After visiting the beautiful cities of Prague, Krakow and Budapest; Belgrade was a let down for me. The city didn’t have the same charm that those cities do. Belgrade has been battled over in 115 wars over the years destroying much of the city. You can see buildings that were partially destroyed by the wars and never rebuilt or torn down.
When we arrived in Belgrade, our taxi driver dropped us off alongside a giant park and pointed to the opposite side of it saying hotel. He spoke very little English so we just hoped we were in the right spot. I have never had to walk across a park to my hotel before! Luckily, we were able to quickly spot our hostel which was located along the river. We arrived just in time to get a drink and watch the sunset. I loved the location of the hostel but it could have used some updates. The wooden floors throughout the hostel creaked and you could hear people walking around at all hours plus my bed was hard making sleep close to impossible.
When wandering the city on the first night, we walked along a road that was completely torn up. They appeared to be fixing the sewage pipes under the street and it reeked. I found nothing charming about walking on a road that smelled like literally like shit.
We did have a nice dinner at Zavicaj Restaurant . It was cheap authentic food and I would highly recommend it if visiting.
We went to an interesting bar located in an old abandoned metro station that was no longer operational.
We start off the day by taking another free walking tour. One of the most interesting things about the tour was a man that kept wanting our guide to comment on the current political situation of the country. It was like he was purposely trying to upset her and get her in trouble for making statements that she shouldn’t. However our guide remained professional the entire team and would make comments like she will only comment on what some of the population thinks or what the government says. She would not make any personal commentary on the subject. It was a glimpse into the friction that still remains between some of the former Yugoslavia countries.
As always, I really enjoyed the free walking tour. It ended at the fortress in the city which wasn’t much to see.
What was interesting is the viewpoint of the river at the top of the fortress. On some days you can see the two different colors of the rivers that intersect there. On the day we went, it all appeared to be the same color to me so again wasn’t that impressed.
Another interesting spot up at the Fortress was the Pobednik statue. This statue caused some controversy in Belgrade as many complained at having a nude male figure in the middle of the city. After some debate, they decided to place it at the top of the hill at the Fortress facing over the river so only the backside of the statue is easily seen.
We hadn’t see much on our walking tour that we wanted to revisit so we decided to try and head to winery that Ty found online. The winery was well hidden and hard to find. When we finally found it, we discovered it was closed and the man across the street told us you were supposed to call ahead for reservations. Another fail in Belgrade! At this point, I was over the city and ready to head to my destination of Sarajevo!
Leave a Reply