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We spent a week in Munich, checking out some of the neighbourhoods, picking couchsurfers’ brains and exploring some of the many cool corners of the city. It really seems like a place we’re going to enjoy living when we finally get it all together and “settle down”. I use quotation marks because one of the things that we love about the city is its proximity to places that we want to travel. Much to Brett’s delight it’s only an hour or so from the mountains, which should be great for outdoor activities in all seasons. Yes, that’s right, the Sydney girl is actually excited about going snowshoeing, cross country skiing and hiking on cleared paths (as long as there’s a log fire and mug of mulled wine at the end of those days). It’s also really close to some of the areas of Eastern Europe that we’re itching to explore.
Apart from all that Munich seems like a really liveable city. There is plenty of green space all throughout the city and the central area is compact enough to be able to walk to most places if you’re not in a hurry. Just about the only thing we’ve heard people complain about is the price of housing, with rent apparently being much higher than anywhere else in Germany. Other living expenses may or may not be higher, depending on who you talk to. Anyway it’s easy to see why people want to live there so we’ll just have to make it work.
On one of our days we took the S-bahn down south to a suburb we’ve heard good things about. It’s on the Isar River and seemed to have a lot of green space in the surrounding areas, according to our map. We fell in love with it, though this has been a bit of a theme for each area we visit in Munich. It was quiet, green and only 20 minutes from the centre of the city. To get home we walked for about 8km along the Isar and marvelled at how many other people were out enjoying the beautiful spring day. There were bike and walking paths everywhere and it seemed like everyone was out getting some exercise and having fun. The banks of the river were full of people with picnic blankets spread out, BBQs wafting enticing smells and crates of beer stored in the river to keep them cool. Further along we saw the nudist area, though it wasn’t discretely hidden away like I would expect. They were hanging out, in all their glory, just metres from the main path along the river. Some of them wandered around tending a BBQ but most of them just lay there avoiding tan lines.
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As it turned out getting to Belgrade wasn’t as simple as “direct train” would have you believe, but we felt a little of the old fashioned romance of train travel as we pulled out of Istanbul. We left from the same station that the Orient Express used back in the day. Our carriage was hooked on to a train that had different cars heading off in various directions along the way, but when we got to Sofia, Bulgaria, we were told that our little orphan carriage had missed the train we were meant to be joining on to. We had to wait until evening (another 10 hours) for the next train to Belgrade. Brett and I explored the station area, bought some supplies, then wandered around the sidings looking for our mobile home. We eventually found it and killed some more time before being bounced around like a ping pong ball by an engine driver who was obviously in need of shunting practice.
Eventually we arrived in Belgrade, at 5:30am, and once checked in (at 9am) we headed out to explore Belgrade. The city doesn’t really have all that many sights but the weather was beautiful and we joined the locals in making the most of it. Outdoor cafes and the beautiful park at the old citadel were great places to hang out and people watch. The young people are very fashion conscious and in certain areas you’d be forgiven for believing that nobody over the age of 35 lived in Belgrade. Apparently the nightlife is pretty lively on any night of the week but we weren’t really in the mood to head out drinking, though we did visit one eclectic little bar which gave us some inspiration for how we’re going to arrange our own strange collection of travel artefacts once we have a house. One sightseeing thing that we did do was the ethnographic museum which has an incredible collection of traditional costumes. We were also told that there was an area where you could still see some of the buildings bombed by NATO in 1999. It’s a strange thing to go and see when you think about it logically, but it had to be seen. Maybe its morbid fascination but I prefer to think of it as seeing traces of recent history that you usually only read about in the newspapers. As far as I can tell the buildings we saw used to be the Yugoslav Army Headquarters and the Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs and they’ve been left as a reminder of the past.
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