Wrong side of the tracks

Every morning, the slightly dilapidated Ivo Andric train leaves Belgrade and trundles along to Budapest, eventually arriving eight and a half hours later. It's a bargain at €15, even if the four-carriage train has seen better days. Belgrade's main railway also has seen better days: as there are plans to move it to another part of the city, it's looking distinctly unloved at the moment. But there's a little café at the station that makes a halfway decent cup of Turkish coffee, which is what you need when you're going to be deprived of a restaurant car for nearly nine hours.

I had noticed a disjointed group of men hanging around the station, at times getting together, at other times splitting up. They looked as jumpy as the caffeine in my coffee. They didn't look any more relaxed when they boarded the train, again making an effort to seat themselves in separate clusters. Occasionally one would make an anxious, terse phone call. Another would scoot to the toilet every 15 minutes or so.

When I went to use the loo, I saw immediately that the men weren't suffering from weak bladders. A somewhat battered Samsung phone was charging, and obviously the men were just making certain that no one was running off with it. I wasn't sure where the men were from, but I had an inkling they were from Afghanistan – just eight or so of the countless people trying to get from Serbia to a European Union country, specifically Hungary.

Sure enough, at Subotica, the last Serbian city before the border, all of the men got off the train and scattered at once. Then began the lengthy two-part visit from both sets of border police, first the Serbs who were doing a thorough search of all the train. We then crept over the border into no-man's-land, where the Hungarian border police came on board. If I thought the Serbs were being thorough, they had nothing over the Hungarians who were checking every nook and cranny, shining torches into places I hadn't spotted.

As we crossed into Hungary, we passed the fence that the Hungarian government hastily put up to stop the flow of refugees. I took one look at the tall, spiky mass of metal and barbed wire and my heart sank for anyone who tried to get past that. The fence was briefly opened to let the train through before it was abruptly shut. Where were those men, I wondered?

They certainly weren't on the train. When I next went to the loo, I had to duck to avoid having my head smacked by the dangling ceiling that the border police opened to check no one was hiding within. I looked into the forest of insulation and tubes above me and thought that maybe a chihuahua could just about fit in there. I don't think even the most desperate refugee could contort his body to squeeze into that minuscule space.

This happens every day, on every train that goes between both countries. I wish I knew how many make it across that steel barrier between despair and hope.

Back to Belgrade

I have a soft spot for Belgrade, home to numerous members of my family and a place I visit every year. But I'm aware that it can be an acquired taste, as much of its history has been obliterated by countless wars over the centuries. Its new town is a concrete city of communist-era tower blocks, like many in Eastern Europe, but the old town still has plenty of charm. I was hoping there was enough to captivate my husband, who was making his first visit and meeting my family, few of whom speak English. Just smile a lot and eat what's given to you, I told him, two things he was able to do effortlessly.

You can't help but feel a sense of responsibility when you show someone a place you love. I felt a bit like Rebecca West did in her monumental travelogue Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, when she hoped her husband would take to the Balkans the way she had. She was lucky, as was I. For a start, we were staying within metres of Sveti Sava cathedral, one of the biggest Orthodox churches in the world and whose large domes form a major landmark of the city. Even though the interior is still unfinished, you can't help but be impressed by its scale and beauty.

As in most cities, there's a list of tourist sights you shouldn't miss. We wandered to the centre towards Knez Mihailova, a long, wide, pedestrianised street full of shops and cafés and which is rarely empty. It leads to Kalemegdan, the enormous park that sits at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers. Hundreds of Belgraders gather here after work to sit on the grass or stroll by the museums, cafés and the zoo. The most touristy patch is Skadarlija, a 19th-century cobbled area that was the bohemian quarter. Nice place to grab some lunch, which in our case was a huge plate of cevapcici, one of my favourite meat dishes.

After a day of being in the east, we took a bus to what was the frontier of western Europe. Zemun, which sits on the other side of the Sava, was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire until 1918. Now it's a suburb of Belgrade, but the Austrian influence is unmistakable in the architecture. Things get more Slavic along the banks of the Danube, however, which is lined with floating restaurants and bars called splavovi. It's party central in the evenings, but on this lazy morning it was blissfully quiet and peaceful. And it was too early for mosquitoes, thank God.

All the touristy things done, we settled down to enjoy the family experience – plenty of delicious food, laughs, jokes and conversation that flowed in spite of my husband's lack of Serbian. As is his wont, my uncle brought out his guitar and we sang loudly and inexpertly along to English pop songs of the 1960s. (Funny how easy it is to forget the lyrics after several glasses of wine.) It was a fun couple of days, full of warmth and pleasant surprises for my husband who now understands why I have to come back to Belgrade every year.