A new year, a new traveling experience

One week, two new European cities on my map....two Bs, two different cultures but with one common factor: WAR. My trip started in Beograd and continued with Berlin, a cultural loop through Europe.

Belgrade
We went to Serbia to a black metal music festival: Darkness Rising. As I am not a fan, the trip was labeled from the very beginning as an experience that would take me to a new, not very popular touristic capital in Europe.

A country neighboring Romania to South-West, a country that went through war not long ago and was bombed even from Romania...sad but true. Though we stayed next to Belgrade because of the festival  (at hotel Sucevic, a four start hotel that was worse than the worse hostel I ever went to), and were more than tired every morning, we managed to visit Belgrade. We walked for about 4 hours around Belgrade's center. Not much to visit except for a huge Orthodox church and an old fortress right at the other end of the city. The city's vibe is very similar to Bucharest. I am talking about a capital that was recently bombed and is not an EU member. Stray dogs, garbage, street vendors...these are common points between an EU capital and just a regular European capital's city center. Amazing or not...I have not seen as many gypsy as in Bucharest...which basically, in my view, makes us the lords of gypsies in Europe...

We went by car, so we entered Serbia at Portile de Fier and drove along the Danube. The scenery here is absolutely amazingly beautiful. The Danube flows through the mountains before entering Romania, turning from a sea like river to a stream...before heading for the Black Sea. Golubac Fortress is an old Turkish crossing point over the Danube. An old fortress lost into the Danube, unfortunately not very well taken care of.

The festival was the very interesting experience I expected. We had great company and made cool new friends...The cold weather and all organisational issues were nothing to the great time we had in the end. In the first day I was absolutely frozen and literally couldn't feel my toes anymore. The bus back to the hotel was never on time and kept changing schedules without us knowing. It was the first edition, and we were expecting them not to be super organised, but at some point it was just amazing...and it seamed like the organizers stopped caring. Black metal bands singing after sunrise :) I am sure that was something new for them as well.

Berlin

No time to get used to being home as I had to leave for another European B. For me, Germany is the womb  of civilization. The city was a first timer, but the country not. I have not been to Germany since I was 13...when it was the first country I ever visited. A memory that sticks with me because of the sadness I felt when I got back to Romania back then.

I did not like Berlin as much. The city is continuously being built since the '90s, and because of that it's not very inviting for tourists. Everything is just too clean and very well organised, and an obsessive - compulsive like me would go mad in such a place. I found out some interesting facts about the city though: 

• it has 153 museums which I only got to see from the outside, 
• one third of Berlin's citizens are immigrants, first or second generation, 
• there is no minimum wage law and though some would like to have that, others don't.

If I were to describe the city in a few words, the first things that come to my mind are: linear, massive, organized.

Unfortunately, our trip was rather short, but we did manage to see the most important touristic attractions, even if we could not get a real vibe of the city, maybe next time.

My favorite thing about the city was the street art. I didn't get to see much because we were mainly going through the center, but it is something particular about it.