"By walking, we can afford to eat"

#BalkanBants - Belgrade

11/07/2015 - 12/07/2015 35 °C
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And so it begins.

Having been many months in the planning, I arrived on the Saturday night in Belgrade, capital of Serbia, to meet up with my good friend Johan, who I hadn't seen in over three years.

My time in Belgrade was short - lasting less than 20 hours, but it was enough to get a feel for the city.

View over the Sava and Great War Island

We began our day by leaving the hotel and walking over to the Kalemegdan - the fortress over the city with views of the confluence of the Sava and the Danube. It was only 9:30am, but with our bags and the hot weather things were already getting sweaty - and this was just the beginning.
As we headed back off into the city we followed the main street - Kneza Mihailova down towards Republic Square, before we headed down to the bus station to get our tickets for the afternoon bus to Sarajevo. Successfully buying these, we then headed off to the landmark of the city, the St. Sava's Cathedral.

St. Sava's Cathedral

Chilling out around the cathedral we then made the long hilly walk towards the Museum of Yugoslav History, which contains the tomb of the leader of Yugoslavia - Tito.

Tito's Tomb

Having seen everything we wanted, we then headed back towards the bus station to take our late afternoon bus, before stopping off for food.

By this stage we were feeling very tired due to the heat and heavy bags we were carrying, but as we still had enough energy, as well as plenty of time we decided to walk, which as the dinars were running out was probably a good thing - I then positively announced that by walking, instead of taking a bus, we had enough money left to eat! After walking past many of the blown up buildings and having a bite to eat, we then made our way to the bus station to take our bus to the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

Standard Belgrade

In review I'd say that Belgrade was interesting, however it was very big, quite shabby and could really do with a metro. Unfortunately there just wasn't that much to see, and what was there was all spread out, meaning less than one day was plenty!