Holy crap… I’m at it again! I can’t believe it’s been a year and a half since my last international trip! What is a wanderer with cabin fever to do while waiting for the rest of the planet to come to their senses? This wanderer just said “whatever” and now, holy crap… I’m in the Balkans! At the time of planning, two of the countries I’m visiting on this trip were only two out of the six in the world that were even open, and Serbia made the cut because they had only minimal restrictions. In fact, I had to get a test before coming here, but no one in immigration even bothered to ask for it. They simply looked for the first page in my passport with available space (not an easy task with my passport) and stamped away.

I’m starting this ten week adventure in Belgrade, the capitol of Serbia, also once the capitol of Yugoslavia. If former communist blok cities that are very rough around the edges are what you’re looking for, then Belgrade is a great option. The city is acutely divided by the Sava river with medieval and Austro-Hungarian architecture on one side, and stark grey Stalinesque behemoths on the other, while the beautiful Danube flows by the north end of town.

The start of any site seeing in Belgrade has to start with Belgrade fortress at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers. It’s easy to see why it was built here. It was originally started by the Celts, heavily expanded by the Romans, but also passed through Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and many other hands. This place has seen a LOT of action over the centuries!

Also at the fortress is the Ruzica church which has a very interesting set of chandeliers made by Serbian soldiers during the first world war, constructed entirely of swords, knives, artillery parts, and shell casings. Zoom in to the picture below to make out some of the details.

Speaking of churches, Belgrade hosts some beautiful orthodox churches. Just a block or so from my hostel is the Serbian Orthodox church dedicated to archangel Michael. Some very important Serbians are buried inside, but unfortunately, they wouldn’t let me in because I was wearing shorts and as its been blistering hot here to the tune of 100° (no exaggeration), I wasn’t about to change.

As it turned out, that was the only church that refused me entry. Further east were the St Marks church, the final resting place of king Dusan from the 14th century, and the Temple of St Sava, which is either the biggest or second biggest orthodox cathedral in the world depending on which reference you’re looking up. In any case, the place is massive. Apparently it’s still not finished either. Work keeps getting interrupted by wars, but they hope to have it finished soon. It’s difficult to tell from the pics, but the golden artwork covering the whole interior is all mosaic. It’s really incredible!

As I said before, Belgrade is a mix of classical and stark communist architecture and here are two great examples. The first building in the pics below is the Serbian parliament building, the second is the “palace” of Serbia where most of the governments cabinet committees reside. Big difference!

Here’s one of the more interesting examples of communist architecture, the Genex Tower, also known as the west gate. The top either was or was supposed to be a restaurant back in the day, but is abandoned now. Locals joke that it was also supposed to rotate, but never worked. LOL It’s really run down and neglected and the half sleeping security guard told me I absolutely could NOT go to the top, but I managed to sneak in the other tower and was surprised to realize that it’s full of occupants. I couldn’t access the restaurant, but got some horrible views of the opposite tower through a crusty yellow window in the lobby of the 30th floor. On the way down I couldn’t figure out the foreign numbering system in the elevator so I ended up pushing too many buttons. A resident got in with me on the 23rd floor and noticed. The conversation went like this (him with a very thick Serbian accent)… “Foreygner?”, “Yes, sorry”, “It’s okyay. Yelevwyators dyifferent here”, “Yes, yes they are”. When the door finally opened on the ground floor we said a friendly goodbye and off I went. He never even asked where I was from. LOL

A grim reminder of Serbia’s turbulent past sits downtown as well. The former Yugoslavian Ministry of Defence building, which was bombed by NATO in 1999.

About 16km to the south is the Avala communications tower. It was built in the early 1960’s and also destroyed by NATO in 1999. They spent the next 10 years rebuilding it, and made it 2 meters taller this time. Take that NATO! It was especially fun walking a mile up the hill in 98° to get to it, but the views, and the wind at the top cooled me off pretty quick!

The Museum of Yugoslavia has everything you need to learn about the history of this region before it broke up into six different countries. Most recently Yugoslavia was run by Josip Broz Tito starting shortly after WWII until his death in 1980. His death marked the beginning of the end of Yugoslavia, things kind of fell apart after his departure. He was pretty unique among communist leaders in that he was responsible for running the Nazis out of the region, without the aid of the Red Army and as a result, was independent of Stalin. I can’t quite make out if people here liked living in communist Yugoslavia or not. Tito was definitely loved, though, and his house is now the museum and his mausoleum.

I also made a couple of day trips from Belgrade. First, south to the town of Topola to visit Oplenac, where Serbian ruler Karadorde plotted and succeeded in driving the Ottomans out of Serbia in 1815, after nearly 500 years. It’s in a beautiful forested area surrounded by vineyards. There’s a couple of small museums with lots of family portraits, but the main attraction was the Holy Martyr George church, the family mausoleum. These orthodox churches are a different breed for sure.

My final day I headed east to see the Smederevo Fortress. Smederevo was the capitol of Serbia in medieval times before the Ottomans. The fortress was the royal court at that time and during WWII it was used by Germany to store massive amounts of ammunition. In 1941, all that ammunition exploded destroying most of the fortress and most of the town with it. Roughly 5500 people died and debris was found 10km away! Today it’s been mostly restored and is a really cool place to explore on the bank of the Danube.

If you made it this far, congratulations! I feel like this has been a really long post, but I’m just so excited to be walking the earth again! Only one of the sites I planned on seeing was closed and it’s been just ridiculously hot, but I think this trip has gotten off to a really good start. Tomorrow I head northwest for a few days so stay tuned…