Visit this underrated European city before it becomes the next big thing

3 months ago 28

Belgrade doesn’t have the pomp of Rome or Paris, the literary familiarity of London, or the cultural kudos of Athens. It isn’t pretty. It doesn’t have a distinctive look or a polished reputation.

But all that is good news, because it means Belgrade has some of Europe’s lowest costs and fewest crowds. Tourist visitors to all of Serbia hover just over two million; neighbouring Croatia attracts ten times as many.

Get there now before Belgrade becomes the next trendy European getaway. The Serbian capital is booming, its inhabitants ambitious and defiant of negative stereotypes. You’ll get new perspectives on an old continent, sights without queues, gritty history, and throbbing contemporary energy.

Belgrade is one of Europe’s oldest permanently inhabited capital cities but has never been tranquil. Buildings are pockmarked by bombing from its latest conflict following the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

A lot of architectural history has been erased, and Belgrade doesn’t have access to European Union restoration money, yet in places is graced with unexpectedly elegant neoclassical streets and squares.

The interior of the Saint Sava Temple ,encased in glittering gold mosaics, is stunning.

The main monuments are its ruined Serbian-Ottoman-Hapsburg fortress and whopping Saint Sava Temple, the country’s triumphant new expression of Serbian Orthodoxy. Its interior, encased in glittering gold mosaics, is stunning.

Those of a certain age will also appreciate the House of Flowers, mausoleum of Josip Broz Tito, the Yugoslav president who died in 1980. Its architecture and exhibits are a throwback to the 1970s, when socialism and the Iron Curtain preoccupied the news cycle.

But this perennial comeback city feels more about the future these days. Get walking, get talking to locals, get eating, and enjoy the energy and enthusiasms of this buzzing city.

For a start, it has one of Europe’s best live-music and nightlife scenes. Savamala district is the neighbourhood for creative arts and nightlife, in which the latest bars and clubs hunker in down-at-heel Art Nouveau mansions. If you’re a craft-beer or late-night party lover, this is the place to be.

That’s one reason international jetsetters might be arriving soon. Another is the restaurant scene. New Balkan cuisine is attracting increasing notice, Belgrade dining is constantly evolving, and street-food stalls and cafés compete for tastebud attention with Michelin-listed restaurants, of which there are currently 21.

Knez Mihailova Street where locals shop, lick ice creams and sit on café terraces.

Skadarlija is the bohemian quarter, where you can browse art galleries and antique stores and try traditional dishes in taverns. Kosančićev Venac district retains its cobbled streets and nineteenth-century buildings, and has wine bars and esoteric eateries hidden down side alleys.

Take the bus to historic Zemun district for dinner in a local restaurant on the riverbanks. Meanwhile, closer to the city centre, waterfronts are mushrooming with chic apartments and office blocks, shopping malls and regenerated promenades. Belgrade has the longest riverfronts of any city in Europe: 250 kilometres along the Sava and Danube, which meet here.

On top of all that, Belgrade has the usual pleasantries of European capitals: numerous parks, street markets, a royal palace inhabited by the current pretender to the Serbian throne, and pedestrian streets such as Knez Mihailova Street, where locals shop, lick ice creams and sit on café terraces.

There are museums too, of course. The National Museum rumbles through history since prehistoric times, the Museum of Contemporary Art is full of experimental bemusements by Balkan painters and photographers, Nikola Tesla Museum is dedicated to the famous scientist.

The museums give you an alternative look at Europe from a Balkans perspective. So do Serbian cultural monuments such as the vast statue of a cloaked, sword-wielding Stefan Nemanja in Sava Square.

That’s what I like about Belgrade. I’ve heard all about Henry VIII, Louis XIV and William Tell, but I’ve no idea who Stefan Nemanja is. Just as I think I know Europe, Belgrade tells me otherwise. It batters my smug traveller certainties, and gives me something new to think about.

THE DETAILS

FLY
Emirates flies from Melbourne and Sydney to Dubai with onward connections to Belgrade with FlyDubai. See emirates.com

STAY
Hotel Moskva is an elegant, old-time historic hotel with a wellness centre and atmospheric café. Rooms from €115 ($202) a night. See hotelmoskva.rs

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tob.rs

The writer travelled as a guest of Collette.

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