Who says that the sequel is never as good as the original?
Returning to Belgrade marked a homecoming for me to the Balkans, the place where the seeds of my solo backpacking journey took root. My first trip saw me racing through 12 countries in one month, allotting me only 2-3 nights in each capital city. It was a whirlwind of an adventure and offered definitive proof that the travel bug had given me a life-time infection, but I made a lot of mistakes on that trip and those 12 capitals were badly in need of a do-over. (I also made some great friends- Bojana in Belgrade; Kokolo and Mladen in Podgorica- and I was eager to see them again.)
For this second go-around I promised myself not to rush; two nights would lengthen into four or five. I also wasn’t going to cram so many countries into one itinerary. This time I began in Belgrade, after which I headed south to Podgorica before taking the bus to the only previously-unvisited capital on this trip, Tirana. After Tirana, I made a surprise pit stop in Prishtina, before wrapping things up in Skopje and flying back to New York.
I found that blogging had also changed the way I travel, especially when it comes to taking photos. First, I began taking many, many, MANY more photos. That church in the morning and later illuminated at night; this monument from all angles; every stall at the market was worthy of documentation. I wanted to have the greatest freedom possible when selecting photos for a post and I could not do that if I returned home with only twenty pictures. Second, I started taking photos of the most mundane things, like this bus sign above. Now I wouldn’t have to remember the bus line or write down the time table for departures. Everything is saved in the cloud and I can share the info quickly and easily in a post. My photo library has become an encyclopedia/reference library of the nitty gritty details from every capital I’ve visited. I highly recommend the technique to anyone else.
Before writing this latest installment for the blog, I returned to the one (only one?!) post I had written about Belgrade from my initial visit. I couldn’t believe this was all I previously had to say about Serbia’s capital! Just as my traveling skills and style had evolved, so too was my writing coming into its own. I was very focused on the details of museum hours and admission fees back then, but often missed the bigger picture of why I was visiting and what I had taken away from the experience. This time I vowed to do better.
Ch-ch-changes
Note: In Serbia, signs/menus/written text may be transcribed in the Cyrillic and/or Latin alphabets. During the Yugoslavia-Era, Serbian was written in Cyrillic and that’s all many of the older generations know how to read and write. In modern times, Serbia has moved away from the Cyrillic alphabet, and coupled with the proliferation of English, most young people read and write their native tongue using the Latin alphabet. It’s definitely still helpful to brush up on your Cyrillic before visiting though.
Double Note: Just a friendly reminder for those whose Yugoslavian history is a little rusty: the former-Yugoslavia was comprised of the present-day countries of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia.
Трг републике/Trg republike (Republic Square) is the central heartbeat of Belgrade. On my first trip to the capital, I arrived in the evening and immediately made my way to Republic Square to grab some dinner. The area was jam-packed with people dancing to the Salsa music that was blasting from loudspeakers placed around the square. Shops were full of customers, restaurants and sidewalk cafes didn’t have an empty seat to spare and this American got swept up into the magic that is Belgrade at night.
The center piece of Republic Square is the Споменик Кнезу Миханлу/Spomenik knezu Milailu (Prince Mihailo Monument). Completed in 1882, the statue is one of the oldest surviving monuments in Serbia and is a protected symbol of the city. People lounge around the pedestal morning, noon and night and if you need to designate a meeting spot, this is the one place in the capital that everyone knows.
Round Two of Republic Square was quite a different experience. Gone were the salsa dancers, restaurants and hordes of people traversing the the crossroads of Belgrade. The entire area was under construction and receiving a facelift. In particular, some of the damage to the monument sustained during the NATO bombings had to be meticulously restored.
What if this had been my first impression of Belgrade and not the lively scene I witnessed before? How would this have shaped my feelings about the Serbian capital? Would my enthusiasm have been tempered? This experience serves as reminder that we will all interact with the same city differently, and not simply because we have divergent interests, opinions and points of view.
Cities are not static objects. Cities are not inert like the concrete, steel, bricks and iron used to build them. Cities are living organisms, ever-evolving and changing. We often don’t notice the small changes in our hometowns because they occur so gradually that we have time to adjust, but we aren’t given such a luxury when traveling. Returning somewhere more than a year after a previous visit can leave our memories at war with the reality staring us in the face. Sometimes we only have a five day snapshot of a city and that is the image that will stay with us for the rest of our lives. This return visit allowed me to take a second picture and recalibrate my personal image of what Belgrade could be.
Народни музеј у Београду/Narodni muzej u Beogradu (National Museum in Belgrade)
Sometimes change happens for the better.
The National Museum had been a great source of consternation for the Serbian people for a good 15 years. The institution is the oldest museum in Belgrade, having been founded in 1844. It has occupied its current location on Republic Square since 1950, and in 2003 the permanent collection was placed in storage as the museum was closed for much-needed renovations.
Fast-forward 10 years and the museum still had not reopened. Construction constantly stopped and started and an op-ed piece in the local paper titled, “A decade of cultural genocide against the Serbs” riled up the population. By the time I first visited Belgrade, the National Museum had become a punchline. “When will it open?” I asked someone at the hostel. “I don’t know. Tomorrow? Never?” was the sarcastic reply.
Well, in June 2018 the impossible DID happen and the National Museum finally reopened mere months before my second visit. And there’s the road I almost didn’t take peaking around the bend again.
After all the build-up, how was the actual museum, you ask? It’s all a very classy affair with plenty of in-depth signage in both Serbian and English. Serbia’s history is chronicled well until about the 20th Century, but I suppose you are expected to pop over to the Museum of Yugoslavia/The House of Flowers to learn about Tito and the rise and fall of the former nation that once incorporated Serbia.
Personally, I’m far more interested in 20th/21st-Century history, but what did wow me about the National Museum was the art collection on the top floors. Of special interest were the rooms featuring socialist art from the Yugoslav-Era. Similar, yet still distinct from Soviet art (no, Yugoslavia was not part of the USSR; it wasn’t even a communist country, but a socialist one), some of the murals were breathtaking.
The National Museum also houses a sizable collection of turn-of-the-twentieth-century art, which was clearly more influenced by Western European artists than the socialist art later influenced by Serbia’s easterly neighbors. Belgrade is often referred to as the crossroads between Western and Eastern Europe, and nowhere is there greater proof of that than in the nation’s artwork.
Some things do stay the same
On my second visit to Belgrade I didn’t quickly make a beeline to Republic Square again, but rather to my favorite spot in the city: Trpković Bakery. Going strong since 1905, Trpković has the best burek in the Balkans- quite the controversial statement, I know. Burek is everywhere in the former-Yugoslavia and is made in a “pie” shape with layers of flakey dough filled with either cheese, potatoes, meat, spinach or pumpkin. In Serbia, it is often covered in a runny sour yogurt-type sauce.
Burek is the ultimate anti-dieting food and I don’t understand how everyone in Belgrade stays so thin when they line up for burek each morning.
Luckily, nothing had changed at Trpković Bakery and the burek (and other pastries) were just as wonderful as I had remembered them.
As Serbia shutdown during this corona pandemic, I worried for the fate of Trpković. Would they survive? While recently checking in with Bojana to see how she was holding up, she also assured me that Trpković was doing just fine as bakeries and burek were deemed absolutely essential businesses! Please Belgrade, in this small regard you must never, ever change!
