A balkan break
Anyone with a stalkerish level of good memory, or indeed anyone who knows my travel ethos, will know that not only do I love travelling to new places in general, but also that this year I'm trying to tick off a record of 6+ new countries (having ticked off 5 new countries in both 2021 and 2022). I always get very excited when I'm looking for flights and see somewhere obscure or new, so when Belgrade came up on the dates I was searching for, I jumped at the chance to explore more of that part of the world. I absolutely loved Croatia and Montenegro, so I had high hopes for Serbia too.
When going to a less popular, less touristy place, you find yourself more limited on flights and so the 6am departure time was disgusting but kind of out of our hands. The fact that I went out for a work party the night before and went straight from night out to airport to flight? That bit was equally disgusting but may have been a little bit in my hands. What am I going to do; go home early? The pay off was worth the pain though because I had a fab night out and after an only-slightly-torturous flight, we arrived in Belgrade! We were staying at the Metropole palace hotel and it was so beautiful - we got upgraded on arrival and our room was really lovely. So lovely in fact, that we made that the first stop on our itinerary. We had both had pretty much zero sleep at this point so we napped the afternoon away and decided our holiday fun could wait until the evening.
I think that most European countries can be defined by whether they're a beer or wine country, and what kind of foods lead them. Serbia was definitely a beer and meat kind of place, so we set the tone on the first night with beers, a charcuterie board, burgers and hot dogs! I wasn't sure what kind of place it was fashion wise so I dressed the same way I would in somewhere like Germany (cool rather than girly) and went with this news print bodysuit and neon green skirt option for night one.
Aside from the horrendously early flight, there was one more problem with the timing of our trip to Belgrade; the weather. Despite being a very reliable 30 degrees and sunny all summer long, we managed to pick the one weekend where they had heavy rain and grey skies! Absolute liberty. But we'd gone all that way and so we weren't about to let a bit of water stop us from having fun. So feeling refreshed from finally having a full night's sleep, we headed out to explore. We were right near Tasmajdan park so we started off with a little wander round there, and then stopped for lunch at this cute little cafe/bar which was in the park and had an outdoor seating area fully covered by a canopy. Despite the rain, it wasn't particularly cold, so it was the perfect indoor/outdoor mix and we enjoyed some beers and a bit of people watching. The beer there was great, but the best thing about it was the price. Belgrade was super cheap everywhere for food and drinks. Whenever there's a currency that's pretty different from your own, it can be hard to guestimate how much stuff is. But we were pleasantly surprised each time we got a payment notification and realised how cheap it had worked out as!
It had brightened up a little bit, so we continued with our walk around the park and headed up to the St Mark Orthodox church. It was a really beautiful building; you know I love me a church in a foreign city.
The weather was still looking pretty threatening and with no uber in Belgrade, we knew we'd risk having to walk back in a downpour if we kept going further. So we decided to save any more exploring for the next day, and opted for a lazy afternoon instead. Our hotel had a spa and pool which was all included with our stay, so we had some R&R time in the hot tub. It's funny how much more appealing getting covered in water is when it's in a beautiful pool, versus when it's falling from a grey sky.
For night 2 I was pretty in pink as I'd gone with this bright backless number, paired with black accessories (to keep it cool rather than girly, remember). Although I hadn't gone nearly as all out as all the people crowded in our hotel lobby. Every night, we had hundreds of people queuing at our hotel, dressed in finery and mostly carrying flowers. We weren't sure if was a random event on night one but when it kept happening, we were even more confused. We couldn't find anything about it online so if anyone knows, leave a comment! Anyway, once we'd fought our way through the crowds, we headed to a lovely little restaurant called Madera. It looked like a really fancy place with the white table cloths and the live band playing, but Serbian prices prevailed once again and despite having a bottle of wine, fois gras, veal and steak, the bill came to about £80 for both of us! The other weird part about going to a fancy looking restaurant, was that when we arrived and asked for a table, the response was 'yes but only in the non smoking area, is that okay?'. They still smoke indoors in Serbia! Like it's a really common thing and they were almost apologetic about having to offer us a table where we couldn't smoke. It was like stepping back in time twenty years - super odd.
The next day after a lovely breakfast, we were ready to take on Belgrade properly! The main square of any city is usually a good place to start so we headed to Republic square, which was about 25 minutes walk from our hotel. Our hotel was in the Vračar neighborhood, which is more modern and urban, so walking into the older Stari Grad and seeing the buildings slowly change was really nice. The architecture was very Parisian actually and there were loads of cool Eastern European styles. The most notable thing about Belgrade though is it's actually pretty small. Even the main square was quite compact and there were a nice choice of restaurants but not to the same extent you'd usually find in the main tourist area of a city. So figuring that we had loads of time to see everything we wanted, we enjoyed a few chilled hours ordering back-to-back drinks while the sun came out (and eventually some lunch to soak them up).
And then we did what I always do on a city break; open google maps and head to anything that's still tagged when you zoom out! We had a lovely walk around the city and saw some really pretty buildings and beautiful gardens. I'd say that you have to be a lover of just admiring in order to like Belgrade. There wasn't a whole lot to specifically do, so you have to enjoy just being there and soaking up a new culture. Either that or if you like doing lots of museums, but I'm not one for being indoors when I'm away somewhere.
The last stop on our list for the day was The Temple of Saint Sava (another orthodox church). This one was about ten times the size and even though it was pretty spectacular from the outside, nothing could've prepared me for the beauty inside. Look at that ceiling, that gold! It was so incredible and impressive, I'd put this as a must-do on your Belgrade itinerary. It was also worth the walk there. Despite the fact that Belgrade was a pretty small city, it wasn't especially compact and we ended up doing about 12,000 steps that day.
That night was a bit of a funny case of Serendipity. We'd done some research (well, I had) about restaurants before choosing one called Josephine, which looked lovely, a little bit fancy and more dinner-and-drinks vibes (since it was a Saturday night, we wanted a more drinky place). We didn't think to book ahead though and when we arrived, they said they only had tables outdoors; we figured that was perfect since we were hot anyway. Well, after about 30 seconds of sitting down to read the menus, we noticed loads of little bugs flying around; mosquitoes. I'm often really allergic to mosquito bites so I hate risking being bitten at all and the thought of sitting outside eating while being eaten alive ourselves wasn't overly appealing. So we scrapped that plan (the waiter understood; he said they'd been worse than ever this year) and looked for an alternative. The Hilton virtually next to where we were had a rooftop restaurant and we figured that mosquitoes don't tend to fly that high up so we'd probably be safe. Well, we were more than safe as the Sky Lounge restaurant was incredible and we had no idea why we didn't choose there to begin with. We had cocktails, seafood risotto, steak, salmon; everything was amazing. Obviously, even at a rooftop Hilton restaurant, the bill only came to £100 - good old Serbian prices. The view alone was worth nearly that much!
On to our last day and we were finally at the full strength Serbian sunshine we'd been hoping for! Luckily our flight wasn't until late in the evening, so we did have a full day to enjoy it. That started off with a walk down Kneza Mihaila, which is the main street down to Kalemegdan park. It had loads of pretty buildings and an amazing choice of shops - if I'd been with one of the girls, I'd definitely have pencilled in a shopping day there. But since I was with Ollie, we went with beers in the sunshine instead (which was an equally great option).
The main thing on our list for the day was also the thing that Belgrade is most famous for; the fortress. Interestingly, it's also where the city gets its name (Belgrade is locally known as Beograd, which means “white city” or “white fortress"). The fortress was really impressive and was first built in 279 BC! It was fascinating looking around it all and the view from the top point was amazing. Although I'll say this for the fortress; amazing views, bad mojitos. Would not recommend the drinks, although the spot we had them was lovely!
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