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Penultimate page

Next stop, India...

Two ladies

Coming back from Sofia

And the last shopping experience? The flimsiest, most ridiculous teaspoon, sold to me at Sofia Airport, from a shop whose purpose was the extraction of as much otherwise useless Lev as possible from idiots like me who buckle under even the most modest and mild mannered sales techniques.

Travel back from Sofia

Again, a lack of research meant an embarrassing false start, taking what I thought was the airport bus from one side of a square to the other. At the airport I finally lost patience with a Bulgarian post office employee who I considered as being just a little too rude and hostile. Silly cow. I am, however, happy to report that the other transactions I had at Sofia Airport were far more pleasant.

Still trying to shop

I still had to wait. No problem. While I did so, I was privy to the halting conversation between stallholder and his then patrons, which struggled, as English clearly wasn’t anyone’s first language. The chat was illuminating and dismal; the stallholder made noises about being on a good thing and not needing to discuss finances, let alone run a market stall in the Sofia drizzle, but going on, nonetheless, about how he bought and sold gold and silver in Thessaloniki. His customers - a rather joyless looking couple in European kagouls - seemed interested in in this ruddy nonsense. All this time, the pens I was coveting were locked in a cabinet. Eventually, after a bored impasse, the couple moved on. I asked to see the pens with a view to coolly snaffling one or both Pelikans.

‘How much?’ I asked, nonchalantly picking up a green marbled pen after a few pregnant pauses, as if I was doing the stallholder a huge favour. The pens were grubby but in reasonable shape. I decided to do the deal, hopefully for less than 40 Lev (around £20) and leave with a spring in my step and still not leave the dealer particularly fleeced.

“One hundred and eighty,” I was told in a bored aggressive tone.

“And this one?” I croaked, trying not to give anything away and holding up the most battered looking pen of the bunch - a second, far more ragged Pelikan. I was already planning an honourable retreat, but still wanted to do so after having visibly considered, possibly bartered and adopting a slightly disappointed air. I wanted a happy sense of having engaged, which was achievable if I could persuade the stallholder there was a chance I might come close to a low end evaluation. Which, for this tatty specimen, and even with the 180 Lev quoted for the earlier pen, I reckoned at around the 30 Lev mark.

“One hundred.”

“Oh,” I said.

“How much do you want to pay?”

The stallholder looked the kind who might flip into a random act of extreme hostility. Instead, of answering the question, I employed a hastily composed, just about acceptable sign off of ‘oh; I was just looking’ - before turning on my heels, making one last sneer at the Nazi memorabilia and scarpering. If nothing else, the whole excursion reinforced my long held view that me and shopping just don’t get on.

More shopping

Again, in Belgrade, I came across a cd shop quite near my hotel, which had a nice feel but incredibly ordinary stock (ok jazz, but not that good) and pretty steep prices. Other than that, shops provided little interest, with cursory peeks in clothing stores around the main shopping streets (in Sofia, too) suggesting bargains being few and far between.

Sofia, I’d say, is a slightly more promising shopping prospect than Belgrade, but then maybe because it’s smaller. The centre has a similarly swanky shopping area, although shabbier, more interesting shops - including a couple of decent bookshops - are close at hand.

What, though, of rustic tat as remodelled and re-priced by cynical profiteers down at the tourist market? Having decided the Thomas Cook Miniguide was dreadful, I took a deep breath and decided to give it a last chance with what was described as the “unmissable” market to the north of the Alexander Nevsky church. There was a promise of ‘not very good art’, tacky religious icons and Russian dolls. I should’ve given the area a swerve, but given that Russian Dolls are one of my five-year-old niece’s favourites, decided to have a look.

Somewhat predictably, Cook and the street market both let me down. The market existed with a few stalls opening well after the time indicated by the rotten guidebook. And yes, there was a reasonable smattering of ‘not very good art’ and tacky religious icons. No Russian Dolls though. The best on offer - at first glance - were a few random and deeply undesirable looking 1950s LPs and a few crappy street signs (I usually like this sort of thing, but these looked homemade). Somewhat more disturbing was the Nazi memorabilia - enough to make me wonder if the damned stuff isn’t still being produced for maudlin, nationalist customers.

My shopping interest was piqued, however, by one particular line of goods. Fountain pens. One stallholder had a grubby collection, most of which looked as if they’d never worked, let alone stand any likelihood of doing so in the future. I steered away, although the stallholder’s persistence and the fact he wasn’t selling Nazi wares prompted me to ask how much a rather dilapidated pen cost. Not much. I was half tempted when he described it as ‘Bulgarian’, but decided to go back a different stall I’d just drifted away from on account of the stallholder being busy. It had a far more promising collection of Parkers and Pelikans.

Beer and book shops

You can’t buy beer here. Not at this time.

After the huge meal on Svetog Save, I tried to buy beer from a food shop. I’d been looking for a bar that was not too bright, but which had a decent reading light, no noise and zero chat, but had only come across some unsavoury looking places, one of which, in near darkness and apparent desertion, blasted Queen into a quiet side street. “Don’t stop me now - I’m having such a good time….” Not true, even if the heavy smokers, a number of whom, on approaching the establishment, could be seen hanging round the patio heaters, were giving it their all.

After giving up on finding a decent drinking spot, I found a late night food shop and put a couple of Sick Nicks in my basket to enjoy in the solitary splendour of the Hotel Slavija, before being told, with utmost courtesy, that I’d missed Belgrade’s 10pm deadline for buying alcohol. I felt immediately undone at this cultural faux pas. Things weren’t improved when I was advised I could buy some alcohol free fizz. I got out sharpish, trying, in vain, to appear ‘bemused’ and ‘eccentric’.

More shops
Away from food? I could have shopped on the Bar to Belgrade train. I had the chance not only to buy hot drinks from a broken man with a tiny tray, but also some toys from a similarly dishevelled entrepreneur. On both occasions, I resisted.

The Evro Giunti bookshop in Belgrade was half decent and had some interesting looking Serbian novels in translation, one of which I picked up. It was written by the daughter of a diplomat. For some reason - envy?, inadequacy? - this made me feel resentful. Was the book published because of who the author is/was? Happily, I snapped out of this funk in reasonable time (having endured no lasting damage) and resumed strolling. There was, however, a grumpy residue and futility which hung over me until the end of the trip.

Other links - contemporary Serbian literature in translation

Various mushroom tagliatelle

The Various Mushroom Tagliatelle concocted by the excellent fellow in the Italian restaurant on Svetog Save, near to Hotel Slavija in Belgrade, was intensely substantial. The food was stodgy, but extremely welcome, even if the novelty of trying to make it disappear soon wore off. I felt bad nodding assent but not taking up and having no intention to take up the elaborately expressed invitation to dine again the following night, given the restaurateur's pride in giving me food which, as he boasted, “didn’t have killing”. The combination of dining alone and feeling like a saturated puffball weren’t entirely unpleasant, but dissuaded me from returning.

Food and dining

Sick Nick - Montenegrin lager - palatable. Comfortably superior to the appalling rubber taste of Delhaize Premium (see below).

Delhaize Premium - on my first night in Sofia, I settled into the hotel with a self-catered meal and a couple of Delhaize Premiums, a pernicious Belgian pils which tastes of rubber. (The prevalent theme on Delhaize’s write ups on the ‘Ratebeer’ website is of cardboard; things must have taken an even worse turn in the factory since then, as mine were definitely ‘rubbery’). Opening a can of Delhaize Premium leads to loads of froth. Oddly, and somewhat worryingly, this frothing pauses. I thought it had stopped - it had stopped - but after sitting for a while, it started frothing again.

Šopska Salata - pulses will hardly be set alight by a conical pile of tomato and cucumber topped with grated traditional Bulgarian cheese, but in one of my three restaurant visits, this was actually pretty good. Enjoyed in a TexMex in Sofia.

Serbian drinking yoghurt - top marks; it may have looked wholly unappetising dumped in a steel jug at the Hotel Slavija, but it was great. Unsweetened and a good consistency. Hardly a ‘shoe in’ for gastronomic awards, but by some distance the best food I encountered in the Balkans.

Balkan dining

My first Adriatic meal was taken in a pleasant enough themed eatery in Bar called Las Ramblas, with steaks and cocktails named after famous landmarks in Barcelona; Steak Parc Guell, Cakey Familia and Pickpocket Risotto especially eye-catching. Las Ramblas also gave me the first hint of a music policy not solely focused on high octane, high drama disco. Well, so I thought, munching away on Roast Espanyols to the accompaniment of L Reed’s Perfect Day. I wondered if one of Lou’s edgier moments might be aired later or whether, as a Las Ramblas customer, I might even be treated to one of Lou’s accomplices or contemporaries, or perhaps a spiritual successor of some description. Hopes were dashed, however, when Reed was dumped in favour of the earnest squawking and tinny condensed evaporating drums of some unwelcome summertime smash.

Shopping

First, to declare my interests. I don’t like shopping. Never have. Not very much, anyway. I can while away a little time in music shops and a little more in bookshops, though these visits are few and far between. Shopping, however, is a necessity on a self-catering budget jape, and with other amusements thin on the ground and with the joy of the unknown in previously unchartered and what I hoped would be ‘excellent supermarkets’ it was an activity I was keener on than usual. So, rather than sulk, I entered places of procurement with a steady gaze and honourable intentions.

Food

Food was my main shopping item, rather unsurprisingly. In Bari, I went for convenience at the ferry terminal and ended up paying over the odds for a flat, warm sandwich (or ‘panini’), a bag of crisps, a beer and a near total invasion of my personal space by the food concession manager’s chums (left luggage, senior newsagent, crappy shop holder and other assorted semi-official, loud port people).

In Bar, Belgrade and Sofia I frequented ok-ish supermarkets. Nothing in any of the countries’ guidebooks suggested memorable cuisine, especially for vegetarians, although I humbly offer the following observations and recommendations:

Dried bread and perma-cheese roll - holidays don’t start until I’ve assembled one of these horrors from hurriedly bought convenience ingredients. In Bar, my moisture-free lunch attracted one of a number of stray dogs hanging out near the promenade between the main drag and shoreline. I was able, however, to exit without attracting excessive canine interest.