Belgrade, Serbia: Part 2

Posted on November 19, 2023  •  16 minutes  • 3196 words

Today was the day I had organized a walking tour with a private guide (through AirBnB experiences). It didn’t start until 11am, but I wanted to get early breakfast AND a late breakfast in, with a lot of chill time as to not losing energy beforehand. We have a bakery right across the street, and once all the kids were up (Ben slept in until 8:30am!), I ran across to get Serbian croissants and some other baked goods. What’s a Serbian croissant you ask? It’s bigger than a typical croissant and much drier, kinda bready. Don’t recommend but kids love them.

We played a bit, did some writing and headed out around 10am for the 15-minute walk, with the plan of breakfast nearby and a last-minute bathroom, right across from the meeting point. The kitchen was broken at the place I had planned, so we got some cheese and meat pastries at a place next door, but that place didn’t have a bathroom. Went back to the original place after to get a coffee to go and for us all to use the bathroom. It all worked out and we easily found out guide…or rather he found us.

It started out great, diving right into Serbian history. Overall, Ben paid more attention than I thought and the other 2 kinda ran around the general location where we were.

Note: There is a significant lack of pictures from our 2.5hr tours as I couldn’t deal with my phone in addition to listening and herding cats.

Alexander was so knowledgeable and I love hearing all about the history from a local. He was born in 1978 he said and has had 4 different passports with never changing the house he lived in. His country just kept changing it’s name. Ben loved this.

Belgrade, which means white city in Serbian, architecturally is a VERY new city by European standards. According to Alexander (or what they were taught in school), it has been attacked an estimated 100 times over the years and while there are a handful of buildings a few hundred years old, the majority have been built recently. We didn’t get to see many, but from the research I did, Belgrade has some significant brutalist architecture. I have a strange appreciation for some of the odd ones. What were they thinking? But at the same time, thanks for this terrible looking building that we can now admire.

Sunday is free admission for the museum so we decided to pop in for 15 minutes. We just stayed on the main floor, but it was a giant square with a timeline above starting at 5000 BC. The kids are always drawn to the arrowheads and fish hooks, but my favorite were statues found with fish heads and women’s bodies. There was also this, a 3500 year old bronze chariot that was found in norther Serbia that Serbians take great pride in. Alexander pulled out his license to show it’s featured on there.

I had mentioned to Alexander that I was bribing the kids with ice cream if they were good and he said we’d be walking past the best one in town. This is 100% why I like to do a private tour that gets catered to us. Sometimes we just need an ice cream break after a museum. Kids heard and after the museum we headed there. It was called Black Sheep and it was VERY good! I got Oreo, Max got chocolate (always), Sam got honey/vanilla/something else and Ben got passion fruit…which was so good!

Fueled up, we headed to the last stop of the tour, the fortress. Like the rest of Belgrade, this was NEW in fortress standards and you could tell.

It still had different ‘ages’ of stone/brick, but unlike some of the others we had seen, where you could see the difference of old and refurbished, this one had a slight old look to it, but no blatant rebuilding.

Another bonus to having a tour guide is you have someone to take a family photo. :)

Maybe they were good at hiding it, but it just felt more ‘as it was’. We had a great view of the confluence of the Danube and the Sava Rivers.

Here we bid adieu to Alexnader and I let the kids run around like crazy people in the grass at the top of the fortress. Finally, I convinced them to head out, although I did promise to head to the park we passed on the tour.

We walked through a mini museum that had a lot of helmets, the biggest bow Max had EVER seen in his life! (the kinds that go with arrows) and knight attire. The kids even got to hold a ‘real’ sword.

It was kinda under the fortress walls and right across the way was a room full of maps! So many maps! We browsed for a bit and found some that were for purchase. I always find it interesting to see old maps of the world and what we thought it looked like due to the Europeans extent of exploring. Ben and I picked one out for his and his brothers’ room.

We headed to the park after and with the sun on us, I was able to sit on a bench for a whole 45 minutes without getting cold. The kids were loving it and between snacks and playing were pretty high on life…pretty much still running around like crazy people though.

We had talked about going to a grocery store so the kids could pick out food for their home restaurant that night. By some annoying universe plan, right between the park and the market I had picked out to go to was ANOTHER mini theme park. The kids talked me into bumper cars, it wasn’t hard, and we had the time of our lives…twice. It was an odd bumper car experience as there was only one other car going with us the first round and you could actually steer and drive around, although Max was more of a fan of just ramming into the side.

A few blocks away we got to the market and the kids were on! They had their menu they talked about that morning and it took a lot to curb their grand plans. We settled on only 2 bags full and went out to look for a cab but couldn’t find one. I told the kids, it’s just 15 minutes, I think we can do it. Max wasn’t pleased, but clearly, we made it.

At home, Ben worked on finishing up the menu and Sam set the table for Max and me. Ben came by with the menu and Max and I decided we should basically order everything. :) To sum it up, it was awesome.

Max felt so special that it was just the 2 of us (he told me that twice) and Ben and Sam were the cutest team (minus one argument over who was cutting the bread) constantly bringing out dishes, while stealing food off my plate. I wish I had taking a photo of the menu because it had lots of options. There were 3 salad options…cucumber, tomato and ‘in prison’ salad. I think this comes from when we ordered ‘fish in prison’ in North Macedonia which was a reference to it being cooked all wrapped up in the shape of a bag and kinda steamed. The ‘in prison’ salad on their menu was a normal one but with a plate on top to ’trap’ the salad.

We even had a candle lit and the lights dimmed. No idea where they got this idea, but it was very important. I promised to do the dishes, after they served ice cream popsicles on ice. A much better evening than going out to dinner the night before.

Roles reversed and Max and I were the restaurant workers in the morning and Ben and Sam were the patrons. I lost Max partway through and it was just a normal breakfast…Mom as cook and waitress.

Ben and I learned from Alexander the day before that the Saint Sava church was modeled after the Hagia Sofia so we figured we had to go! It was going to be a 35 minute walk and I didn’t want to expend too much energy from the get-go, so we hopped in a cab. Getting out along side the church, it was easy to see the similarities, but as you got closer…and went inside…nothing felt the same.

It was so NEW! No exposed brick that had been worn away, no level after level of where a previous one had been built over. But the biggest difference was when you walked it, the bright biblical scenes painted on every surface was actually overwhelming.

And Ben and I decided, it wasn’t as tall. But I will say, if you have to design a church after an existing building AND you chose the Hagia Sofia, it’s going to be hard to measure up…literally and figuratively.

The entrance doors, we noticed on the way out, were very tall, wooden and were engraved in numerous languages…I thought that was pretty cool.

There was an area outside where you could buy candles to light…a catholic thing I think. The kids have no idea the point of it (me neither actually), but the kids love lighting them and we make a wish or say something we are grateful for when we light them. I say it all the time, and it’s a bit cliché, but I tell them all time…I’m so grateful to have 3 awesome kids. I do now add…’that love to adventure with me all the time’. We started out from St Sava and I could see it happen before the kids even had it in sight. ‘Park!!! Can we go? Family rule!’ Ben had to pee, so I we found a coffee shop for a caffeine boost for me and a bathroom for the kids. It just happened to also be a gelato place, so with it being 10am and me being a responsible parent, I got an ice cream cone to go with my cappuccino and the kids each got a couple licks.

Not a hugely special park, but I have learned, this does not matter to the kids. There was a 2 seater sea-saw and the kids were really trying to get it to balance with some scooting and leaning, but didn’t quite get it. They convinced me to get on and with some moving around a bit we got ourselves to static equilibrium! F = 0!! I was maybe a bit too excited by this, but we all kinda were. And then we proceed to move up and down by just leaning forward and back. Statics is awesome!

It was about 30-minute walk to the botanical garden and a hamburger place that Alexander’s brother had opened. He said he had some American friends that claim the only better burger in the world is ‘some place called In n’ Out’, then asked if I’d heard of it. Haha! I said I’m not much for burgers, okay fine I love In n’ Out, but I feel very strongly about the type of ketchup a place serves. I’m diehard Heinz. When I told Alexander this, he called up his brother and confirmed Heinz. Okay, respect…we’ll try it out. We started walking and walked by a small pastry shop and we picked out some savory ones to keep us going. Max was being a bit dramatic with life in the moment.

He managed to peal himself off the ground to eat a bit.

Small pastries helped a bit, but wasn’t going to get us all the way there. At the store the day before, we had found Smoki, a peanut butter puff thing that friends introduced us to in North Macedonia. THIS got the kids going. Imagine cheese puffs, but with no cheese but peanut butter flavor. I’m not a fan, but I see why the kids love them…and they come in a chip like bag, which they never get.

Anyways, we make it to the burger place and as I’m not much for burgers, I just ate the fries and they were VERY good! There was an In n’ Out vibe going.

After finishing up, we headed over to the Botanical Gardens. I will always go to a botanical garden in the city I’m visiting and have never been disappointed. I love seeing the different plants and the common ones that are on display as ‘exotic’. They had a costal redwood and a placard explaining all about them being the tallest trees in the world…a tree that I’ve seen thousands of in my life. I also love the density of vegetation after walking around a concrete jungle all day. We played the game where each kids gets to lead all of us in any direction they want for 5 minutes. We found out quickly that it’s not a big place and to the kids detriment, we had to stay on the paths. I didn’t care, it just feel so good to be surrounded by green

We made it to the greenhouse and the kids were super excited to see a ton of cacti. I get it, somehow they look a bit cooler all arranged together in a small exhibit..in Serbia.

In the greenhouse, we all picked our favorite plant. Sam picked the banana trees (or similar, we didn’t see bananas nor a sign) with giant leaves.

I picked an odd one that looked like there were little hands at end of each leave/stem.

Also in the greenhouse was a small art exhibit. I didn’t read it all, but it was art by students inspired by nature.

Sam was asking to go home half way through and Max’s legs were ‘full of tired’. So close to home, we walked very slowly. We all crashed when we got in and really needed to decompress. I put a show on for the kids as I took a bit of a break from it all. I told them if we could do some journal writing and an early dinner (restaurant style of course), we could go get some more Serbian gelato for our last night. I also over estimated how much cash I would need, so I wanted to exchange it thinking nothing would be open at the airport. My favorite part of the dinner were the salad kebabs the kids made.

We were done with dinner by 6, trying to eat up a lot of the food we had bought at the grocery store the day before. All bundled up, we headed out into the pitch dark. The exchange office was about 3 blocks away and so easy. Ice cream was a hit, obviously, but Sam decided to eat half the bottom of his cone first, so he could ‘slurp it from the bottom’, but he up WAY TOO high from the bottom and it was an absolute mess and quite annoying. It was like eating a burrito without the end wrapped up and the contents inside were liquid. Ugh.

We got home and had finished taking off warm clothes and shoes (Max everything except thermals) and I pulled out more Serbian cash from my pocket that I forgot to exchange. Ugh. It was 50 euros worth, in addition to what I needed for the taxi and snacks at the airport. After an initial ‘dammit’, I said that I was sorry, but we needed to head back out. We didn’t really, but I just didn’t want to be carrying around Serbian cash. Shockingly, no one was that upset, except Max who didn’t want to put back on his pants. He turned it around when I told him he could go out in his penguin thermals with no pants…something he had been asking to do for a while so everyone could see the penguins. I think we were back in less than 10 minutes and Ben was thrilled that I let him hand the money over to the woman and for some reason she had the machine count it about 5 times.

Back home, again, teeth brushed, books read and kids were in bed. I finished the last bit of packing, which is easy when you don’t have much and treated myself to a Radler. Not the best I have had. It tasted too much like Boone’s wine coolers we drank in high school…I mean in college when I was 21. Alarm was set for 4:30am.

Luckily I didn’t wake up 10 times being worried about missing my alarm, nor did I sleep through it. I set it earlier than usual because I was able to go to bed early and then there would be zero rush in the morning…and I even had time to make a cup of coffee. Sam woke up by himself at 4:40am and Ben was easy to get up. Max, well he refused to ‘wake up’ and even when he was, pretended to be asleep so I had to get him dressed, carry him to pee and lay him by the front door already to go. :)

I kept checking for the taxi; I was a bit worried what I would do if it didn’t show up since I was by myself…wander the dark streets with 3 tired kids? I don’t know the exact number (I guess it varies by person) but I believe 90% of the things you worry about don’t happen. At 4:55am as I told kids to head downstairs, I saw it outside! We were there within a minute and a huge sense of relief fell over me.

I had tried online to check in with no luck. I called Air Serbia and they said because there was more than one person on the reservation, we couldn’t do online check in. I don’t get that, but so it was. At the airport, we used the family check in line to get out tickets. Through passport control and to our gate with so much time. No one was chipper, well Ben was a bit.

I got a coffee and I let Ben use the vending machine to get a water as there are NO water fountains at the airport…at least that we could find. The gate screen said we were delayed 15 minutes, but by the time we boarded and sat and sat, it was close to an hour. With all of us low energy, I let the 2 younger ones watch an episode of The Aquarium and Ben read and wrote. The rest of the time we all ‘read’ the inflight magazine and picked out our favorite pages (aka pictures).

Sam somehow managed to get some good self portraits in.

SUPER bumpy landing, but we made it! Again, easy passport control. I usually tell the kids that if they aren’t good through passport control, the boarder agent won’t let us into their country. I got them to all stand still so she could see their faces. She stamped each passport without even looking up! Kept walking, following the signs to ‘buses’.