Belgrade Walking Tour

November 3^rd, 2026 

Yesterday at the Nikola Tesla Museum, I briefly met a tall Belgian businessman who had gone on a free walking tour the day before which he had enjoyed.  I got the details about the tour from him and sent the company an email later that day and received a quick response.  I was told to meet at the Republic Square at 10:30 am the next day and look for someone with an orange umbrella.

On my walk to the Republic Square, I passed by some buildings of interest.  This is St. Mark Orthodox Church.

The "Main Post Office Palace", which used to be the headquarters of the postal services but now it is a constitutional court.

The National Assembly, the main legislative building of the Republic of Serbia.

Stari Dvor, or the "Old Palace", it was the royal residence from 1884 to 1922.  Since 1961, it has served as the city hall including the office of the Mayor of Belgrade.

The Historical Museum of Serbia.

Google Maps took me on an interesting route, down some narrow yet interesting alleyways.

There were shops hidden away in this area.

I wasn't sure what was up with these mannequins...

...especially the blindfolded one-armed, one-legged man on the left.

The guide’s name was Dushan, and I have to admit that at first I was a little disappointed as the Belgian guy mentioned that his guide was a woman who talked about some of her experience during the Communist era and Dushan was too young to have experienced that.  However, he did turn out to be a great guide with lots of knowledge and sprinkling the tour with the odd joke as well.

Republic Square.

Our group was about ten people.  There was a woman from Edmonton who seemed to be with an older local woman with curly hair, glasses, and like many Serbians, liked to smoke.   The first guy I met was Zubair from Mumbai and he seemed like a character.  There were a couple of Asian guys, but one lived in Norway and the other one in Munich.  The latter chatted occasionally with a young German woman.  Additionally, there was also a Turkish man and a retired couple from Florida, with whom I didn’t interact too much.

The Prince Mihailo Monument (Prince Michael).  He was the Prince of Serbia a couple of times, 1839-1842 and again from 1860-1868.  He was ousted by a revolt in the years between his reign.

The National Theatre borders one side of the Republic Square.

Dushan mentioned that the tour was going to be about 2½ hours in duration, which sounded long to me, but he kept it interesting as we walked from the central area, to the Bohemian quarter and then over to the Belgrade Fortress before finishing off outside of the Cathedral Church of Saint Michael the Archangel.  

I didn’t take too many photos on the tour, as I was mostly taking in what Dushan was talking about, and honestly, the stops were interesting, but not picturesque.

Dushan asked if we had a guess as to what that smokestack, which is no longer in use, was likely used for.  There were guesses of a coal plant, making bricks and a few other things...but no, it was a brewery!  Dushan explained that it was called "The First Serbian Steam Brewery" and was founded by Georg Weifert, who happens to be on the 1000 Serbian dinar bill.  He joked that Nikola Tesla only made it onto the 100 dinar bill, so you can see who Serbians cherish more, the scientist or the brewer!  However, he then pointed out that Weifert was also served as the Governor of the National Bank of Serbia and is considered to be the founder of the modern mining sector in Serbia and a notable philanthropist.

A Yugo car.  These compact vehicles were built between 1980 and 2008.

There were many murals like these around this specific neighborhood.  Dushan said that these ones were black and white as this area supported one of Belgrade's football clubs, but if we walked 3-4 blocks towards a different neighborhood, they would be red and white paintings, in support of another club.

Note the Cyrillic alphabet writing on the last photo.  There's a mixture of Cyrillic and Latin signage in Belgrade.  Dushan explained that Serbian, although it uses the Cyrillic alphabet like Russian, they are completely different languages.  We stopped outside one old house where he mentioned that previous occupant from the 1800s, Vuk Karadžić, was a polyglot (this guy knew 8-10 languages).  He came up with the 30 letters of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet with the principle of "Write as you speak, and read as it is written".  Each letter has only one way to say it, which definitely simplifies spelling...especially compared to English!  And I just came from Hungary where vowels have anywhere from 8-12 accents that  can be applied to them.  Dushan also mentioned that all kids in school learn both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, which must be a bit confusing because some letters mean different things in the different alphabet, like a "P" in English is an "R" sound in Serbian.

Not all grafitti has to be "tags" (those stupid big in illegible letters).

That's our guide Dushan, and I had to follow for fear of missing out!

One of the older buildings in Belgrade, a mosque that was built in the 1500s.

Our group listening to Dushan.

One of the perimeter walls of the Belgrade Fortress.  Dushan asked if anyone knew why the city was called "Beograd".  Well, it means "the white city"...thanks to the white rock that was used in a lot of the old buildings.

One of the main walls of the fortress.

We passed through three different gates, this first one was one of the least impressive.

Now this is more like it, the Zindan Gate, finished around the mid 1400s.

You could practice your archery skills down in the area on the left.

Heading into the main section of the fortress.

Looking back towards the inside of the Zindan Gate...not quite as impressive.

Up on the main wall.  That's the Sava River which is flowing around the "Great War Island".  The island gained its militant name due to its history as an important strategic point either for the conquest or the defence of Belgrade. It had especially good position for cannons and was usually used as the starting point for the attack on Belgrade's harbor.  The first shots of WWI were shot in this area, not from the island, but from the Austro-Hungarian monitor SMS Bodrog shelled the Serbian capital from across the Danube River.

That's the Danube out there in the distance.

Scoping the area from the wall of the fortress.

What the fortress looks like from the river below (obviously I stole this off of the Internet...this was not this day!).

This statue is known as "The Victor", to commemorate Serbia's  victory over the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires during the Balkan Wars and the First World War.  According to Dushan, the plan was to erect the statue of the nude man (no pun intended) in the Republic Square, but thanks to the modesty of the day (late 1920s), the general public wasn't keen about a large naked main in an area frequented by girls and young women.  So instead they placed it up on a hill in the fortress.

Dushan talked about WWII while we were in the fortress.  Yugoslavia had stayed out of the war until 1941.  Under sustained German pressure and following failed attempts to maintain neutrality, Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941 in the Vienna Belvedere.  The following day, protests broke out in Belgrade against the accession.  However, two days later, there was coup in Yugoslavia from internal forces and they reject the idea of saddling up with Germany.  Well, that didn't go over well with Germany.  Dushan said "Even if you don’t know too much about history, you probably know that Adolf Hitler is not someone to piss off."  That made me laugh, what a great comment.  Anyways, Yugoslavia was soon occupied by the Nazi war machine.

Looking back at the fortress.

Strangely, just outside of the fortress were all of these modern weapons.

Even stranger, was a random collection of dinosaur statues nearby!

Not sure who this dude was...but perhaps he 

It was a bit chilly during parts of the tour and for the last half hour it had started to rain.  I had yet to see the sun since I’d been in Serbia which made it a bit ironic that Dushan previously explained that “Beograde”, the name that the locals use for the city, literally means the “city of white”…seemed like the city of grey!

Inside of the Cathedral Church of Saint Michael the Archangel.  An interesting thing that Dushan pointed out was that there are no pews in churches in Serbia...standing room only.  I guess you can pack more people in and they have to put more effort into their worship.

This is the tomb of Prince Michael, the guy on the horse statue in Republic Square at the start of the tour...I guess it was a fitting finish.

This was my lunch after the tour, a lovely bruschetta with brie and mozarella cheese.

My plan after the tour and a bit of lunch was to visit the “Museum of Science & Technology”.  On my way to a bus stop, I stumbled across one of the more famous shopping/dining areas in Belgrade called Knez Mihailova Street.  It was a shocking contrast to some of the dreary streets and the Brutalist architecture of New Belgrade that I had become accustomed to in the last 36 hours.

I liked the temporary bird addition to this statue as I passed by.

Knez Mihailova Street.

Another awesome mural on a random building.

And another one...

There were some old school trams rumbling along the streets, as well as some old buses.  But they also had some modern trams and buses too.

Arriving at the museum around 2:40 pm, I was disappointed to see a temporary sign on the door stating that it was closing at 3 pm, instead of the usual 6 pm.  Bummer.  Okay, well, what to do.  It had started to rain again, and my feet were tired from the tour, so I decided to cut my losses and head back to my place and relax for the last bit of the afternoon and the evening. 

For dinner, I noticed that there was a little pizza joint not more than 100 meters from my place, which was perfect as it was still raining.  I’m not sure how I missed it yesterday as I scoured Google Maps for somewhere to stay.  It had great reviews that the pizza was delicious and the owner/chef Nikola was an amazing host.

 

I walked down the outside stairs to the restaurant that was half a storey below street level and opened the door.  The place was tiny with only a couple of tables with diners occupying almost every seat.  The white-haired owner approached me and apologized that they were full.  “No problem, I’ll take the pizza to go” I replied.  I was welcomed to sit down at the larger table by the locals already occupying the spot.  They had finished eating and were just enjoying a drink. 

Nikola was quite the character, jovial, high-energy and friendly.  I ordered my pizza as he grabbed me a nice cold beer.  The Serbians at my table spoke some English, in fact, one woman had lived in Australia for 25-30 years, leaving Serbia when the situation was dicey in the 90s.  We talked some politics, learned a bit about each other and shared some laughs.  

The woman on the right is the one who has been living in Australia.

Another young, friendly couple who were occupying the other table.

They bragged that Nikola’s pizzeria was ranked in the “Top 9 in the World”, not the Top 10, but Top 9…which I chuckled at.  Once my pizza was ready and I’d finished my beer, I bid them a good night and returned to my place.  As I left the joint, I couldn’t help but think “These are the experiences that make travelling worthwhile!”  Oh, and it was delicious pizza, but I’m not sure if it would make my “Top 9 in the World”, yet still, super yummy. 

Nikola presenting me with my pizza.

What a character!  I didn't capture it on my camera, but shortly after this he pretended to be a witch riding his "broom", which was his large wooden pizza paddle on the left.

My original plan for tomorrow, my last day in Belgrade, was to do a daytrip to Novi Sad, Serbia’s second largest city and supposedly a pretty one.  I decided to kibosh that and visit the Technology Museum, the Church of Sava (which came up on the tour) and also the Museum of Yugoslavia.  That would make for an easier day logistically speaking.