Last weekend, I spent such a wonderful and memorable few days in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. It was a special trip for many reasons, the most important being that I was primarily in Belgrade to see one of my best friends (who is from the city) get married and to celebrate with her. It was probably the only Serbian Orthodox wedding I will ever get to attend in my life, and I loved every single minute of it - but more on this later. Wedding festivities aside, I feel like I really got to know this amazing city; I did lots of activites and visited many places. This is a city that is well worth a weekend visit, and so I wanted to write about my trip on my blog, in the hope it might inspire you to consider Belgrade the next time you are planning a trip away.
We arrived on a hot Thursday afternoon at Belgrade airport,'Nikola Tesla Airport', where my friend was waiting to pick us up and take us to our hotel. We were lucky that we got picked up, but a car ride from the airport into the city only takes about 20 minutes and in a taxi it costs just about 2000 Dinars or 16 Euros. In fact taxis in Belgrade were always pretty cheap, so if we weren't walking to places we just hopped in a cab!
Our hotel was in a fantastic central location, right on the edge of Kalemegdan Park and Fortress. From there we could walk to the central shopping street, Knez Mihajlova, and through the main part of the city. I would definitely recommend checking out hotels in this area. After we refreshed at the hotel, we walked up to the main shopping street to get our barings. Our first port of call was a bank to get some local currency - Dinars. If you are familiar with the Sparkasse bank, this also exists in Serbia! The conversion rate was really difficult to get your head round; I don't think we ever quite got it! But if you just remember that 10 Euros is about 12,000 Dinars, you should be OK. It's also interesting that Nikola Tesla, world famous scientist from Belgrade, is on the 100 Dinar note!
Knez Mihajlova - central shopping street, full of street artists!
We stopped to grab a burger at a really great place just off the main road; there are loads of restaurants and bars down all of the side streets, so you really have a great choice. Serbia has also adopted the coffee culture that is quite characteristic of the Meditteranean countries; it is said that Serbian people can enjoy a coffee at a cafe for up to three hours! And when the weather is as warm as it was for us, about 30 degrees celsius, lots of people sit outside enjoying coffees until pretty late.
Tasty burgers!
Coffee culture
After we felt nicely full up we decided to walk around the Kalemegdan park. This is a huge park in the centre of Belgrade that is also home to the old Belgrade fortress. You can go inside the fortress, and there are many small exhibitions going on, for which you only pay a very small price to enter. We happened to walk past one on medival torture equipment so we thought, 'why not!'. It was pretty grusome, definitely not for the faint hearted, but actually really interesting to see these devices and learn about their history. Directly outside this exhibition were some old tanks, going right back to the first world war, through to the second, from all different countries; German, American, Serbian... It was pretty cool to see these machines, and how they evolved over time.
The fortress
'The Noisemaker's Fife' - I thought this torture instrument was pretty interesting - they used it to torture musicians who sounded bad when they performed. If that's not an incentive to practice more, I don't know what is!
The exhibitions in the fortress are all very interesting looking, but it is also wonderful to just spend the afternoon walking around the park, which is totally free. It is really beautiful, with lots of places to sit and eat an ice-cream, many little tourist trinket stalls to look around, a 'Dino Park' for kids, archery and pony rides. I think my favourite part of Kalemegdan though, was the staggering view over the city. You can see all of the old and new bridges, the point where the river Danube meets the river Sava (the Serbians call it the 'kissing point' of the two rivers) and across into the other part of the city, known as Zemun.
Gorgeous view of the kissing point
People relaxing and enjoying the moment and the view
After we finished walking around the park we decided it was time for a drink. As both my boyfriend and I are big fans of craft beer, we had sussed out Belgrade's best craft beer pub, Miners Pub, which happend to be just around the corner from our hotel - nice coincidence! It was such a gem of a place, and if you are into beer, you absolutely have to check this pub out. They have a whole range of Serbian beers, as well as American beers and others from all over the world too. There is so much to choose from and the bar staff were so friendly and very helpful in recommending beers to us. The atmosphere of the place is just great too - very quirky and individual, a really nice place to spend an evening with friends.
Can be easy to just walk past it on the street - keep an eye out!
Atmosphere inside the pub
Although we weren't too hungry, as we had eaten those big burgers earlier, we really wanted to try some traditional Serbian food. We found a restaurant called Ambar which was located right on the waterfront, and it couldn't have been more perfect. They serve all traditional Serbian food, but in a modern kind of Tapas style, which was perfect for our appetites at that moment. It was also cool because then you can order a few small things and try a bit of everything! We tried bujurdi (a kind of baked cheese), kajmak (another kind of spicy cheese), homemade bread, mussles, pljeskavica (a grilled meat patty made of a mixture of pork, beef and lamb), and some incredible dessers including koh (a spongecake in milk) and a chocolate and walnut cake. Everything was absolutely delicious, and sitting there looking out at the gorgeous river, and drinking a glass of tasty Serbian wine made for a wonderful evening.
Gorgeous evening spend at Ambar, sitting at a table overlooking the river!
On the second day of our stay we decided to start the day by visiting the Nikola Tesla Museum. My boyfriend is a scientist, so of course we had a special interest in going, but I would say that even if you don't know anything about Tesla or his work, or science, it is still really worth a visit. Unfortunately we arrived at the museum just as an English tour was ending, but having just caught the end of it I would really recommend coordinating your visiting time with a tour, if you can. The tour guide seemed really on top of the information, and you can only get a demonstration of the scientific instruments with a tour guide. The museum is pretty small, only a few rooms, so it doesn't take long to see it all, but it is really good. There are some interactive displays, it gives you a great background of Tesla and his work and his life, and it is really fun to see his suit on display, and his own personal belongings. I always feel that through these personal touches one can really get to know the person behind the famous work. It is also very cool to see Tesla's ashes, which are kept in an urn in the museum.
Tesla's urn
The museum itself is not far away from Hram Svetog Save, or The Cathedral of Saint Sava - the biggest Orthodox church in the world. Its only about a 15 minute walk from the Tesla musum to this church, so we headed there straight after the museum. It is a stunning building, absolutely huge and so different to other churches; really a sight to see.
After visiting the church we felt a little tired, but had no plans until the afternoon so we decided to just stroll slowly back to our hotel for a rest. On the way we passed the most amazing shop for tights and socks, so of course I bought a few cool pairs! I always like to bring something small back from my travels, especially something that I can wear so that I think of the place each time I wear it!
In the afternoon we decided to do the free walking tour of the city. These tours are really great for getting to know a new city, especially if you have a good tour guide - which, thankfully, we did. We met at Republic Square at 4pm and made our way through to Skadarlija, the bohemian quarter, and wound up back in Kalemegdan. Our guide told us a lot about the interesting and dramatic history of the city and also shared some of her own personal stories. Skadarlija was probably my favourite part of the tour. This was initially a very poor area where lots of artists and writers ended up. Today it is known as the Montmatre of Belgrade. It's beautiful streets are lined with restaurants; you almost feel like you could be in Italy!
Republic Square
Beautiful Skadarlajia
Funny sign in Skadarlajia, pointing to all the equivilant areas in other cities - it's all correct too! There is also a sign pointing up towards the moon - they say that when the artists had had too much to drink, and would find themselves lying on the ground, unsure of which way was up and which way was down, this sign helped them!
A sign of Serbia's torbulent past - bullet holes in an old building
The old architecture in Belgrade is so beautiful
That evening we actually decided to go back to Skadarlija, to a restaurant that had been recommended to us called 'Tri Sesira', or 'Three Hats'. It's important to note that this was a Friday night, and the place was totally buzzing! There were local musicians, people dancing at tables, lots of food and delectable smells coming from the kitchen... I would definitely love to go back there! The food again was typically Serbian, and I should probably say that this may not be suitable for any vegetarians out there: these dishes are delicious but very meat heavy.
Our Saturday was totally taken up with the amazing wedding. I really didn't know what to expect from a Serbian wedding; I was told to be at the church in time for the ceremony at 1pm. Well, me being me, I got there half an hour early at 12:30, only to see another bride entering for her cermony! After a minor panic, I found out that the ceremonies are only about 30 minutes long, and they go on all day on Saturdays, bride after bride! Unfortunately my ignorance about this resulted in many pictures on my phone of the wrong bride, but not to worry - got lots of the right one too!
The wedding reception was filled with food, dancing and rakija - this is a kind of fruit brandy Serbian liquer. It is pretty strong, so didn't take long to get everyone on the dance floor! The whole day was absolutely amazing, and I definitely won't forget it. We left for home the following day, after a slow start and a meal consisting of cevapi (a few sausage type things in a bun) with kajmak - absolutely delicious and perfect for a hangover!
Waiting at the chirch for OUR bride!
Sharing a moment with my beautiful friend, on her wedding day
On the whole, I had a really interesting a beautiful time in Belgrade. I think it is a perfect city for a weekend visit; there are lots of things to do, the history of the city is so interesting to discover, the food and drink is outstanding, and the people are so humble and nice. My friend has told me I must come back in the winter - apparently it is really snowy and beautiful at that time of year; I am already looking forward to returning.
This post is number 2 in my 'Weekend In' series. To see the first post in the series on Rome please click here.
Labels: Travel
