip, listening to the rumble of the tracks. But here on the ferry the sleeping was at least equally as easy, keeping with the rhythm of the waves.
The private rooms at *Arka Barka are expensive by Belgrade standards, as much as 60 euros per night, while you can find accommodation in the center for 20 euros.
But being that it’s still a hostel, you can also find dorm-style accommodation here (around 14 euros a bed).
The barge even has its own small sauna – with emphasis on the word small.
We reserved this sauna and bought piccolo bottles of sparkling wine to bring with us.
When we walked in the door, we bursted out laughing: The two of us could barely fit onto the sauna bench together.
The 1 square meter shower room naturally got as hot as the actual steam room.
After almost laughing ourselves to death we decided to enjoy the sparkling wine on our own balcony instead.
The hostel also has a terrace bar that you can visit even if you are not staying the night.
River taxis stop at the dock, too, so if you want to get into the city fast, it’s easy to catch a ride and hit the town.
We decided to walk these couple of kilometers into town, though.
When we learned the most comfortable route, we could be walking in the park for practically the whole way, avoiding the busy streets.
Birthday drinks at the Sava
The floating river barges are a Belgradian speciality: In addition to a couple of accommodation barges, there are several restaurant, bar and nightclub ferries catering to all types of different tastes. These are called “splavs” among locals.
Besides listening to music, eating, drinking, sun tanning (in the afternoon) and dancing (at night), you can even swim at one of the splavs. There is a pool in the center of it, which is free to use when you order something from the bar.
The city has gone so barge-crazy that you see new ones hauled up the river practically every day.
Soon we will probably not see the forest from the trees – I mean the river from the ferries – as there are so many of them.
On the way from the Danube to the center via the Sava River you can stop to have a drink at one of the several splavs.
That’s also what we did upon leaving the Arka Barka after three nights.
That day happened to be my birthday. We were already supposed to be on our way to Sarajevo where a friend of ours was waiting for us to visit and to celebrate my birthday.
Things turned out differently: We had developed such a crush on Belgrade in a few days that we didn’t want to leave yet.
We had extended our two-night reservation at Arka Barka for one additional night.
As there was no space in the hostel after that, we booked one night in the center of Belgrade, at the Eden Garden hotel along the center’s pedestrian boulevard Knez Mihailova. We told Jukka that we would arrive to Sarajevo a few days later than expected. (Sorry friend!)
The hotel was terrific, with the room being practically luxurious.
Yet it can only be recommended for old couples like us, as the bathroom walls are made of glass. (Look hun, I’m taking a poop!)
We ate my birthday dinner in the center of the city, on the terrace of Restaurant Opera.
We thoroughly enjoyed Belgrade and stayed for two more days before continuing our trip.
The Serbs with their friendliness, hospitality, and calmness, even shyness, totally caught us off guard.
Our prejudices were shedding away at full speed.
New life beginning
Our lives changed more within the next year than we ever could have imagined.
After our tour of the Balkans, in the fall of 2016, we had embarked on a six-month world trip as my spouse was granted his long-awaited sabbatical.
In the middle of our travels, the trip got extended – indefinitely.
Ismo’s workplace started having major layoffs when we were halfway through our trip.
Sure enough, he got the famous short end of the stick.
We were in Spain at the time and asked ourselves and each other: what now?
What would we do when we grew up?
Ismo had worked for the same employer for the past 17 years.
I had worked as an entrepreneur for a couple of decades already, working mainly while traveling abroad.
Why would we go back to Helsinki, Finland, where we had initially moved for work reasons anyway?
We came to think of Belgrade.
Return to Belgrade
June 14th, 2017
We returned to Serbia on June 14, 2017.
The date was just one day away from the anniversary of our first visit.
This time we rented a nice apartment from the old town.
Once again, I enjoyed my birthday dinner on the terrace of Restaurant Opera.
I even ordered the exact same meal, paired with the same red wine as the year before.
(Biftek Taljata, better known as tagliata = pieces of steak served with cherry tomatoes and rucola salad. The wine was Aurelius from the Kovačević winery.)
Our plan was to spend a month in the city sorting out our thoughts and pondering about our future income.
A month turned into almost three.
We started working together, as we are in the same field.
We continued traveling, writing travel articles for my old media clients and searching for new ones.
In between our trips we kept coming back to Belgrade.
In the summer of 2019 we ate my birthday meal for the fourth time in a row in the same restaurant.
For the fifth we finally tried something new, yet in Belgrade.
(What happened to the days when we used to celebrate each other’s birthdays by traveling to new and different countries?!)
When the temperatures rose to 40+ Celcius, we returned to the old familiar river barges to cool down.
We have rented the same apartment so many times that our landlord now calls it our home, not his, as he has moved to Western Europe for work.
After being on a road for a long time, it’s nice to have a place to call home.
We’ve now been here for more than two years consecutively, not counting a couple of short work gigs.
I still dream of returning to Arka Barka.
It hasn’t really made sense for us to stay there recently since we have our own apartment in Belgrade now. But maybe we should do a little staycation there just for old times’ sake…
The old railway station of Belgrade no longer exists either.
The place where we first arrived.
It has been replaced by a new and shiny building.
Well, that project may not quite be finished yet, even though the old station’s tracks have already been demolished.
That is a part of the city’s charm:
Oddly-timed solutions.
Illogical reforms.
The union of old and new.
Roughness and freshness.
New creative ideas.
Belgrade is always Belgrade.
*The accommodation links mentioned in the text are my Booking.com affiliate links.
If you use them to book your accommodation, I may receive a small commission which helps me keep producing posts for this blog.
All of my recommendations are based on my own experiences, the reservations were booked and paid by yours truly, and the accommodation places aren’t aware of the reviews I have written.
(Here we were enjoying sparkling wine in honor of my 2018 birthday).
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Translated from the original text Yöjuna Belgradiin ja loikoilua lautoilla by Mirva Lempiäinen
Mirva is my colleague, travel partner, a US-educated travel writer from Finland living in the French Caribbean. Her blog is at Guadeloupeguide.com.
Paluuviite: A quick guide to Belgrade - Please Be Seated for Takeoff