Thessalonica to Sofia to Belgrade

I got a sleeper train from Thessalonica to Sofia, Bulgaria. It arrived at 6AM in Sofia. The previous train ride from Istanbul to Thessalonica was about fifteen hours, so once I got to Sofia, I didn't really leave the train station even though I had a four hour wait. I was dead, so I found another long haul sleeper from Sofia to Budapest. I ended up with my own room again which is great.

I'm out of food though and starting to get a bit hungry. I overate in Turkey, so it's not a really a problem. The border crossing outside of Sofia was painless, and the route is is Sofia-Belgrade, Serbia-Budapest, Hungary. I'm going to try to go straight through to Poland without stopping if I can. That would make it Copenhagen-Hamburg-Zurich-Venice-Patras-Athens-Thessalonica-Istanbul-Iznik-Selcuk (Efesus)-Istanbul-Thessalonica-Sofia-Belgrade-Budapest so far.

18:03 -- We just left Belgrade I think. The (totally skewed and unfair) railway view of the place was that the suburbs were OK with rocky hills and tall trees; but the station was kind of run-down looking. It was functional but needed maintenance. There were lots of houses in different stages of completion, and there was plenty of construction going on--additions to houses, new houses, etc.

The neighborhood was spotty though with patches of demolished buildings. Reminds me that in some places, fast construction is a hedge against high inflation. Maybe that explains what I'm seeing here, or maybe the economy is still recovering after conflicts. I've noticed lots of farmland in Turkey (Thrace), Greece, and here in Serbia. The land is really fertile looking in Serbia, more so than Greece with its sandy, rocky soil and smallish scrub brush trees. People on the streets here are getting on with their daily lives--school, work, farming, and construction. Why not? It's a Tuesday. I'm not sure what I was expecting--maybe more craters from bombs or destroyed buildings.