5 Days in Belgrade

Start where every Belgrader arranges to meet: kod konja, "by the horse", which is the statue of Prince Mihailo in the middle of Republic Square. Mihailo is the prince who got the last Ottoman soldiers out of Belgrade's fortress in 1867, and a year later he was shot dead in Košutnjak park, a story you'll pick up again on day five. The big building behind him is the National Museum of Serbia, reopened in 2018 after fifteen years of renovation.

It's the best introduction to everything you'll see in the next five days. The prehistory rooms have figurines from Vinča, a Neolithic culture that lived just outside Belgrade around 5,000 BC, and the medieval rooms show what Serbian art looked like before the Ottomans arrived. Then comes the part nobody expects: a serious collection of French Impressionists and Yugoslav painters.

From the horse, walk down Knez Mihailova, the pedestrian street that runs almost straight to the fortress, roughly along the street grid of the Roman town that stood here. Most of the buildings went up in the late 1800s, when Belgrade had just seen off the Ottomans and badly wanted to look like Vienna, so look up at the facades rather than the shop windows.

It's the most touristy street in the city and it knows it. Walk it once, enjoy the buskers, and have your coffee a block away on either side, where it's cheaper and the locals actually sit.

Five minutes from the end of Knez Mihailova is Kosančićev Venac, one of the oldest corners of the city, and in it Belgrade's oldest kafana. It's in a low Balkan-style house from 1823 that has served drinks since the late 1820s, and its name is literally a question mark. In 1892 the owner renamed it "At the Cathedral", the church across the road objected, and the "?" he hung over the door while he thought of something better never came down.

Go for lunch and keep it simple: a čorba (thick soup), grilled meat and a šopska salad. Then cross the road to the Cathedral of St. Michael, where the language reformer Vuk Karadžić is buried by the entrance, and Princess Ljubica's Residence next door, a house museum furnished the way wealthy Belgrade lived in the 1830s.

Kalemegdan is the park, the Belgrade Fortress is the fortress, and locals use either name for the whole thing. It's the reason the city exists at all: Celts, Romans, Byzantines, Serbs, Hungarians, Ottomans and Austrians all fought over this ridge above the two rivers, and most of the walls you walk on today are 18th-century Austrian and Ottoman work on much older foundations.

Wander without a plan. There's a clock tower, a "Roman" well that the Austrians actually dug, old cannons and tanks lined up in the moat outside the Military Museum, and two small churches, Ružica and St. Petka, on the slope towards the Danube. Go into Ružica. Its chandeliers are made from World War I bullet casings, officers' sabers and parts of cannons, and the two soldiers guarding the door are cast from artillery shells.

Time the end of your fortress walk for sunset at the Victor (Pobednik), the bronze figure on a tall column at the edge of the Upper Town. Ivan Meštrović designed it just before World War I to celebrate Serbia's victories in the Balkan Wars. It was meant for a fountain in the city center, until people decided a naked man with a falcon was a bit much for downtown, so in 1928 it went up here instead, looking across the rivers towards what used to be Austria-Hungary.

The view is the best in Belgrade: the Sava meeting the Danube right below you, Great War Island, Zemun on the horizon and the towers of New Belgrade turning orange. Half the city seems to agree, so grab a spot on the wall and stay until the lights come on.

Walk 15 minutes east to Skadarlija, the cobbled street where Belgrade's poets and actors drank their way through the late 1800s. It's often called the city's Montmartre, which oversells it, but it's still the most atmospheric place for a first dinner: old kafanas with checked tablecloths and bands going from table to table playing old city songs.

Tri šešira ("Three Hats", open since 1864) and Dva jelena are the classics. Yes, the street is aimed at visitors and prices are higher than elsewhere, but the food is traditional and the atmosphere is real. Order a mixed grill for the table and let the band do its thing.

Start at Kalenić, the green market locals actually shop at. Farmers from around Belgrade sell whatever is in season, and in early summer the raspberries alone are worth the trip (Serbia is one of the biggest raspberry growers in the world). The covered dairy hall is the place to try kajmak, a salty, spreadable cream that Serbs put on almost everything, and young cheese straight from the producers.

For breakfast, do what the stall holders do: grab a slice of burek from a bakery by the market and wash it down with a cup of drinking yogurt. Saturday morning is the busiest and best time to come.

Ten minutes' walk away is the Church of Saint Sava, one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world. It stands where the Ottomans burned the relics of Saint Sava, the founder of the Serbian church, in 1594. Building started in 1935, then stopped for half a century because of the war and communism, which is why a church that looks centuries old was only finished in this one.

The outside is impressive, but go in. The main dome is covered in gold mosaics completed only a few years ago, and the crypt downstairs is somehow even more lavish. Cover your shoulders and knees, and keep your voice down if there's a service on.

Tesla was a Serb born in what is now Croatia, and he spent most of his life in America, but his papers, drawings and models ended up in Belgrade, and so did his ashes, kept in a gilded sphere. The Nikola Tesla Museum is small, in a villa on Krunska street, and you see it on a guided tour that includes a demonstration of a Tesla coil, which is loud, bright and more fun than it has any right to be.

Take a bus or a short taxi ride to Dedinje, the leafy hill where the Yugoslav elite lived, for the Museum of Yugoslavia. The main building tells the story of the country that existed from 1918 to the 1990s, and does it better than you'd expect: the design, the propaganda, the gifts world leaders sent to Tito.

The real reason to come is the House of Flowers, Tito's winter garden, where he's buried with his wife Jovanka. Next to it is a hall full of the batons young people carried across Yugoslavia every year for his birthday. It's a strange, slightly haunting place, and it explains more about the region than any history book you'll pack.

From Dedinje, a taxi takes about 25 minutes south to Avala, the wooded hill 16 km from the center where Belgraders go for fresh air and a view. On the very top stands Ivan Meštrović's Monument to the Unknown Hero, a black granite tomb built in 1934-38 over the grave of an unknown Serbian soldier who died on Avala in 1915. It honors everyone who fell in the Balkan Wars and World War I.

The eight stone women at its doors wear the folk dress of different parts of Yugoslavia and stand for the mothers of the dead. The story behind it is darker than it looks: a medieval fortress, Žrnov, was blown up to clear the summit, and King Aleksandar, who laid the foundation charter in June 1934, was assassinated in Marseille that October and never saw it finished.

A 15-minute walk through the woods takes you to Avala Tower, just over 204 m of concrete standing on three legs. The first tower, finished in 1965, was destroyed by NATO bombs on 29 April 1999. It was rebuilt to the old design and reopened in 2010, which is why Belgraders see it as a symbol of the city rather than a TV mast.

A lift takes you up to the viewing deck at 122 m, with Belgrade and the rivers on one side and the hills of Šumadija rolling away to the south on the other. Late afternoon is the best time to be up there, and there's a café just below the deck.

Head back to the center for the evening in Dorćol, the old neighborhood that runs from the city center down to the Danube. Strahinjića Bana street was nicknamed "Silicone Valley" in the 2000s for its flashy cafés and flashier customers; today the better nights are a few streets away, in small wine bars, craft beer places and restaurants doing modern takes on Serbian food.

On the way down, Gospodar Jevremova street takes you past Bajrakli, built around 1575 and the only one left of the dozens of mosques Belgrade had under the Ottomans. If you want something louder later on, walk to Cetinjska 15, an old brewery yard full of bars and small clubs, where half of young Belgrade seems to end up on a Friday.

Cross Branko's Bridge and walk down to the Museum of Contemporary Art, a white building of cut-crystal shapes sitting alone in Ušće park. The Yugoslav art inside is good (Belgrade had a serious avant-garde scene in the 1960s and 70s), and the building itself, from 1965, is one of the best pieces of modernist architecture in the region. Walk around the outside for the view of Kalemegdan across the water.

From the museum, follow the river north. A walking and cycling path runs along the Danube all the way to Zemun, four or five kilometers, past joggers, fishermen and splavs that are still asleep at this time of day. It's flat, green and one of the nicest walks in the city, and it works just as well on a bike.

The path ends at the Zemun quay, where a row of fish restaurants has been feeding Belgraders for decades. Order riblja čorba, a spicy, paprika-red soup made with river fish, then grilled som (catfish) or smuđ (pike-perch) with potato salad and chard, and a plate of girice, tiny fried fish you eat whole, for the table. Sit outside if the weather allows. Watching the Danube slide past is half the point.

After lunch, climb into old Zemun. It belonged to the Habsburgs until 1918, and it still looks it: low houses with courtyards, a small market square and steep cobbled lanes up Gardoš hill. At the top is the Gardoš Tower, built in 1896 to mark a thousand years since the Hungarians arrived in the region, on the ruins of a medieval fortress. Go up to the balcony for the view of red roofs and the Danube.

On the way back into New Belgrade, stop at the Genex Tower, officially the Western City Gate: two concrete towers joined by a bridge, with a round restaurant on top that's been closed for years. Built in 1977-1980 by Mihajlo Mitrović, it's the big symbol of Yugoslav brutalism, loved and hated in about equal measure. You can't go inside, but it looks best from below anyway.

From there, walk through a couple of the numbered blocks around it. They sound grim and they're anything but: huge courtyards, trees, playgrounds and kiosks, and this is how most people in Belgrade actually live.

End the day on a splav, a floating bar, restaurant or club moored on the river. Belgrade has hundreds of them along the Sava and the Danube, from quiet restaurant rafts where families eat fish to loud clubs where the night starts around midnight and ends at sunrise. The busiest stretch is on the New Belgrade side of the Sava, around Branko's Bridge.

Summer is the real season, roughly May to September, when the club splavs open and the riverfront turns into one long party. In winter many close or turn into quieter restaurants, but you'll still find some going.

The old town is compact and made for wandering. Liberty Square is the center, with the town hall on one side and the neo-Gothic Name of Mary Church on the other. From there, Zmaj Jovina and Dunavska streets are lined with pastel Habsburg-era buildings, cafés and ice cream shops, and Dunavska ends at the Danube Park, a good place to sit for a while.

Have lunch before you cross the river. The food here leans Central European: goulash-style perkelt and paprikaš, and strudels filled with poppy seeds or walnuts.

Walk over the Varadin Bridge (about 20 minutes from Liberty Square) and up to the Petrovaradin Fortress, built by the Austrians over the late 17th and 18th centuries and nicknamed the Gibraltar on the Danube. The clock tower is the famous bit: its hands are reversed, with the big hand showing the hours, so boatmen on the river could read the time from far away.

Under the fortress run more than 16 kilometers of military tunnels on four levels, and part of them can be seen on guided tours run by the city museum. Above ground, walk the walls for the view back over Novi Sad's rooftops and bridges.

City buses 61 and 62 run from Novi Sad through Petrovaradin and a few kilometers down the river to Sremski Karlovci, a small baroque town that punches far above its size. It was the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church while Belgrade was still Ottoman, which explains the grand Patriarchate, the cathedral and the Karlovci Gymnasium, the oldest Serbian high school (1791), all around one square with the Four Lions fountain.

On the edge of town is the Chapel of Peace, built in 1817 where the Treaty of Karlowitz was signed in 1699. The story goes that the negotiators met in a building with four doors, so every delegation could walk in at the same moment, and sat at a round table so nobody had the head seat. It's often called the first round table in diplomatic history.

Karlovci sits on the slopes of Fruška Gora, wooded hills with more than a dozen old Orthodox monasteries, and every other house in town seems to have a wine cellar. The local specialty is bermet, a sweet, spiced fortified wine made to recipes that families guard carefully. Local legend says it was on the wine list of the Titanic. Nobody has proved it, and nobody in Karlovci will let that ruin a good story.

Stop at a family cellar for a tasting and grab a slice of kuglof (bundt cake) for the road. Regional trains from Karlovci's small station go straight back to Belgrade, or you can return to Petrovaradin for the Soko.

Start the last morning with coffee and a slice of Moskva šnit at Hotel Moskva on Terazije. The hotel opened in 1908 and is one of the city's great buildings. The cake, created in its café in 1974, is a mix of almonds, sour cherries, pineapple and cream that sounds wrong and tastes great.

Five minutes down Kralja Milana street, three grand buildings face each other across Pionirski Park. This was the royal quarter. The Old Palace (Stari dvor), finished in 1884, was home to the Obrenović kings and then the Karađorđevićs, and has been City Hall since 1961. The New Palace (Novi dvor) across the lawn was built for the Karađorđevićs in 1911-22 and is now the office of the President of Serbia.

Between the two stood an older palace, the Old Konak, and on the night of 10-11 June 1903 a group of army officers broke in, killed King Aleksandar Obrenović and Queen Draga, and threw their bodies out of a window into the garden. The May Coup ended the Obrenović dynasty and brought the rival Karađorđevićs back to the throne. The Konak was pulled down a year later, and where it stood is now just lawn.

The two families had been at each other's throats for almost a century. Karađorđe, who led the first uprising against the Ottomans, was murdered in 1817 on the orders of Miloš Obrenović, and when Prince Mihailo, the man on the horse on Republic Square, was shot in Košutnjak park in 1868, people suspected the Karađorđevićs, though nothing was ever proven.

Across the road is the National Assembly, begun in 1907 and finished in 1936. On 5 October 2000 protesters stormed it, and that day ended Slobodan Milošević's rule.

Behind the Assembly is St. Mark's Church, a big red-and-yellow Serbo-Byzantine church from the 1930s that most visitors walk straight past. Go in. It holds the tomb of Emperor Dušan, the medieval ruler who took Serbia to its largest size, and it's calm in a way Saint Sava rarely is. Tašmajdan Park around it is a good place to sit for a while before lunch.

After lunch, take a taxi (15-20 minutes) to Ada Ciganlija, a river island on the Sava that was turned into a lake and park in the 1960s. Locals call it the Belgrade Sea. In summer it's a proper beach day, with swimming in calm water, beach bars and tens of thousands of people on hot weekends. The rest of the year it's where the city comes to run, cycle and walk off the weekend.

The easiest way to see it is on a bike, around the lake on a flat path of about 8 km. Stop for coffee at one of the cafés on the water on the way round.

From Ada it's a short taxi ride back up the Sava to the Belgrade Waterfront, the newest part of the city. Since 2015, apartment towers, hotels and the Galerija mall have gone up on old rail yards below Savamala, with a riverside promenade about 2 km long in front. The twisting 168 m tower is Kula Belgrade, and since April 2026 a lift takes you to the Belgrade 360 Deck on its 41st floor, 155 m up, for the best view of the two rivers and the old town you'll get.

It's also the most argued-about project in the city. A special law was passed for it without a public tender, and one night in April 2016 masked men knocked down buildings on Hercegovačka street in Savamala, which brought thousands of people out to protest. Whatever you make of it, the promenade at sunset is lovely.

Afterwards, walk north along the river past Beton Hala, a 1930s customs warehouse under the fortress that's now a row of restaurants and bars.

For the last night, book a table at a kafana with live music. This is the classic Belgrade night out: long tables, grilled meat and salads in the middle, rakija going round, and a band of violin, accordion and double bass working the room with old city songs and Yugoslav hits that everyone except you knows by heart. By the end of the night you'll know a few.

Pavle Korčagin, a short taxi ride away near Tašmajdan, is the famous one, full of Yugoslav memorabilia and a crowd that sings along. Book a few days ahead. If you liked Skadarlija on day one, going back there works too.