Our guide today, Lily, is an absolute hoot, we are in stitches with her wonderful humour interspersed with mischievous observations. No-one is safe from her keen wit, and whilst the Americans in particular get a lot of stick, she takes a shine to the token Englishmen.
The city of Belgrade was first established around 6000BC, making it one of the first communities in Europe. Since then it’s history is extraordinary, and it is the most fought over city ever. A few examples are: the Romans were here of course, in C4 Attilla the Hun had a go, and the Slavs followed in C6. The Serbian court was established in 1276 and the Ottomans took it in 1427. In more recent times it became the capital of Serbia in 1841, and later on Yugoslavia for the relatively short lifetime of that country. Lily was guarded on the subject of Tito so I’m resisting any further mention.
It’s a wonder there is anything left, and even more that there are some wonderful buildings, although there is only ONE street which has never been bombed or otherwise razed to the ground, which we visit later. The most recent bombs were delivered by NATO only a quarter of a century ago.
We start in the Kalemegdan fortress overlooking the confluence of the rivers Danube and Sava, and it’s easy to see why it is an important place to build a city. There’s not much left here, but the armaments from different ages fill the moat near the military museum. The classic fortress star shape is still visible but it’s now a park, zoo, and concert space with just a few buildings remaining, such as the Islamic mausoleum, and Sahat Tower.
We head back into town, have some free time to wander, so tick off a few of the destinations we had selected for our afternoon walk. We find the Main Street, Republic Square, Student Square, and some buildings around these of interest.
Next we’re driven to the Cathedral, known as the Church of St Sava, Lily tells us there is no connection between the Saint and the river. In church terms this is a relatively new-build, which is not quite complete, although it’s probably approaching 99%, construction started only 90 years ago. The 79m high dome is spectacular. I can’t decide which photos so they are all in.
We pay a short visit to the older church on the same site, and the statue of the most famous and most respected Serbian, Mr Nikola Tesla, engineer and father of electricity as we know it.
After lunch, which is particularly good: chicken amuse, French onion soup, belly pork on sweetcorn mouselline and cookie dough ice cream, we embark on our now slightly truncated afternoon wander.
We can see a spire from the boat, so head there first before going to Skadarska, the street that has never been destroyed. It’s quite different looking, mostly covered in frescos, and peppered with restaurants.
Next up is the Hotel Moskva, which looks very impressive, but sadly the piano desperately needs tuning – because of which it would be impossible to dine there despite a nice looking menu, not that we need more food.
We aim for the House of the National Assembly which looks very impressive, despite being in the middle of a building site, and we then take a strange route which leads us through a weird collection of vagrants / protesters / festival goers – we have no idea, but it is a bit creepy! Fencing prevents us from getting out as planned, but we find another route past a significant number of policemen who don’t seem to care about our plight.
Our penultimate destination is the old railway station, which has been a museum since closing, and having recently been sold to one of the Emerati sovereign wealth funds is expected to become a casino next. Whilst there we view the magnificent monument to the 1276 Serbian King Stefan Dragutin, who established his reign here.
We look at Tito’s personal train, or at least the rotting loco, but suddenly the heavens open and we’re marooned under a tree for a while, being totally unprepared for this. Eventually we walk past the Bristol Hotel, which looks absolutely wonderful, as we take the boardwalk back home.
We both do some Spanish, and I get a bit of work sorted, then we dress for dinner and head down to Aquavit to secure a table, and start writing the blog whilst sipping champagne and Kir Royale.
Dinner Al Fresco makes up for some of the other shortcomings, but let’s save that conversation for another day, tonight we enjoy fish soup and pork kebab; stuffed chicken and crab cake; Serbian chocolate tart and key lime pie.
We enjoy the view from our balcony back to the near bridge over the River Sava.
