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The Serbian city of Niš: On the road to Constantinople
The tinkers are long gone but the pedestrianised centre of the city of Niš still oozes character. The cafés are busy. Meat and cigarettes count for a lot here. Laurence Mitchell, a long-standing contributor to hidden europe, returns to Niš ...
Editorial hidden europe 69
In this 69th issue of hidden europe we look, possibly more than in any preceding issue, to our coastlines and inshore waters for inspiration. We visit islands off Croatian and Scottish coasts, take boat trips through Greek and Norwegian ...
A triple dose of culture: Europe’s cultural capitals
Can you name Europe's three capitals of culture for 2022? All three are the second-largest cities in their respective countries. Step forward Esch-sur-Alzette, Novi Sad and Kaunas. International visitors to the latter two will surely find it ...
Promoting Europe: the Connecting Europe Express
On 7 October 2021, a train from Lisbon arrived in Paris. The journey from the Portuguese capital had taken five weeks. The Connecting Europe Express was no ordinary train, but one which recalled the fine tradition of agit-prop trains which ...
A River Town out of Season
Bicycles outnumber cars in Novi Becej, a small town on the east bank of the River Tisa in the flatlands of the Vojvodina region of northern Serbia. Laurence Mitchell catches the changing moods of Novi Becej as autumn slips into ...
Bradt Guide to Serbia
Laurence Mitchell has written a number of Bradt Guides, including titles on Norfolk (where he lives), central Asia and the Balkan region. We have been thumbing through Laurence's latest Bradt book, the 5th edition of his 'Bradt Guide to Serbia', ...
Preview: hidden europe 53
A look ahead at hidden europe 53 which will be published on 15 November ...
Belgrade and Beyond: Cities Shaped by the Lie of the Land
We explore the making of a city, referring to examples from across Europe. Those cities blessed with distinctive geographical assets would do well to value them. For, in an increasingly globlised world, a strong sense of place could turn out to be ...
Socialist Architecture in Yugoslavia
In Tito's Yugoslavia, architects offered an ideological space between East and West - aligned neither to Soviet-style communism nor to the capitalist tradition. The result was some assertively different architecture, not all of it memorably ...
The Hills of Western Serbia
There are many visions of Yugoslavia's past. Laurence Mitchell visits the hills of western Serbia to learn how heritage and history fuel the imagination. It's a journey that starts and ends in Uzice and takes in the famous Sargan Eight narrow-gauge ...
Bosna-gauge Railways
Had the Balkan region narrow-gauge rail network survived, it would surely today be a cherished asset in promoting tourism over a wide region - in much the same way as the narrow-gauge Rhaetian Railway network has been important in attracting ...
Recalling Tito
From Skopje to Moscow, from Sarajevo to New Delhi, the names of roads and squares recall Josep Broz Tito, who was President of Yugoslavia from 1953 until his death in 1980. But what happened to all the Tito towns in former Yugoslavia? Titograd ...
Kosovo travel notes
It's perfectly sensible to travel from Budapest to Thessaloniki through Kosovo. But it's unwise to attempt the journey in the reverse direction. Find out why in our notes on travelling through ...
Of princes and politics: nation-building in the Danube wetlands
The map of the Danube Valley is changing. Aspiring micro-nations are popping up on the west bank of the river. We've clocked Celestinia, Enclava and Liberland within the last three months. The governments of Croatia and Serbia are not ...
Liberland: Bring your wellies
Have you applied for Liberland citizenship yet? Probably not. Though by all accounts lots of folk have been begging the Liberland government to give them passports.Liberland may yet turn out to be merely a publicity stunt, but President Jedlicka ...
The ghost of Beeching
Is cutting public transport links in rural areas and across its borders really the right way for Croatia to gear up to join the European Union this summer? We look at how the pieties of the market are playing havoc with rail services in the north ...
End of the line for the peace train
Europe's railway geography was reshaped last night. New timetables kicked in, bringing a host of novel travel options. Newly-built rail routes opened in Holland and Austria. A new high-speed service now links Amsterdam and Brussels. And northern ...
The Schengen factor
Schengen is more than just a village on the banks of the River Moselle in Luxembourg. The Schengen programme of free movement across borders helps shape modern Europe geographies. It explains why trains now rumble by night through Hodos and why ...
Europe by Rail: Balkan images
hidden europe editors Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries showcase a new book which they have edited. Europe by Rail: The Definitive Guide for Independent Travellers was published in March 2011. This well-established title from Thomas Cook Publishing ...
Out of place, but not out of mind
So why does a statue of Rocky Balboa stand in a small town in northern Serbia? And why did citizens of Mostar (in Herzegovina) decide that a statue of Bruce Lee could unite their troubled town? We take a look at statues that seem improbably out of ...
Where empires collide: Zemun, Serbia
The Danube has always been a natural geographic barrier in the Balkans, a watery frontier between two cultural worlds: the Habsburg to the north and the Ottoman territories to the south. Laurence Mitchell escorts us on a riverfront walk from ...
Preview hidden europe 32
A look ahead at hidden europe 32 which will be published on 19 November ...
Subotica: gateway to the Vojvodina
Subotica is one of those places which are quite disarming. We rather like the small town in northern Serbia, which has a feast of art nouveau architecture and deserves to be better known on that count ...
News from Banat
Each new monthly edition of the Thomas Cook European Rail Timetable is an invitation to start planning new journeys. This book, so full of facts, is also a glorious treasure chest of entertaining diversions. And a quick glance at this latest issue ...
Portoroz airport reopens
The little airstrip at Portoroz in Slovenia has never featured prominently in Europe's flight schedules. The airfield is south of the town of Portoroz, and built on water meadows near the Dragonja river. But Portoroz airport is back in the news, as ...
Bulgarian affairs
Bulgaria is gearing up for more visitors from neighbouring countries, having just announced that from Saturday 19 December 2009 travellers from Macedonia and Serbia making short visits to Bulgaria will no longer need to secure a visa in ...
Train service changes for 2010
The Balkan region gets a new rail service tomorrow, with the launch of a once daily direct train between Belgrade and Sarajevo. It is a mark of how much the mood in the region has improved over recent years that routes severed during the nineties ...
Kosovo and international politics
The Kosovo issue rumbles on. Contrary to popular opinion, the question of who has recognised the would-be state and who has not is far from being a simple east versus west divide. True, Britain and the United States both gave a positive nod to ...
Lost links: the demise of Europe's night trains
Moscow to Athens, Geneva & Paris! The through carriages which have ...
Looking for the locksmith: Belgrade
guest contributor Laurence Mitchell follows the Tito trail in Belgrade - in a town that is still uncertain about how to handle its communist past and its legendary ...
River crossings
a look at some of Europe's more interesting river ...
Welcome to Novi Pazar
Novi Pazar (the New Bazaar) in the hills of southern Serbia turns out to be a town with a difference. Guest contributor Laurence Mitchell explores this Muslim town close to the Kosovo ...
The freedom train
The legendary Akropolis Express, a train much used by migrant workers, used to run daily from Munich to Athens, passing through Kosovo. hidden europe recalls journeys on the Akropolis Express, and checks out rail travel in Kosovo today, where ...
Grave encounters
The symbolism of a grave often eclipses the transient mortal whose remains are interred therein. We visit some of Europe's more interesting ...
A land of many tongues: Vojvodina
The Vojvodina region of northern Serbia is one of the most culturally complex regions of Europe. We investigate the patchwork quilt of peoples and languages that make up Vojvodina - an area the size of Wales with no less than six official ...
Two communities in Banat
hidden europe's regular guest contributor, Laurence Mitchell, reports on art, life and landscapes in the Banat region of northern ...
Memorials to death and disaster: dark tourism
In the world of postmodernity, the sites of tragedies and atrocities have become new venues for pilgrimages. Dark tourism comes of age as memorial museums make their mark on the tourist ...
Coffee and cake: a Belgrade centenary
In a part of Europe where cakes were seen as the hallmark of civilisation, the Hotel Moskva excelled in bringing Viennese perfection to Belgrade summer ...
Serbian Orthodox Christmas
Bitterly cold temperatures over central and eastern Europe last evening and this morning do nothing to diminish enthusiasm for the celebration of the Orthodox Christmas. While Orthodox Christmas is underway, daily demonstrations in Belgrade dilute ...
A matter of time - Belgrade
hidden europe reports on European elections and a referendum in Jersey. We also visit Belgrade and think about the city's illustrious history - the times when the Orient Express stopped in ...
Gracanica (Kosovo)
When the celebrated English travel writer Edith Durham arrived at the monastery at Gracanica one hundred years ago, she came to a place that had virtually no experience of the twentieth century. It is an episode that Durham recalls in her book High ...
Designing identity
Albanians have not lost their way with clothes, as anyone walking the streets of Tirana's business district at lunchtime will quickly notice. Forget notions of an obscure Balkan nation, and look more for the same stylish chic that you might see ...
Kosovo connections - Transdniestr
Western European observers of the east of our continent have had their eyes trained on Serbia and Belarus this past weekend. The Milosevic funeral in Pozarevac, a small city on the Danube plain seventy kilometres east of Belgrade, became a rallying ...