Posted on 09/26/2004 4:04:18 PM PDT by ma bell
Got the Prague T-shirt and the one from Tallin's nearly worn out. Where's next?
What? Belgrade, Serbia? We bombed them five years ago!
Think again. Belgrade, the
new tourist hot spot of Europe, so new it's unspoiled and still rather chic, plus it's safe and cheaper than Western Europe.
Where to start? Belgrade is pre-Roman, so there's no visible ruins, but there is a load of stuff from Turkish times.
Wander into history through the massive Kalemegdan Citadel; there's also an impressive War Museum, including some dud bombs NATO contributed in 1999. Down below the citadel flows the mighty Danube with its tributary, the River Sava. Confluence of two rivers with a big hill; that's why Belgrade's here.
The No. 2 tram rattles around the city center on a circuit, so hop on outside the citadel, pay 20 dinar (30 cents), and see what town and folk are all about. Crave good books, clothes and crafts? Window-shop the smart, pedestrian Kneza Mihailova Street for galleries, boutiques, and bookstores. There's also a helpful tourist information center at No. 18.
As for museums, the city's got more than 20. Musts are the Ethnographic Museum for national costumes and applied arts, the National Museum for its artworks (several Impressionist canvases) and the Palace of Princess Ljubice, a fully equipped 19th-century Balkan palace. For spiritual atmosphere, the Sveti Marko Serbian Orthodox Church takes some beating.
Skadarska, Belgrade's Bohemian quarter and once a retreat of poets, writers and musicians, is a quaint and cheerful cobbled street full of old wooden-beamed inns that offer Serbian food accompanied by roving bands of musicians. In summer, eating, drinking and music flow out into the street.
Nearby is Strahinjica Bana, a street of basement clubs decked out to style. At least one night be sure to drift to the legendary Underground club below Kalemegdan and listen to the latest DJ, often big names from the States or Western Europe.
Other nighttime options are the barges moored on the rivers, with techno, house, or passionate gypsy music and some fine dining until very late. Boats open, boats close or change their tunes; ask any young fashion-clad Belgrader (many speak good English) for the current in place. They know how to party here.</p
Beograd's high-tech industry is in good shape also...
Just ordered a bunch of stuff from Mikroelektronika in
Beograd...they make great microcontroller development
boards.
Also there is a guy named Vladimir who lives in a small town just outside of Beograd who created one of the finest PIC microcontroller IDEs with built in simulator,assembler,basic compiler...etc, and it's just 19$ :-)
http://www.oshonsoft.com/
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