I’ve already written about the railway station that is now known as Belgrade Center and here’s our train arriving at the platform only ten minutes later than scheduled. The train had three carriages and Jonathan had warned me that there was no buffet car or food option on board, so I was carefully carrying my snacks. The rail service goes all the way to Bar on the coast, but we decided only to go as far as Podgorica as we didn’t want to arrive late at night.
There were seat reservations on the tickets but websites said that they were widely ignored, so we ignored them and so did numerous other passengers. Some passengers demanded their seats from other passengers, a guard appeared and there was some movement around the train, but Jonathan and I found seats that we liked and stayed in them as no-one laid claim to them.
It transpired that the train got quieter and so we moved down to a quieter carriage where I could eat my snacks and Jonathan could throw bread all over the floor or whatever he was doing.
This is Valjevo, which was struck during NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
This is Kosjerić and it’s an active railway station, although the building looked abandoned and appeared to have been extensively vandalised.
The train crossed through the town of Užice. This was the centre of the short lived Republic of Užice, a large area liberated and administered by the Yugoslav Partisans during the autumn of 1941.
The seats were broadly comfortable, there was power available and the train was air conditioned so that delighted me. Our tickets were checked a couple of times, but that was efficient as they just scanned the QR code and all was well. There was a vending machine on board, similar to what we had experienced on Georgian trains earlier in the year.
Passing through the railway station at Branešci.
This reminded me of some of my journeys across the United States on Amtrak trains in terms of the scenery and slightly slow pace.
The scenery was already beautiful and became increasingly dramatic as the journey continued. The railway briefly passes through Bosnia and Herzegovina near Štrpci which was quite exciting as it was technically the first time that I had visited this country. However, since I was visiting the country properly later on in the trip, I decided not to count it.
The train was nearly empty towards the end of the journey, so there was plenty of space. There was Wi-Fi during the journey, although as we crossed into Montenegro I could use roaming so matters improved somewhat.
We arrived at Bijelo Polje railway station in Montenegro which was the end of the line for this particular train and we were greeted by a man selling cans of drink from his bag. We weren’t tempted, but another passenger was until he realised that this guy wanted €6 for a beer. He didn’t sell much.
After that we had a passport check from Serbian border control and then their colleagues from Montenegro, with the doors of the train then being opened after the formalities were complete. I realised Jonathan’s passport is a bit dilapidated and I was excited to see if he would be arrested, but he wasn’t, although that would have made for a suitably exciting blog post. Despite another two walks through the train by the drinks seller, the €6 beer remained in the bag, suggesting that even a captive railway audience has its limits.
It was then time to switch trains for the second part of the journey, but more of that in the next riveting instalment. I also have numerous videos of sections of these journeys, but that’s something to delight my two loyal readers with later on.