The last week I spent with 5 to 7 friends in Serbia and Croatia. It was my first visit to Europe proper in two years, and first to those countries. My parents went to Croatia nine years ago. They had a great time. I had other friends go to Croatia and Serbia and say the same. I was excited to go on this trip mostly to spend a lot of quality time with my strongest group of friends, but also to experience two new countries, and more selfishly for my personal achievements, three more airports and an additional airline. I'm not doing a diary of the trip, but more of a reflection of the visit across the different cities of my visit.
Air Travel
I took two airlines that make up the Lufthansa's Group, one of the EUs big 3 airlines. It was Lufthansa to Belgrade (via Munich), and Swiss back from Zagreb (through Zurich). Both airlines were perfectly fine. Lufthansa impressed me slightly more with their Airbus A340-600, with new, comfortable seats, a cool downstairs bathroom area/ The food was fairly similar on both. With Swiss, the plane (an A330-300) just seemed old, with drab brown seats and aging screens. The movie selection was fairly similar on both and neither had a lot of good options. Oddly. the Swiss flight seemed to have the entirety of Richard Gere's career work. This was OK as I slept through Chicago and watched Primal Fear for the first time, but both Lufthansa and Swiss had a stark lack of good movie options.
Airports were similarly average. Munich is a nice, fancy airport but being stuck in the non-Schengen area greatly limits food and amenity options. This wasn't a problem as I wanted to sleep for most of the 3-hour layover, but I had to eat breakfast (and a beer! - hey, airports are time-free zones) in the one restaurant available while on the other side of a glass was ten different ones. Zurich was the other aiport I had a long layover in and found it fairly mediocre this time. I used to quite like it, but I think I have been to enough of the great Asian airports since my last trip through Zurich (2011) that my expectations certainly have changed. The best part of Zurich Airport really was that their Priority Pass lounge in the E Concourse, has a balcony overlooking the planes with great views of two runways. It was a perfect backdrop in that sense. Overall, I've come to pleasantly accept air travel to Europe as a nuisance. Easily give me a 10+ hour flight over this mid-tier 6-8 hour ones.
Belgrade
I'll give the Serbian capital this: they are very much on the right path. Serbia is seemingly a good half-decade (if not slightly more) behind Croatia on the development scale to recover from the brutal decade that was the 1990's for all of ex-Yugoslavia. There is no real evidence of the bombings or the destruction, but just evidence of the slower growth the city has had since then. We stayed in a hostel in Belgrade in the heart of the city, but Belgrade is large enough to necessitate taking cabs - sadly not Uber as it hasn't come there yet. Like many things in Serbia, Uber is a few years away.
The city of Belgrade itself is quite nice. Not as picturesque as the Coastal towns I would later visit, but it has nice open squares, ornate buildings, and many little alleys and streets that would not be out of place in any European city. Belgrade city center is a series of roads on either side of the Sava river. The river is a lifeblood in the city, with lines of nice restaurants on one side and a series of barges that house clubs on the other side. More on the clubs in a minute, but the restaurants that line the Sava river are all fancy, with beautiful settings and beautiful people (Serbia has gorgeous people in it), and are all really cheap. One of the lasting impressions in Serbia was just how cheap the country is. This may change as tourism improves (Croatia was not cheap), but for now that is a wonderful bonus.
Belgrade is a hilly town, with loads of rolling streets leading down towards the Sava river. The walking tour (that Belgrade proudly offers for free) covers a lot of different elevations, up to the Belgrade Fortress and its view overlooking the city, and down to the main square. The view from the top of Belgrade exhibits both how large the city is, and how much construction is going on, both the continue to develop the waterfront and then also to build out the other side of the city, the 'New Belgrade.'
For sites, Belgrade has only a few real places of note that we visited. First was the Nikola Tesla museum, a small house that honors the life and legacy of Serbia's great contribution to world scientific development. Tesla himself left Serbia prior to much of his greatest years, but he still is a home crown jewel, with his name adorning currency, streets, airports, etc. The museum highlight was actually a 10-minute demonstration of a few of Tesla's contributions to science, acted out with real created lightning and AC-driven model boats that shook the world in the early 20th Century. The other site was the St. Sava Temple, a giant Serbian Orthodox temple in the heart of the city that is large and harrowing inside, with a perfectly ornate crypt chamber.
The restaurants in Belgrade were fine, with us going to the reputed Ambar one night, and hanging out at the perfectly-too-touristy Bohemian area with musical bands playing table to table the other night. The other highlight of Belgrade is the nightlife. It is known as one of the hidden party-city treasures of Europe, and while my group of friends aren't touring the Balkans just for partying, we are of the right age and energy level to partake. We went to everything from an outdoor packed bar the first night (Saturday), to an incredibly chill bar/lounge, to a rocking club on a barge called Club 94 on Sunday Night. Clubs in Belgrade basically open at 10 or 11 PM, don't really get going until ~1AM, and close the earliest at 5AM. One club we missed was the underground Drugstor, whose hours are 11PM-10AM.
Club 94 was a floating madhouse, with a really good mix of early-00's hip/hop (right in my friend group's wheelhouse) and bottle service that gave us a full handle for $100, which when you break it out isn't a bad deal. It was a fun last night for Belgrade, ending up seriously impacting our ability to make the flight the next day to Dubrovnik in time. It was the capper to a fun two days in Belgrade. Overall, I can't wait to see where that city and country goes. They have some political stability and it is becoming a more known tourist destination. They are trying to hard to build up the city and in their credit, all the pieces are there.
Air Travel
I took two airlines that make up the Lufthansa's Group, one of the EUs big 3 airlines. It was Lufthansa to Belgrade (via Munich), and Swiss back from Zagreb (through Zurich). Both airlines were perfectly fine. Lufthansa impressed me slightly more with their Airbus A340-600, with new, comfortable seats, a cool downstairs bathroom area/ The food was fairly similar on both. With Swiss, the plane (an A330-300) just seemed old, with drab brown seats and aging screens. The movie selection was fairly similar on both and neither had a lot of good options. Oddly. the Swiss flight seemed to have the entirety of Richard Gere's career work. This was OK as I slept through Chicago and watched Primal Fear for the first time, but both Lufthansa and Swiss had a stark lack of good movie options.
Airports were similarly average. Munich is a nice, fancy airport but being stuck in the non-Schengen area greatly limits food and amenity options. This wasn't a problem as I wanted to sleep for most of the 3-hour layover, but I had to eat breakfast (and a beer! - hey, airports are time-free zones) in the one restaurant available while on the other side of a glass was ten different ones. Zurich was the other aiport I had a long layover in and found it fairly mediocre this time. I used to quite like it, but I think I have been to enough of the great Asian airports since my last trip through Zurich (2011) that my expectations certainly have changed. The best part of Zurich Airport really was that their Priority Pass lounge in the E Concourse, has a balcony overlooking the planes with great views of two runways. It was a perfect backdrop in that sense. Overall, I've come to pleasantly accept air travel to Europe as a nuisance. Easily give me a 10+ hour flight over this mid-tier 6-8 hour ones.
Belgrade
I'll give the Serbian capital this: they are very much on the right path. Serbia is seemingly a good half-decade (if not slightly more) behind Croatia on the development scale to recover from the brutal decade that was the 1990's for all of ex-Yugoslavia. There is no real evidence of the bombings or the destruction, but just evidence of the slower growth the city has had since then. We stayed in a hostel in Belgrade in the heart of the city, but Belgrade is large enough to necessitate taking cabs - sadly not Uber as it hasn't come there yet. Like many things in Serbia, Uber is a few years away.
The city of Belgrade itself is quite nice. Not as picturesque as the Coastal towns I would later visit, but it has nice open squares, ornate buildings, and many little alleys and streets that would not be out of place in any European city. Belgrade city center is a series of roads on either side of the Sava river. The river is a lifeblood in the city, with lines of nice restaurants on one side and a series of barges that house clubs on the other side. More on the clubs in a minute, but the restaurants that line the Sava river are all fancy, with beautiful settings and beautiful people (Serbia has gorgeous people in it), and are all really cheap. One of the lasting impressions in Serbia was just how cheap the country is. This may change as tourism improves (Croatia was not cheap), but for now that is a wonderful bonus.
Belgrade is a hilly town, with loads of rolling streets leading down towards the Sava river. The walking tour (that Belgrade proudly offers for free) covers a lot of different elevations, up to the Belgrade Fortress and its view overlooking the city, and down to the main square. The view from the top of Belgrade exhibits both how large the city is, and how much construction is going on, both the continue to develop the waterfront and then also to build out the other side of the city, the 'New Belgrade.'
For sites, Belgrade has only a few real places of note that we visited. First was the Nikola Tesla museum, a small house that honors the life and legacy of Serbia's great contribution to world scientific development. Tesla himself left Serbia prior to much of his greatest years, but he still is a home crown jewel, with his name adorning currency, streets, airports, etc. The museum highlight was actually a 10-minute demonstration of a few of Tesla's contributions to science, acted out with real created lightning and AC-driven model boats that shook the world in the early 20th Century. The other site was the St. Sava Temple, a giant Serbian Orthodox temple in the heart of the city that is large and harrowing inside, with a perfectly ornate crypt chamber.
The restaurants in Belgrade were fine, with us going to the reputed Ambar one night, and hanging out at the perfectly-too-touristy Bohemian area with musical bands playing table to table the other night. The other highlight of Belgrade is the nightlife. It is known as one of the hidden party-city treasures of Europe, and while my group of friends aren't touring the Balkans just for partying, we are of the right age and energy level to partake. We went to everything from an outdoor packed bar the first night (Saturday), to an incredibly chill bar/lounge, to a rocking club on a barge called Club 94 on Sunday Night. Clubs in Belgrade basically open at 10 or 11 PM, don't really get going until ~1AM, and close the earliest at 5AM. One club we missed was the underground Drugstor, whose hours are 11PM-10AM.
Club 94 was a floating madhouse, with a really good mix of early-00's hip/hop (right in my friend group's wheelhouse) and bottle service that gave us a full handle for $100, which when you break it out isn't a bad deal. It was a fun last night for Belgrade, ending up seriously impacting our ability to make the flight the next day to Dubrovnik in time. It was the capper to a fun two days in Belgrade. Overall, I can't wait to see where that city and country goes. They have some political stability and it is becoming a more known tourist destination. They are trying to hard to build up the city and in their credit, all the pieces are there.
