Sunday, July 8, 2018

Day 77 - Belgrade

We had been warned that we would be woken by the church bells that are rung loudly at 7.30am everyday so it was a pleasant surprise that on Sundays they aren't rung until 8.30am.

We went to the main square to join the culture and heritage walking tour and it was a small group of only five of us. We were a little concerned in the beginning that it was going to be a bit dry but our guide quickly warmed up and the small group made it very interactive and interesting and it ended up being one of the better walking tours we have been on.
We walked past many sites that were significant in the war that took place with the break up of Yugoslavia, it has been interesting to visit all of the resulting countries and to hear each side's perspective on who was in the right and who were the bad guys (no, they don't all agree!).
We visited the Church of St. Sava, one of the largest churches in the world, parts of which were still under construction.
After the tour we walked to the cute tourist strip of cafes and restaurants on the cobblestone strip of Skadarlija before continuing onto the fortress. We generally don't visit the fortresses as every town and city usually has one and they vary from being incredibly well restored to a pile of rubble, but Belgrade's fortress was known to have spectacular views.
The fortress is high up (as you would expect as having a good vantage point was obviously paramount for fighting off foreign invaders) and on the junction of the River Sava and the Danube. The view is superb and also takes in new Belgrade on the other side of the river making us realize that Belgrade was much larger than we thought. We hurried back from the fortress as black clouds gathered and we could hear thunder rumbling around us, we made it back to our apartment just before the rain set in.


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