Belgrade Tips & articles

Jul 27, 2009 6:00:30 AM

Travel secret #5: Belgrade, Serbia

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Convergence of Danube and Sava Rivers with New Belgrade beyond from Kalemegdon Citadel.

• Greg Elms
• Lonely Planet Photographer

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Coming in at #5 in Lonely Planet Magazine’s countdown of the best travel secrets is Belgrade in Serbia, as recommended by AA Gill, journalist and author with The Sunday Times and GQ.

It’s not really on anyone’s holiday list, but I was knocked out by Serbia - Belgrade is immensely beautiful. It is on the confluence of two rivers, the Danube and the Sava, and has a fantastic castle, lots of Baroque-influenced architecture, beautiful Orthodox churches and, some rather good communist architecture too, if that’s not an oxymoron. It is lively, full of streets of jolly young bars - one street in particular, Strahinjica Bana, is known as Silicon Valley, because of the quantity and quality of breasts on display. The food is very good - a mixture of the German food that comes down the Danube, and Turkish food that comes up. I would recommend a visit to the former dictator Tito’s grave - his body lies in a beautiful, brutalist modern building, alongside his unparalleled collection of ornamental marathon batons. There was a race run across Yugoslavia on his birthday, and each year a special, ornamental baton was commissioned, which was passed by the sweating youth of the country hand to hand as they ran across the nation, to emphasise its oneness. Tito would then be passed it at the end.

So what came in at #6 in the countdown? And who took out the #4 spot?

Get the full rundown in July’s Lonely Planet Magazine. And if this has given you an appetite for Eastern Europe, grab the latest guidebook and discover the rest.

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