Belgrade

Day 454 (September 25, 2019) – Belgrade, Serbia

In full disclosure, it is the beginning of May 2020 as I write this. Since being in Belgrade, our trip has come to its close, we spent four months at home, and I even started a new job. In some sense, Belgrade feels like a lifetime ago, but then I look back at the pictures and it feels as if it could have only been a few weeks ago. So before our memories of Belgrade and the entire rest of the trip fade too much, I wanted to finally finish up this blog. Now that I’m working, I expect that this is going to take a while, but better late than never.

 Our Novi Sad to Belgrade bus tickets.

There was a lot of confusion when we were trying to leave from the Novi Sad bus station. We thought we were on top of everything. We got there early, knew how to buy tickets, and even managed to purchase the tickets without any problem. But then our bus never showed up. At least, that’s what it seemed like. We went back inside and waited in line again to ask if the bus had come early and we missed it. But no, it was just really late. When it did finally arrive, we got on and found some seats in the very back of the bus. Practically the only two seats left. As we were boarding, we asked someone if we were on the right bus and she said that yes, the bus was going to Belgrade, but that we would probably want a different one. This was the slow bus that took the side roads rather than the highway. After she said this, we were recalling that our next Airbnb host told us to take a highway bus. We hadn’t realized the importance of the word “highway” in that sentence. Anyway, we did make it to Belgrade, and we were only 30-60 minutes later than had we taken the faster bus. I the grand scheme of our trip, that wasn’t all that bad. We’ve had far worse bus trips (I’m thinking of the 10-hour trip to El Cocuy in Colombia, among others).

The rooftop view from our Airbnb apartment.

Walking to dinner our first night.

By the time we got settled into our new apartment it was just about time for dinner. In a continued celebration of the newfound financial freedom we found in Serbia, we went out to a nicer Mexican restaurant. Not exactly Serbian cuisine, but they had some high-quality margaritas. All in, with appetizers and drinks, our bill was only $30. Not bad for dinner.

At our "fancy" Mexican night, margaritas and all.

We also happened to arrive on a Saturday night, which meant that Travis wanted to check out the nightlife. Belgrade is claimed to have some of Europe’s best nightlife with untold options for staying out all hours of the evening through until dawn. The most popular attraction appeared to be a string of party boats on the river. There are essentially a dozen floating bars and clubs all lined up one after the other anchored to the shore of the Sava River. Unfortunately, they seemed to be more of a summer attractions and it was starting to get noticeably chilly out. Nonetheless, Travis picked out a few spots in the main part of town and we checked them out. The end of the night took us to a club located underneath an abandoned-looking stadium. It was essentially underneath the concrete bleachers. Kind of bizarre, but it was packed to the brim with people and loud music. Unfortunately, it was also packed with cigarette smoke. People smoke like crazy in Serbia. I think even more than China. Being inside any of the bars felt like walking into a phone both where someone had just finished a couple cigarettes. The air was so thick with smoke you couldn't see more than 20 feet across a room. At the end of the night, I found our nightlife experience a little underwhelming. Not sure the Belgrade nightlife lived up to its supposed reputation for us, but that’s ok.

Huge Serbian cevapi burgers for lunch one day. They're more like sausage patties than hamburgers.

Downtown Belgrade.

We spent the rest of our time in Belgrade exploring the city. Unfortunately, the weather was dismal the entire time we were there. Rainy, cloudy, and dark the entire time. If the sun came out it was only briefly. It just left an impression of Belgrade being gloomier and greyer than it probably is. There is a large downtown area with pedestrian streets and hundreds of restaurants, but the architecture errs a bit on the side of feeling run down. The restaurants weren’t packed, but they always had patrons. Even in the afternoon it seemed that people’s favorite activity was grabbing a drink at an outdoor table and working their way through a pack of cigarettes. But the restaurants were trendy and interesting. They did have very interesting atmospheres if you could look past the smoke. Also in the downtown area is Belgrade Fortress, which was a nice place to walk around. It’s right on the river and on top of a huge hill so you can see all around. 

It was Travis’ birthday while we were in Belgrade, so we tried to do something special that day. We started out with lunch at a quirky restaurant that had an opera/theater theme. We got the soup as an appetizer, which was a mistake, because we were full by the time the main course arrived. We couldn’t finish the main course, so they were convinced we didn’t like it. We tried to convince them otherwise, but I don’t think they believed us.

That afternoon we tried visiting the Tesla museum (Nikola Tesla was Serbian, and they are very proud of that fact). Unfortunately, we arrived only to find out that you had to have made a reservation, so we walked all the way back towards downtown again.

In the early evening we went on a guided tour. Our tour guide took us around the neighborhood, told us about some of the history of Belgrade, and we made a few stops, one of which was at a rakija distillery for a tasting. Rakija is the national drink of Serbia and made from fruit, typically plumbs, but we also tried an apricot one that was quite good. We continued the tour, where she pointed out some recommend restaurants and bars and we ended up at one of her favorites where we had a beer and talked for a while longer about Belgrade and Serbia. Afterwards she dropped us off just up the street from where we had dinner reservations.

Our Serbian dinner plate for two on Travis' birthday. Lots and lots of meat.

We went to Tri šešira (“Three Hats”) for dinner, a very old and very famous restaurant on one of Belgrade’s few cobblestone streets. They specialize in traditional Serbian fare so of course we had to split a bottle of Serbian wine and a giant plate of grilled meat for two. There was a selection of everything on there, from the simple cevapi (like a grilled sausage) to fillet mignon and pork ribs. There was no way that we were going to finish it, but we had to get dessert after we were done. We went for the Belgrade cream pie, a light vanilla cream pipped between two pastry squares. The best part of dinner was when Travis was serenaded by an accordion player singing, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” after learning that we were from the US. I guess he thought it would make us think of home.

Being serenaded to "Somewhere over the rainbow" at dinner.

After dinner we had one last stop. I had found a speakeasy bar called Druid. It’s one of those bars where you’re not really supposed to know it’s there. The only marker on the black door was a little flask icon. They only take reservations and we probably got the last two spots for that night. The whole place only seats about 12 people and everything is decked out in prohibition-era décor, all the way down to their vinyl record sound system. The drinks were pretty good, but they took forever. I think you’re paying for the show of making the fancy cocktail just as much as the cocktail itself. But it was a nice place. The funniest part was that at some point in the evening the bartenders asked us how we knew about their bar and I told them that I found them online after a lot of searching. They almost seemed offended and they gave each other a look that almost said, ok, it’s time to relocate. 

Part of the Belgrade Fortress complex.

When our time in Belgrade was up, we were happy to be moving on. My memories of Belgrade evoke thoughts of grey and smokey. It was a city that had an interesting atmosphere of both grungy and trendy. There was always another quirky restaurant to discover or a hidden alley lined with a half dozen little bars. I’m sure if we returned in the summer the city would feel a lot more alive and vibrant, so perhaps our timing just wasn’t ideal. But we were leaving Serbia for Montenegro, and we were looking forward to the upcoming change, whatever that would be.

Leaving for Montenegro from Belgrade's Topčider train station.