Days 18-19: Belgrade, Serbia

I've fallen a little behind after 3.5 days with friends and family...which has meant more wine and less typing :) I thought I'd sum up Belgrade in one post, and do so by topic instead of as a chronological storyline...

Sierra doing her best "blue steel" as we wait for a taxi

First...our departure from Kotor on Sunday morning:

We wake up early to catch an 8:15am flight and find the weather to be much improved, so I'm able to snap a few shots of the hotel location. We get to the airport 1:45 before the international flight, and find that they don't open ticketing until 90 min ahead, and security until 60 min. Thanks for telling us to be here 2 hrs early, Montenegro air. Don't worry, you didn't charge for bags and we ain't mad atcha. We take off a bit late and have a bumpy ride, but we're off to Belgrade. 

View from our room, to the Bay of Kotor

View from the pier, some beautiful mountains nearby!

Our quaint little hotel

The view of the bay from the air. There are the two islands below!

Belgrade city and architecture:

We meet up with David (aka Davor), a co-worker of Sierra's who is taking a month to visit home. He tours us around the city, and has arranged for us to see a couple of concerts and to try some Serbian food. We get his input on the war, and it is definitely educational to hear another side of the story. His hometown is far to the East, near Romania, so they weren't directly involved in the war...but they of course were affected, and were stereotyped by Americans when they came to the states. It seems Americans thought Serbs were "the bad guys" in a war where there really was no bad or good. 

Here are some sights from the walking tour... 

St. Mark's Church...it was mostly empty inside while going through renovations. 

The walls of Kalemegdan. This fortress/castle was very large and expansive (and impressive). Maybe it was because of the weather, but I felt like we were at a Scottish castle. The pics don't capture it well, but here are a few. 

The wooden bricks on a bridge over the moat. A tree or something appears to have pushed these up into a big lump. 

A closer look at the bricks. We didn't realize they were made of wood at first. Cool huh?

This is the bohemian, artists street called Skadarlija in Belgrade. Great food and cool artwork on the buildings...and as you can see a pretty street to stroll along. 

A view of Skadarlija facing the other direction.  That's our wonderful friend and guide, David, showing us the city. 

The historic Hotel Mockba (Moscow), where visiting dignitaries often stay in the main part of town. 

St. Sava - it was also empty inside. I asked David why they were both empty and he explained that Sava was started in the 1930's and had to be stopped for WWII. Under communist rule, it was not continued.  In the 80's it restarted, then was stopped for the war in the Balkans. Now it is once again under construction. Good things come to those who wait I hope!

The food of Belgrade:

Our first stop with David was a little pastry and pizza shop. When we walked in, everything looked amazing.  David ordered us something I couldn't pronounce in several tries, but basically it's a flaky pastry full of meat, which he says is usually good for the end of a night of drinking (or 4th meal as some may call it). He gets us each a drinkable greek yogurt and tells us that we need to drink the yogurt while we eat. Although I wanted to order everything, we just had these pastries and loved them.  

That thing on the top is what we ate. Multiple times. 

It was rainy and chilly in Belgrade, so we spent a lot of time drinking Cappucino or Raki (sounds like "rrrah-KEE-yuh"), which is flavored brandy. David had some good quince brandy, but we also tried raspberry, plum, apricot, pear and walnut. Some were good, some tasted like fruit juice, some warmed your insides like a strong whisky, and some tasted like cough syrup. Two days of it did start to take its toll though, as we were essentially sipping 80-proof liquor after noon each day. We were good sports and tried many flavors...and may need a couple of days off ;)

Our first dinner at "tri sesira" (three hats) on Skadarlija. We try some more delicious food I can't pronounce. One was cheese and meat rolled and then fried. One was just some kind of delicious sausage, and the last was a meat and cabbage dish.

At Tri Sesira, David coached us on what to order, but he could apparently sense our apprehension about the dish he described as pig fat jello with meat chunks in it...so he didn't order that. At the next table over, a large man sat alone with two huge beers, and summoned the Serbian version of mariachis to his table to play romantic songs. Our guess is that he was heartbroken. He was pretty fuhshnickered, and sang along with the musicians who were a bit out of their element. 

After dinner we went back to David's place to have a drink and get ready for some "Turbo Folk" at his cousin Ivana's favorite bar. 

Before turbo folk music we stopped for some upscale fusion-type dining. It was delicious, and featured a live band playing some old-school Serbian music. We drank Raki apricot, walnut and raspberry.  I liked the walnut, but we all loved the raspberry because it tasted like fruit juice. That could cause some trouble!

After the concert we would go to the pastry shop and order more meat pastries, greek yogurt and delicious pizza slices. On our last morning we tried more traditional Serbian comfort food and I had a glass of Raki with David before heading to the airport. 

The music of Belgrade:

We hit up a local bar with David and his cousin, Ivana, who had arranged for the table right in front. The place was very smoky, but once the music picked up people put out their cigarettes to start dancing.  The music was awesome, the singers were talented and we had a blast! We have several videos to share, but essentially turbo folk sounds a bit like Mediterranean style music with fast keyboard/accordion music and impressive vocals that we couldn't understand but all the patrons sang along with. 

Night two, we see "S.A.R.S" with David and his other cousin. They are more like Serbian reggae-alternative and are really good. They sound like Slightly Stoopid and have quite a following. We had a blast, witnessed a proposal during a slow song and sang along to the only song we kind of knew...which was about a guy who wants to eat but all he has in his apartment is moldy bread (nom nom nom).

All in all we had a blast in Belgrade. It was a different visit than our past several cities: our first real party nights and sleeping in late.  David was a fantastic host and it was nice to see a city with a local. Thanks David!  On to Greece :)