We woke up today docked in Belgrade, Serbia. The crew had told us that it would take 11 hours to cruise there on our ship. According to Google, we could have driven there in 3.5 hours. However, who knows what the road would have been like.
After breakfast we had a lecture by a local Serbian expert entitled, “Modern Serbia.” He gave us a brief history lesson and information about the country and Belgrade itself.
There are nine countries that border Serbia: Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Montenegro. Serbia and most of its neighbors were part of Yugoslavia until the 1990’s. They are not a part of the EU partly because they are one of the poorer countries. Many Serbians left after Yugoslavia broke apart so one of Serbia’s main problems is lack of workforce.
Belgrade is the largest city and is the capital of Serbia. Belgrade means “white city” because of the white walls of the fortress that once surrounded it. It is at the crossroads between central and southeastern Europe and where the Danube river and Sava river converge. The city is 7,000 years old and has been decimated by bombs 40 times. The last time was by NATO in 1990. You would never know this just by looking at it because it has been rebuilt..again.
The Serbians learn both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets so in the city you see signs written in both which is a lot easier than in Bulgaria where most things were written with Cyrillic letters.
Our tour today was to the Nikola Tesla Museum located in the heart of Belgrade. The museum is located in a house and is not very big however plans are in the works to build a bigger museum by 2027. We had an excellent tour guide there who showed us his early invention of the induction motor and the Tesla coil. We participated in a little experiment that was really cool.
Tesla was a very unique individual and owned over 300 patents. There is a small memorial there with his ashes which, at his request, are encased in a dome.
The next stop in Belgrade was to the fortress. Because Belgrade is situated at the confluence of two rivers, it was in high demand and invaded several times. The fortress there is massive and is now a beautiful park. Since it was Sunday when we were there and a gorgeous Fall day, there were many people there with children and dogs because it is a free space with playgrounds, basketball hoops, walking paths, vendors, carnival rides, and more. It was built in 279 BC but has been reconstructed a few times since.
The bus offered shuttle rides back to Belgrade after lunch on the ship so we went back to do a bit of shopping on Knez Mihailova Street - the main pedestrian shopping zone in Belgrade. Of course I found a Starbucks and some other treasures that we needed!
Back on the ship we were entertained by members of the Talija Art Company, a group of talented Serbian dancers and musicians who put on a wonderful show of traditional Serbian dances representing the various regions of Serbia. Some of the members were quite tall and had to be careful not to hit their heads on the ceiling of the ship. Our tour guide had told us earlier that many Serbians who come from the Serbian mountains are very tall people and that is why basketball is a popular sport there. Hmmm…do we know a very talented pro basketball player from Serbia?! His home is in the northern part of the country which we unfortunately will not visit.
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