№60 — Belgrade
I still remember that morning roughly 20 years ago, when my dad turned on the morning news and there were images of NATO bombing various targets around Serbia as part of the Kosovo conflict. So it felt a bit strange when we decided to have our Sydney-reunion in Belgrade, leaving me wondering what kind of city Belgrade is.
I was positively surprised. While Belgrade does not have a huge variety of world-renowned cultural insitutions and beautiful old-towns to offer, it developed quite nicely, similar to Warsaw. While some places are definitely strange and not immediately understandable — such as the dinosaur park next to the military museum featuring old tanks in the old castle — Belgrade gives of a pulsating vibe.
As the Balkan in general is highly connected to Austria’s history and Europe’s history in the last 30 years, we also decided to have an educational aspect to our otherwise food-and-bevarge-focused reunion. We joined a tour that explained us more about the background of Serbia and fromer Yugoslavia. We visited Tito’s grave, a collection of all gifts given to him during his reign, and finished off the tour at the former buildings of the Federal Ministry of Defence, which were bombed in 1999 and left as is.
I can highly recommend going to Belgrade. Maybe not for a week but definitely for a weekend. According to our guide, tourism is still in it’s infancy, but it is easy to travel to, everybody speaks English and the food is nice. Just a word of caution: there are certain taxis that are ripping off unsuspecting tourists so always call a reputable company or use Yandex.
Belgrade is easily reachable from most European capitals, with Vienna being served by both Air Serbia and Austrian Airlines several times a day.
