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Day 1 in Serbia is a wrap. Almost. It’s 7pm as I write this and the plan here is to either go out to the Belgrade Beer Fest with 100,000 of our new compatriots or find a raft along the Danube or Sava rivers that pass through Belgrade. But after 14.5 hours of travel on three flights, we’ll see how long our night lasts after the final one lands in Belgrade at 8:25 on Friday morning.
But the long day of travel was worth it. Serbia and its people have lived up to the clamor of the people until now. The generosity and selflessness of this country is already showing. We were greeted at the airport and driven to our Airbnb by two locals: fellow showman Miroslav, who you know from Serbia Corner, and Luka, who you know on Twitter as @Lykos011. They took us to our apartment near downtown Belgrade and started giving us a feel for the city we would call home for the next week.
After paying our host all in cash, we settled down and went in search of food. Miroslav directed us to a nearby Burek place from Airbnb. Burke is…interesting. It’s a thin, flaky dough filled with meat, cheese or potatoes, sort of scone-ish. I think it’s the perfect drunk food. Our cheese is filled with cheeses that seem to come from the feta family. At the suggestion of Goran tour operator Goran, who runs a tour company here in Belgrade, we got the curd side. He is an absolute legend who knows everything about everything. Obviously, you have to eat (drink) yogurt with Burke, which we did. They drink it from the container like a chaser. Again, it’s interesting.
Goran took us through downtown Belgrade and what I call the city’s market square. If you are traveling with your girlfriend, wife, partner, whatever, come here. We walked through Hotel Moskva, the oldest hotel in Belgrade and the main squares of the city – the architecture here is beautiful along the way – and wound up in Belgrade’s oldest restaurant, “?.” That’s all it says. “?” The story, as Gordan puts it, is that the owner wanted to name the restaurant across the street “Saborna Church,” but the church wouldn’t say so. So just “?” It was built in 1823 and the roofs are now black from all the tobacco smoke that has been blown over the centuries.
We drank beer and ate meat and cheese. It was a great first meal in Belgrade.
Next was the Belgrade Fortress. Simply put, it is the historic heart of the city, which has been at the center of Serbian conflicts for years. Now, it’s a park/museum that reminds you of Serbia’s past. As Goran put it, if you take the fort, you take the city. Inside the fort are still walls with indentations from cannon balls. There are still bullet holes in the walls of some buildings. Monuments refer to Serbia’s past. There are also retired fighter jets and tanks on campus. As you walk towards the end of the fortifications, you will discover why it was such an attractive target during the war. For better photos of the fort and everything else we saw, check out Cal Sorbos’ photo journal from Day 1.
We spent the rest of the day on the river. Belgrade is situated on two huge rivers, Sava and Danube, and these rivers form the center of the city. For centuries, they have been the fabric of Belgrade but also connected it to the rest of the world. On the banks of the river there are restaurants, bars and beaches that attract every walk of life: men, women, young, old, families, parties and those old people who are skinnier than skin and walk fast with the rope every day. Their stomachs hang over their waists. You know the type.
Then, in front of the bungee jump on Sava, we met Ognjen. Not only does he own a bungee, we learn, but he’s also the “Nikola Tesla of bungee jumping.” That’s the exact quote. It is what it calls itself. I think it goes back to how he invented and manufactures the best bungee cord in the world. People from all over the world also come to him to train bungee jumping certified.
Ongen also said he was a former world champion and gold medalist swimmer. I think there’s a lot of other stuff he doesn’t want to reveal to us – just my reading – but the guy was a legend and a big fan of nuggets, legitimately good nuggets. We had Serbian burgers at a restaurant that may or may not have owned it next to the bungee jump. Amazing things.
You can get a real feel for Belgrade by walking along the river and lake from Sava. The people of the city are very generous and hospitable. I was offered free beer, food and conversation just for being a tourist, which seemed to be obvious to all the locals. They want to know where they are from and what they are doing. When you say you’re from Denver and cover the Nuggets and Nikola Jokic, they’ll offer you more beer and more food. Serbia is a basketball country. It’s the No. 1 sport here, and you feel that way on the river. Outdoor courts are everywhere. Maybe just today we walked and drove around 10 and kids were dribbling basketballs down the sidewalk.
Many parts of Belgrade will make you feel as if you have been transported back to the Soviet era, from the streets and shops to our apartments, architecture, historical landmarks and the older generation. You’ll feel like you’ve gone back decades. There are no Ubers in Belgrade or Serbia. Taxis that can only pay in cash. It’s surprisingly old school.
But it is clear that she is trying to modernize the city. At one point we took a taxi to a new development called “Belgrade Waterfone”. They compared him to Lohi in Denver. It is full of new apartments and shops. It gives you a very Denver feel. But, as Goran told us, real Serbian people don’t live there. Even if they offered him an apartment for free, he would never live there. The people prefer to live in an apartment or house built 200 years ago without any air conditioning. Such is this culture. They don’t need or want the luxuries of life. They want to live it the way it was meant to be lived. And really, I respect it.
The first day a few of us ended up on a raft on the river was incredible. I will update this at 4 am local time. It’s just trying to connect with the culture here. Maybe more on that tomorrow in Chapter 2.
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