Belgrade, Serbia: Part 1

Posted on November 17, 2023  •  14 minutes  • 2798 words

Due to our lack of extended visas, the kids and I were going to extend our ‘leave Turkey by date’ with a few days added onto our 5 day planned Italy trip. So why did I pick Belgrade? Well, it started with a search of direct flights from Ankara, that were outside Turkey and were geographically located between Turkey and Rome (where we were headed to next). Then I narrowed it down to places I hadn’t been before and that had direct flights to Rome. With all those parameters entered into the Sara Mental Travel Computer (SMTC) we landed (pun intended) on Belgrade.

There were mixed emotions going into this trip. The prior week was super busy with work, so I didn’t have a free moment to do any research. The most I had done was before even booking the plan tickets, which consisted of ’things to do in Belgrade with kids’. The google search gave some blogs and I felt like it would work for 4 days. For me, part of the fun of the trip is the research. I really do love it and can do it for hours at night…which is what I did for months before our big trip started. I hated the feeling of going to a new city and not having even the vaguest of plans. And the thought of ‘what if I don’t research it well and we miss something?!’ That has gone away a bit with kids and there are just things we’ll miss because of tired legs or hungry tummies. I do pride myself on my ability to research and plan, but it just wasn’t in the cards for this trip. Worst case we’ll see the rivers, some old buildings, eat some good food and play at parks. The trip surpassed all that, even though expectations were low. And it didn’t help that I had been averaging 6hrs of sleep a night for the last 5 days. But here goes…Belgrade!

The Air Serbia website did not accept my credit card to add a bag and being a 10-day trip, with access to a washing machine in each place, we decided to backpack it. Minimal clothes, but we had a washing machine each place we were staying.

Easy cab and we were at the Ankara airport for the first time. I guess since you need to go through metal detectors to get into malls in Turkey, it made sense you needed it to enter the airport. Fast and easy passport control, another security and we were through the whole thing in 15 minutes.

Expecting no food on the plane, and thinking the PB&Js weren’t going to be enough, we went to a café for sandwiches and cinnamon rolls. Kids weren’t thrilled they had to eat the sandwiches, BEFORE the cinnamon rolls. ‘That makes NO sense Mom!’

Killed some time by walking really far to find a bathroom and playing in the kid area, then over to the gate right as boarding was starting. Easy boarding, especially because we were in row 3. The tablet was taken out of my backpack for some last-minute Harry Potter watching with Dad and not put back in, so my plan of tuning out and letting them watch back to back episodes of The Aquarium, was shot. Max claimed the window, I got the middle, Sam to my right and Ben across the aisle. Overall, a great flight! We had the craziest sunset! As we were taking off, it was nothing more than a pretty pastel sky.

As we continued to rise it got more and more intense with the sun reflecting the pastel colors off the bottom of the clouds.

First below the clouds and then seeing it change and now reflect of the top of the clouds was amazing! Max thought it looked like lava.

Max, Sam and I were amazed, straining to see more and more. And if all that wasn’t enough, then the moon appeared!

Ben felt a bit left out, but quickly got engrossed in some Lord of the Rings and tuned us out.

To my surprise, although maybe it shouldn’t have been, we got ham/cheese/tomato sandwiches. Ben ate his and mine while reading. Between looking out the window, Max wanting to read, Sam wanting to draw and Ben doing his own thing, the 2hrs flight was a breeze.

We landed, walked a decent way through the airport, fast passport control (helps when you are row 3 and kids booked it) and skipped baggage claim. We were outside (freezing our butts off) and waiting for a taxi within 20 minutes of landing. Not too shabby! The line was not short and not moving fast…even though there were plenty of taxis. I think people were just loading slowly. Then a taxi that was waiting to move up, gets out and starts pointing and talking in Serbian. Then a guy next to me points to me. The taxi guy says ‘kids, you?’ and I said ‘yes’ and then he signals for us to walk around the line and get in his cab…basically cutting. No one gave a look or said anything. 1 giant point for Serbia so far. In the cab on our way and the taxi driver gets his phone out, props it up and puts on kids cartoons with songs! Kids are SO into this and the driver just laughed at the 3 of them STARING at his phone. He said ‘me 2 kids’ and showed us a photo. 2 giant points for Serbia!

Our AirBnB host was waiting for us at the place. Quick walk through and we were all in bed within 30 minutes. It was only 6:30pm local time, but Ankara was 2hrs ahead and we were tired. With 4 nights here, I told the kids they could each sleep with me 1 night. Ben jumped at the first night and after tucking in the other 2, we stayed up reading a tour book about the area that was in the apartment.

Sam was up at 4:15am, although so was I. I was magically able to get him back to sleep and he lasted until 7am! Ben and Max were up around 5am and no getting them back to sleep. Max was in a cuddle mood and Ben did some journaling to stay quiet. Really it didn’t last long and they retreated to their room (Sam was in mine) to play.

With my busy week before (as previously mentioned) I had zero time to research Belgrade and was feeling a bit lost. I texted Dan to use his restaurant finding skills to find us a place to eat breakfast, but both places didn’t open until 9am. A bit anxious to get moving, we bundled up and headed out…it was COLD!

I found a close café that opened earlier and had lots of pictures of food, but when we got there, we found out they just had drinks and desserts. I ordered 3 hot chocolates and a cappuccino. When the barista asked for here or take away, Ben just about screamed ‘take away!’. Why my kids are so excited to hold a take away coffee cup, I don’t know. Maybe because I’m super anal about single use cups and have been having constant anxiety attacks about the amount of water bottles used in Turkey? Nah, can’t be that. Warm beverages in hand, we (well I, I guess) decided to head to Skadarska street, a pedestrian street close by.

Google maps was a bit off and routed us through a have decrepit/half still a few stores that looked really new outdoor shopping mall. I can’t exactly explain it, but the weird mix of falling apart, designed in the 80s maybe, but with lots of plants and stores with kinda swanky stuff was just too weird.

We made it to Skadarska street and it was cute. The best part…no one was there at 8:30am on a Saturday! Kids were most interested in the 2 statues we found and a guy that was welding part of a deck. Quick lesson on how welding works and I barely dragged them away. I could see, on a nice fall day, this would be so pleasant to stroll around, stopping in for a coffee as you pleased…on yeah, without kids too.

We wandered for a bit and by then felt one of the restaurants Dan had recommended would be open. It was only about 4 blocks away from we were, but somehow this felt like a marathon to Max. We passed it the first time as the name had changes and Max accused me of making us walk ‘back and forth AND back and forth’, ugh. We finally found it and it was in a half basement with a mishmash of brick/stone walls and brick ceiling. My kind of place. The waitress was a complete angel and adored the kids. They all got French Toast and I got a veggie omelet.

Each meal came with either tea or yogurt. Seemed a bit odd as the 2 options, but we went with 2 of each and got all served in mugs.

While waiting for the food, somehow the talk turned to what would be the worst drink to have come out your nose because you laughed too hard. Not my preferred breakfast topic, but it made the time quite pleasant with minimal ‘stay seated!’ and we got lots of laughs.

Food was great, although it was more fried toast than what we think of as French Toast, but they ate it just the same. A highlight was a packet of honey that came with the tea, not a cylinder or cube of sugar. And the yogurt was served in the same type of mug as the tea. Super sour good yogurt. Sam took this to mean ‘drink the yogurt’. It didn’t work out so well…or it worked out just as he planned? He almost drank/ate almost the whole thing and the rest was used to dip their French Toast in. Maybe this is why we talked about beverages coming out your nose?

A little chatting with the waitress, and we headed out into the blistering cold to explore. No specific plan, just thought we could make it down to the river. I had planned a city tour for us the next day, so was trying to leave off places that I knew we’d see tomorrow. A few steps out the restaurant and Ben found a coin on the ground. About a block later I found one and that kept the kids going…the idea of finding free money! In 2 days we found 6 coins, not too bad. Continuing on, not a big surprise and we found a statue of a guy on a horse. Ben practiced taking level photos.

We kept walking and stumbled upon Knez Mihailova Street, a wide pedestrian street with lots of shops. Pedestrian streets…aka no cars and less yelling at kids to watch out for cars…are always a huge reprieve in cities. Kids were still on a search for money, we found one more, and I was able to keep them pretty corralled so I could enjoy the slow walk and look at the buildings.

We had to hang a left to veer towards the river. Well really, we had one river to the north and one to the west, but turning left felt right. :) We saw the top of an overly ornate church top and decided to check in out. The inside was a bit strange, in a different kind of church we’ve seen way. Maybe the fact that it was newer (in European age) and the paintings were very vivid. Not very big, no side naves to see, so we didn’t stay long, but enough to take the kids’ new favorite type of photo.

We continued down until we found a view point for the river, the Sava I learned, and just about got blown off. Sam found a steep and long set of stairs to take us down to river.

We headed down and once we got to the bottom, we weaved through back alleys…most likely not the main tourist route.

Out of the alley, we were immediately hit with the wind. If we weren’t freezing enough in the streets above, not out in the open with the wind, it was cold!

We looked at the boats, the water, and then the kids saw a playground.

‘It’s in a little too cold to play?’ I asked. “NO!!!” they shouted as they ran over reminding me of the family rule…if you see a playground, you have to stop. I lasted about 5 minutes on a bench, then Ben told me to climb a corner of the play structure to shield myself from the wind. A little better, but a place I could stay long.

For another trip??

We walked/ran/whined our way down the Sava to the confluence with the Danube…where the fortress was. Again, you could imagine how nice this would be on a later summer or early fall day with the outdoor seating along the river. But right now, we were moving as fast as we could. We found a ramp up, then over the road to take us to the fortress.

Our tour the next day was including this, so I didn’t want to spend a lot of time here, but we needed to get through it to the green space I wanted to get to so the kids could run around more.

Through the castle and we were dumped out right at yet another playground. A little warmer, but not much. Good thing there was a mini theme park (and I mean mini) for me to bribe the kids with when it was time to go. The 2 older kids were less than amused with their choice, but Max was living his best life.

We had hit our walking limit (16k steps already and that’s my steps) so we opted for a cab home for some down time. We had just been snacking all day and we needed some substance, so we grabbed sandwiches from across the street and some mini rolly things with chocolate on the inside. For some reason, the kids were devastated I said no to the giant croissant fully immersed in chocolate.

Sandwiches were delicious and the rolly things were a hit too.

After lunch, Max reluctantly layed down with me, even though he was NOT tired. He crashed hard within 5 minutes and the rest of us read, did some school and built a fort. Ben and Sam got it in their minds that they wanted to play real restaurant. Something they have NEVER done before. It was a bit frustrating for all parties as we had zero food in the house, minus tea and plane snacks. I ordered a hamburger, fries and a chai.

I think the exiting part of it all was delivering the food on the suitcase rack.

Max slept until almost 5pm, yet claimed he ‘couldn’t fall asleep’ as he walked out the room half asleep still. For dinner, Dan had picked out a restaurant for us that looked awesome, but unfortunately most of the reviews used the word ‘romantic’. We walked down the pedestrian street right by our place to another one I found. They had a table, they seemed a bit reluctant, and walked us to the WAY back of the place. It was packed and as we walked into that room, it reeked of smoke. Literally someone from every table was smoking. I didn’t notice the smell elsewhere as much so I asked if there was a non-smoking section and the guy seemed super annoyed at the question. We left, it was just too strong. We tried another place, full. Another place, full. We had passed one that had a non-smoking sign outside, but seemed empty and didn’t have live music like a lot of the other places. Ben kept asking to there, so after 3 rejections I obliged. False advertising, as they sold cigarettes and each table had 1-2 ashtrays. At least the smell was manageable. We ordered salad, Slavian style lemonade (water and lemon juice and you add your own sugar), cevapi and gnocchi.

Kids worked on their restaurant menu for the next night, but that didn’t last long for Max and Sam as they just couldn’t sit still. It started out nice, but ended up being not super fun with, most likely, 2 of the 3 kids tired and somehow lost their appetite right before dinner was served. We packed up over half of what we ordered and headed home…luckily about a 4-minute walk.

Sam’s turn for sharing my bed and I didn’t stay up much later than he did.