May 19 2024 Belgrade Serbia

 Belgrade Serbia

May 19 2024

Today we docked in Belgrade which is the capital of Serbia.  The total population of Serbia is  7.1 million of which 2 million live in Belgrade.  So Belgrade represents close to 1/3 of all of the Serbian population.  As Serbia is not part of the Schengen area we had to take our passports with us when we left the ship to go on our city tour.  

The city of Belgrade is very old and has a lot of very quirky buildings and things about it.  One of them is that every where you look there are these ancient old trolleys clanging along on trolley tracks.  These are offset by a lot of ultra modern high rise buildings and very up scale shopping malls.  Right downtown is a very vibrant walking mall which was very crowed with people.   

The first stop of the tour was the Belgrade fortress.  It is located on top of a very large hill and has a commanding view of the Danube river.  As you walk up to the fortress there is a very large memorial which was donated to Serbia by the people of France to celebrate their friendship and cooperation during WW1.  Today it is a large park and military museum.  Out front are a bunch of early tanks and artillery pieces.   We walked up to the edge of the cliff and overlooked the city below.  It was a tremendous view.  

The second stop of the tour was the cathedral of St Sava.  It is an orthodox  cathedral so it does not have pews in side but is a standing  cathedral.  The main floor area is over 3000 square meters making it one of the largest orthodox churches in the world.  It is on the site of a church which dated back to pre-Ottoman times.  The current church was started in 1935 but work was halted because of WW2.  It was opened to the public in 2004 and was just recently finished.  All of the gold mosaics where computer designed and each tile custom made to fit.  Yes is is incredibly beautiful and a magnificent work of art however it does not have the same kind of feel of the cathedrals which took hundreds of years to build and have been loved for centuries.  

Belgrade was the birth place of Nikola Tesla and there is a museum to his honor here in Belgrade. Unfortunately we did not get to see it.  A good reason to come back.

Terry