Belgrade

 The first impression of Belgrade after sunny and gorgeous Udine was kind of grim and smelly, but consequently I have begun to think: Belgrade's alright! People are cheerful and stay up late to drink cocktails and eat desserts on warm nights. They don't mind that I can't speak Serbian or even read the street signs. The town is on the confluence of the rivers Sava and Danube. Mike grumbled: "I thought it was supposed to be blue!" The whole region has a really complicated history involving constant wars with Turks, Byzantine, Romans and Austrians which makes it really interesting. Konstantin and I may have skipped an hour of the conference talks to visit the military museum today - but in our defence it's good to be reminded not to get so distracted with equations you forget about the important things. Tesla came from Belgrade and at one point suggested a super-weapon so destructive it would make war impossible - oh Tesla, you silly scientist!

By the way, has anyone noticed how handsome Tesla was? I may have swooned.

Turkish fort to hold off Austrians

 Felt in a daze all weekend thanks to the mad train ride, but I never let axhaustion stop me tramping all round a city in the heat of the day before, and I'm not about to! Found some riverboat restaurants on the bank of the Sava in states of various repair, from quite nice to this:

The worst place to eat in belgrade

 A complicated tussle in Kosovo in the 90s led to NATO bombing Belgrade in 1999. I thought it was earthquake damage but then I realised - just lame old humans being horrible to each other.

Buildings that I guess were bombed in 1999

The conference is super by the way - there are enough interesting ideas and people to easily make up for the intense confusion I feel a lot of the time.