First off - we’re still alive! And that is obviously a very big plus - just been a bit pre-occupied with other things, not to mention another country. But here we are, finally, our farewell to Serbia.

One of the things that has been keeping us occupied is becoming acclimated to heat once more. Eastern Europe is experiencing a heatwave with no signs of stopping and April is seeing temperatures not usually seen until the end of May. There and we thought we’d be swanning about in mild Spring temperatures until we reached southern Spain. As it is we’re now addicted to a combination of the Pacer (a pedometer app) and getting a few free Qantas frequent flyer miles through the step counting Qantas Assure app. So we’re averaging around 8 km per day and simultaneously building up our tolerance to the heat after dodging summer for a couple of years now. Whilst hugely controversial in Belgrade, we absolutely love the new waterfront development and it is hands down our favourite walking area. Some days we get even more carried away and do 12 km or so all through the city, via the fortrees and then home via the waterfront (and the farmers market... never been fans of strudel - but as it turns out the Serbian sour cherry version from Zeleni Venac is luscious - and one serving keeps us going a couple of days.)

When we’ve not been hiking around the city, we’ve been keeping up with our current Netflix favourites. Having finished Grimm (and experienced box set remorse) we’ve nipped through a few other series - Season 4 of Shetland (brilliant) and the miniseries ‘Fearless’ were both great. The movie Red Sparrow was enjoyable and we’ve just watched the final of Homeland 7 - aaargh - bring on Homeland 8. We never watch commercial TV anymore - but we do love our movies and fabulous high speed unlimited internet here in Eastern Europe.

Our last few days in Belgrade saw us as busy as ever and we did our final free walking tour. This time we even left the city, travelling over Brankov’s bridge on a packed and jostling bus with 20 odd other intrepid travellers to get to Zemun (pron: ‘Zemin’) in New Belgrade. Now just a separate town - it was once a separate country as it was in the Austro-Hungarian empire. The architecture was certainly a bit different and the location on the shores of the Danube was beautiful. The walk to the guard tower on the hill was however quite a hike. We’ve been getting fitter off course... but wouldn’t it be nice if the world’s guard towers and ‘high places of sacrifice’ would just for once be found at sea-level. It was a great walk and we had some lovely views back over to Old Belgrade city via the communist blocks of New Belgrade . We certainly felt like we deserved our pizza and wine appreciation night at home in our AirBNB - well planned in advance thankfully.

Packing Day dawned once again and we have finally come to the realisation of how much our winter gear weighs. Our fur coats, shearling, ugg boots, jumpers etc are now taking up space in our bags instead of being weightless when worn on the plane. Was lovely to flit out to the airport in beautiful summer clothes mind you - but our bags are definitely at maximum (plus) capacity.

We packed a couple of days early this time because a local friend wanted to take us across to New Belgrade to visit China Town where he buys all the supplies for his Chinese takeaway. Neither he, the signs, the staff or even, really, the food are Chinese - but we ate there every second day and christened it ‘Cherbian’. We met up with him on our final Saturday (21 April) and plans changed immediately. He had just found out that public transport was going to be seriously disrupted for the whole morning due to the 31st Belgrade Marathon. Darn it all! Ah well - ‘twas the trip to Chinatown that never was. Instead, since we were out of the house and ready to go, we took off on a big walk around town and saw the marathon runners pass by a couple of times. We felt very fit indeed just watching them. (And it was great to get back to the apartment and all the packing was already done.)

Sunday (22 April) we devoted to a couple of museums that are free on Sundays. The Ethnographic was pretty good actually and had descriptions in English which made it very accessible. It was obvious from the costumes from throughout the Balkans how different life was here and how much the World Wars ushered the western style of dress and living into this part of the world. The highlight however was the private art gallery/museum - The Zepter. We have been a bit art-starved of late and really loved this place in a historic building on the main pedestrianised street. We started early and were home by 1 pm. Excellent day out altogether.

Our final day in Belgrade (23 April) was spent pottering. A short walk to a local print shop that was so inexpensive we don’t know how they stay in business (only 4 Euro cents per sheet / 7 Aussie cents). We try to do everything electronically - but still quite like boarding passes and concerts tickets on paper. We’d planned a longer, final walk - but the sun and 28 degrees got to us and we tootled home and chilled out in the air conditioning. Saving our energies for Bucharest, Romania - literally just around the corner.