Serbia

Sunday 2 August: Belgrade - not only a change from Catholicism to Serbian Orthodox and from Roman alphabet to Cyrillic script but also from the Kuna to the Dinara and to suddenly to much more affordable prices. Overlooking the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers Kalemagdan Citadel, or Belgrade Fortress, remains a popular hang out for locals and visitors alike. Uncool, or ultra cool, to take the toy tourist train (13th mode of transport) to Belgrade Military Museum to see, amongst others, captured US prisoner uniforms and fragments of stealth bombers displayed next to small-arms taken from Kosovo militia? Rocking, reeling, rolling ride on antiquated, communist era, red number 2 tram (14th mode) around the city centre far better than the hop-on, hop-off tourist bus option.
Cultured, pedestrianised shopping promenade, Knez Mihailova is dubbed silicon ridge by local wags due to the quality and quantity of fashionably low-cut devas taking summer evening strolls. Better value restaurants, like Ima Dana, in cobbled Skadarska have more traditional musical entertainment. Annoyingly all the city plans and guide books maps are in tourist-friendly Roman script whereas in reality all street name signs are exclusively in Cyrillic.
The biggest Orthodox church in the world, Sava's Temple, the Bank of Serbia Museum (who say they will print any face on a banknote) and Marshal Tito's grave in Yugoslav Museum, by number 41 bendy-bus (15th mode), all worth the effort. The bus even passes strategic targets, like the police headquarters, bombed out by NATO in the early 1990s.
Saturday 9 August: Couchette in dilapidated but clean 9:15pm Balkan Express (16th mode) from Belgrade to Sofia.
Photos of Zagreb and day trip to Novo Sad.