Phespirit goes to Serbia
Belgrade     November 2008

1 Belgrade

No budget airlines fly between London and Belgrade, so Phespirit bought tickets with the Serbian national carrier, JAT Airways. This meant paying the wallet-crimping sum of £163.28 for a return flight plus taxes, booked six months in advance. Despite this, the price of his hotel room was so much cheaper than usual for a European city break that he broke even on the overall cost for four nights.

Observations about Belgraders: taller than the average European; big on cigarettes; economic with simple courtesies; no-nonsense pragmatists at heart; admiring and aspiring heroes; politically torn between the trenches of nationalism and aluring cosmopolitanism without overly flaunting either.

Like most places: complex, imperfect but fundamentally decent.

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