Serbia, Well mostly Belgrade — The road liss traveled

Belgrade is not everyone’s favorite city! I’d heard some very mixed reviews, drab, ugly, people were not friendly, not a lot to do, etc. But I’d also met a lot of people that really liked Belgrade, and it’s fairly well known to have the best nightlife in the Balkans, if not Europe. I was happy to go and check it out for myself.

First photo of the visit, the cool trams on the main street right outside my room

Right off the bat I’d be getting out of my early to bed, early to rise sleep schedule. But it’s not from going out partying, it’s from fantasy football drafts at 2 or 3 am! Not ideal! That first night I was just struggling to keep my eyes open, I did zero research, and I’m pretty sure my teams are going to suck this year. Oh well. At least the hostel was nice, air conditioned, dark, etc and it was no problem sleeping in until noon.

The first day I had no plans whatsoever, just wander around and pop in coffeeshops, my very first do nothing day of the whole trip. With the lack of overtly touristy things to do, Belgrade is a fantastic city to do nothing! Belgrade definitely has a certain vibe, old buildings in muted grays and browns, graffiti everywhere, things not always maintained well, definitely feels a bit gritty. But it’s a very lived in city! There’s a lot of people outside walking around, taking the public transit – cute looking older trams, shopping, sitting in cafes, etc. And there are tons of little funky neighborhood cafes. No Starbucks or Caribou Coffee around! And all the cafes seem to double as a bar once the evening rolls around. So after being in so many touristy old towns it’s a nice change of pace to be in a non touristy place and just blend in with the locals.

Lots of funky little cafes and restaurants like this with sidewalk seating

So after a very lazy afternoon I ended up in the downtown area for the evening, nothing especially memorable, the building are a bit bigger and more well maintained than in the rest of town. All the restaurants with outdoor seating were pretty packed. From there you can walk over to the fort, which is a good spot to catch the sunset over the Danube. Although it was kind of interesting to see that the riverbanks were surprisingly undeveloped. I would have thought there would be a lot more going on along the water, but not really. And I must say, the skyline of Belgrade is just not very impressive, sorry Belgrade!

After staying up for another poorly executed fantasy draft, day two would be quick trip inside the national museum, and then the rest of the renting a bicycle. Outside of the city further along the Danube there was an old town that I’d check out, plus there’s some nice paths along the river. Although they let grass everywhere go completely dormant in the summer, so dry, patchy, yellow grass isn’t the most eye-catching. The old town was lame, I stuck around for a quick coffee and walked up the spire of the old church on the hill to get a nice view looking back towards Belgrade.

The rest of the afternoon I spent biking around New Belgrade, which was built shortly after WW2 in a fury of construction activity, so much that young men and boys were recruited to provide free labor as part of their civic responsibility. In true communist fashion, the living areas didn’t have names, just Block #’s, so Block 37, Block 62 etc. I actually really like the old Soviet era stuff, it’s pretty trippy. I could totally see myself doing some sort of ex-soviet era tour in Russia if Russia ever stops being jerks. Anyway, I guess it’s cheap to live in New Belgrade, and it you can tell it’s safe, plenty of young kids around playing and doing their thing with no parents around. Too bad more of the US isn’t like this…

Late evening at the housing blocks, lots of people outside, kids playing

So that was a pleasant afternoon, that evening I’d end up going out with two people from the hostel, an American from Boston who sounds British, and a Chinese girl studying in London, who also sounds British. In just our neighborhood, there are few kinda eclectic pubs with lots of Yugoslavia era antiques, old electronics, propaganda posters, stuff like that. I like these places. They also have some craft beer bars and cocktail bars, everything basically. I had to stay out until midnight as that was my 39th birthday, and my new friends bought a round of rakija shots, mmm. Birthday dinner was Serbian hamburgers, big ole sausage patties cooked fresh and put on a bun with onions and sauce. Turning 39 in style!

Next up was a day trip north to Novi Sad, which was the northern capital of the autonomous region of Vojvodina, controlled by the Austro-Hungarians for a while, so the architecture is a bit more European, baroque and art nouveau, etc. At the bus station in Belgrade there was a ticket machine where you pay with a credit card, which I did, and nothing happened. I thought maybe the card didn’t go through, even though it said it did. I flagged down the one person working there and he supervised me do it again, and the same thing, nothing! Argh! The guy said the printer was broken and he told me to get on the train, and drop his name, Zoran Stefanovich to the ticket collector and I wouldn’t need to pay for another ticket lol.

So when the ticket collector comes, I do just that, tell him the machine was broken, and that Zoran Stefanovich told me to tell you him name. He looked at me like I was idiot, shrugged, made no mention of what I just said, and asked me to pay the $5 for the ticket, lol. So anyway I paid for 3 tickets on this stupid train ride. It was a really nice train though, something you don’t get hardly any of in the Balkans! Novi Sad was nice, very chill, European pastel colored architecture etc. Not exactly a lot to do though. I found a shisha place in the town square to read my book.

I forgot to mention that in Belgrade I made it to the Saint Sava Cathredal, Sava being the founder of the Serbian Orthodox church in medieval Serbia. This was supposed to the be the approximate site where his casket was burned on a pyre by the Ottomans in the 1500’s. The cathedral had started being built in the 1930’s but stagnated until the 1980’s when it got proper funding despite the communist leaders traditionally being opposed to it, and the huge dome on top was finally placed in 1989. Model after the Hagia Sofia, it’s the largest church in the Balkans. I googled it and according to wiki its only like the 75th biggest church in the world, which is hard to believe, because it seems pretty friggen massive.

And I also stopped a few nights a few hours south of Belgrade in a town called Nis (Nish), which was a pleasant enough place, not tons of touristy stuff to do though. They do have a skill tower, built by the Ottomans in 1809 after the battle of Cegar, during the first Serbian uprising, composed of about 1,000 skulls of the fallen rebels. Although very few skulls remain nowadays. There is also a WW2 memorial just outside the city built for the 10,000+ citizens of Nis who were shot or executed during the war by the Nazis. Serbia was the only part of Yugoslavia under direct control of the Nazis, which led to an uprising in 1941, which the Nazis quashed by executing 10’s of thousands of Serb civilians, in addition to the Jews that were already being sent to concentration camps. Such very turbulent histories in all the Balkan countries.