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.Credit: Aleksandar Matić/National Tourism Organisation of Serbia
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.
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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.