Surprisingly nice day in Belgrade

Surprisingly nice day in Belgrade

Belgrade, Serbia, Europe

Belgrade was a pleasant surprise today. I hadn’t expected much from the city based on what people had told me and what I had read about Belgrade. I had envisioned just another big dirty city, but it really wasn’t. I woke up today at about 9pm after getting to bed at about 2:30am. I was pretty tired, but there was a free walking tour starting at 11am that I wanted to join. I left the hostel, grabbed a muffin and met the group in the middle of Republic Square.

The tour was led by a nice young lady who has been doing this for about two years. The tour was a great way to see Belgrade on a beautiful sunny day. It was really just nice to see the sun for a day too. We walked around the city for a couple of hours, learned about the history of the city from the Ottoman Empire, to the Austro-Hungarian period, to the Yugoslavian period, into the present period. It was interesting to see the different types of architecture in the city from each different time period.

We visited the fortress in the middle of the city where you got a great view of New Belgrade and the island surrounded by the Danube River. It was a great viewpoint to see the confluence of the Danube and the Sava rivers. The Danube was a blue color and the Sava was a brown color, so it was pretty cool to see the two waterways mixing together down river.

I walked around the city for a couple more hours, grabbed a bite to eat, and then went back out to take some night pictures. Overall I’m pretty impressed with Belgrade. I don’t think you need much more than two days to see the city, but it’s worth a visit. Unfortunately, all museums are closed on Mondays so I will miss the Nikola Tesla Museum which I had heard was really interesting. Tomorrow I will be catching a bus to Budapest and since there are only two busses (one in the morning and one at night), I’ll be getting the one at 10am. At least I can expect some nice weather on the ride up there, so hopefully it is a bit quicker and more interesting than the ride here last night!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *