Bar to Belgrade

Bar to Belgrade

The Man in Seat 61 describes Bar-Belgrade trains as being formed from motley second hand mix and match/scratch and sniff carriages. A description I found to be entirely accurate. The train’s interior echoed the Italian Inter City from a couple of days earlier, but the Montenegrin version was grubby and run down. I sat in a declassified first class seat in a compartment on my own, though switched when, just outside Bar, the train cut into a tunnel and everything plunged into darkness. The light didn’t work. Given that the route had another 253 tunnels, I picked up my belongings and relocated to a second class compartment with a working light (though with similar shabbiness and less room).

For a while, we clattered and climbed through tunnels, up and away from the coast. I sat back and ‘wowed’ at the countryside, from Lake Skadar, then especially after Podgorica, up into the Dinaric Mountains. The scenery was breathtaking. If the construction of the line in the 1970s was driven by cracked politicking, vanity and/or crazy egos, I couldn’t have cared less.

At some point, I was joined by a man with a starched white shirt with small red crosses embroidered on his collars and cuffs. He was fine, though his phone had a Marseillaise ringtone which in no time at all, became irritating. Mr Marseillaise disappeared he left his bag. As we were getting ready to nip into Bosnia and Herzegovina on the way into Serbia, the compartment filled up, leaving Mr Marseillaise no chance to get back in.

By midday, most of my early morning Montenegrin joy had disappeared. Breathless scenery had flattened and the view was increasingly obscured by surly, antagonistic border policemen. By 1pm, after lengthy stops and huge interest in my bag (no one checked it, mind), we got to Serbia. I felt tired. My dozing wasn’t significantly affected by a suddenly full compartment, though it was by an old crone letting loose the worst trampy urine smell I’ve ever had the misfortune to experience. And it wasn’t just an acrid cloud which attacked from fetid clothing; this vile chemical scorched the air long after the crone left. The whole compartment fell into a grim silence.

I spent pretty much the rest of the journey my wondering ‘how much longer to Belgrade’. We finally arrived at 2045 but it felt much later, and much later than advertised, even though a cursory look at the timetable suggested we were only half an hour late.