Charming Belgrade

Belgrade, or Beograd, is the "white city," possibly so named because of the white limestone that once made up its walls. Today, it carries the name through in its zoo, famous for having many white/albino animals. In fact, just as the tour director was telling me this, from our back seat on the bus we spied a white emu over the zoo fence.

Once the capital of Yugoslavia, Belgrade is now the capital of Serbia. Actually, this cruise visited four capital cities just along the river (also Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest), six including the pre- and post-cruise cities of Sofia and Prague. That's a lot.

The city is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube Rivers, making it a strategically important location. Apparently no civilization that passed by here disagreed, and the city was seized and taken, destroyed and rebuilt, numerous times, from early Celtic and Roman days, through the Huns and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and Slavs. Not a place I knew much about and it certainly doesn't make our news stories very often. But Serbia has a population of about 7.5 million people, and is well-known for sports and Nikola Tesla. We visited the new cathedral and the old fortress, then had free time. 

 The new St. Sava Cathedral is still under construction, but reportedly will be the largest orthodox cathedral in the world when it is finished. Amazingly, it is largely financed by donations. It's beautiful. But on the outside, it looks like most orthodox cathedrals. On the inside though....

These may be the most amazing mosaics I have ever seen. Yes, tiny tessellated tiles, some sparkle, some covered in gold leaf. And they are EVERYWHERE! This one was sitting low near the main entry so that people can see it and admire the incredible workmanship.

This is down in the crypt, which is complete and hosting liturgy now, which we did hear a bit of. Yes, that is all gold leaf. It was mind-blowing. I cannot imagine what the final upstairs will look like. What wasn't in gold leaf was painted with gold or tiled in intricate mosaics, also with gold leaf. Absolutely incredible. Also incredible? When our guide sang a bit upstairs, demonstrating the remarkable acoustics. Powerful.

We had a bit of a walking tour, stopping for drinks. All signs in the city are in both cyrillic and latin alphabets, and both are interchangeable for Serbians. Most children learn English in schools too. The cosmopolitanism of much of the rest of the world always makes me both sad and jealous.

 We ended at the Kalemegdan Fortress, mostly 17th century, but with some remnants from the 13th-15th centuries. It overlooks the confluence of the rivers and is stunning. And we visited on a Sunday, so the park inside was packed with people, picnicking, strolling, playing basketball, having good family time. 

The Danube is in front, the Sava on the left. There also is a famous statue here, right behind where I'm standing, with its back to the park. Those photos are lost, but the story is that the statue was, shall we say, very accurate. At the time, that was not well appreciated by certain citizens. In the end, the statue was turned, to display toward the Croatians across the river.

I wandered downtown for our afternoon free time, just enjoying being outside and exploring a city that absolutely charmed me; Belgrade is high on my list of places to return. That evening I missed the folklore show, again dealing with office things and prep for the following day, but we then had a good travelers' corner gathering, despite some sound issues, followed by another good group dinner, and then some work with the tour directors. It had been a successful day related to outstanding logistics: two of my group were still missing luggage at the start of the day but one was successfully reclaimed from the airport in Belgrade and the other was finally found and would be waiting in Budapest, while a third guest had been to the clinic and was feeling much better. Yay!