Tales from the Road: Belgrade

These days I am travelling Europe so this blog will be more or less travel oriented (don't worry I will still share some cool music).

Right now I am leaving Belgrade and I will share with you what I tasted in it. Me and my girlfriend visited the Beer fest, that one big castle, alternative zone, and we got lost looking for House of Flowers (Tito's grave), walking through most of the city center in the process.

A short overview: We heard lots of great music (mostly old rock and techno), drank good beer and enjoyed a refreshlingly non-turistic city.

We arrived to Belgrade wednesday evening after a 7-8 hour long train ride, which was quite exhausting, but we still had enough energy to find our apartma (Lomina Studio), which was in an once rustic house, which is now slowly falling apart. Inside it was very comfy though and we are planning to come back for New year. Very close to it is a small pub Publin with good draft dark beer, which was like 1€ 0.5l. They were playing mostly old rock, but not the typical fare - I was unable to recognize a single song. All in all, great.

We still had enough energy to visit the Beer fest, which can be described with just one word: BIG! There was a lot of people, a lot of overpriced beer (from crafy beers to more mainstream fare, they even had fucking Laško haha). We came when Van Gogh was playing and it was quite nice. Since entrace is free I warmly recommend it.

The next day we went hungover as fuck on a walk through the city. We walked through the pictureesque waterfront to the castle, which overlooks the merging of rivers Sava and Donava. Fortress itself is a mix of various styles - there are a Roman well, Ottoman rozettes and statues of various local heroes. In the castle a military museum can be found, but it was closed due to renovation. Inside castle grounds is a small park, full of locals and tourists. There was everything - from small souvenir shops to old people playing chess.

We also walked past Savamala (to which we returned in the evening), Belgrade alternative district. It's very small (compared to Metelkova), but it has some nice grafitti. I didn't like it much, for reasons I will describe later.

Then we went on our small Odisejada, trying to find the House of Flowers (Marshall Tito's grave). We had left our map back home and got hopelessly lost just 500m away from it. We learned that Belgrade truly isn't a city for pedestrians.

In the evening we finally returned to Savamala, which was now full with people calmly chatting and sipping wine. It looked like a nice city center bar, like what a bourgeois kid would design after seeing Metelkova once. At least the music was nice, chill alternative techno.

So, now I am on a train slowly travelling towards Sofia, see y'all soon.

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