Fiona Cullinan

Day 9: Podgorica to Kotor A bit of perspective arrives overnight and my appetite comes back for a full English breakfast out on the Hotel Hemera’s street terrace. No generic continental breakfast buffet here. We have one hour to look around Podgorica’s sights – a bridge, a river, a statue of a Russian rock star – before we…

Day 8: Belgrade to Podgorica Goodbye Belgrade – we head for the train station and get in the long queue to catch our replacement bus service. The trains have got progressively shitter as I’ve gone further east and, when we finally reach it, this one is the worst yet. There is no…

Day 7: New Belgrade (Novi Beograd) It’s the bit I really want to see –  the dormitory of Belgrade – built to house the expanding population. Many of former Yugoslavia’s buildings are also here and seem forgotten or neglected or barely maintained. That’s not much of a sell but it’s bloody great for…

Day 6: Belgrade First thing – well, noon – we change apartments. We now live here for the next 48 hours, in the roof bit, where Pete is pointing. The lift is thankfully much nicer and less weighty on the cables. We’re sitting in a chain café called CoffeeDream and…

Day 5: Budapest to Belgrade Panic at Kelenfold Station – it is 10.55, the Beograd train says 11.04 but I was told it leaves at 11.37. I run with my backpack up the stairs to the ticket office where a man tells me “Table! Watch! Number!” increasingly slowly and loudly…

Day 3-4: Budapest I’m staying in the catchily-titled 4YOU Citycenter Apartments, actually in the company’s old converted offices on the fourth floor of an inner courtyard. There is a pull-up bar on the door, tea in the cupboard and a gift chocolate bar on the table from Gabor, called Balaton…

Day 2: Zurich-Budapest via the Arlberg Pass, Innsbruck, Salzburg and Vienna Back in the UK, ‘Maggie’ May has called a snap election and it seems my best hope is for a coalition of chaos. The world is shifting direction, going forwards but travelling backwards. I’m travelling backwards, as instructed by Seat61.com. I’m…