Stari Grad

In Spain, December 6th AND 8th are both national holidays. So if it's a good year, both the 6th and the 8th land on weekdays, giving you two days off of work. And because no one will bother to show up for work on the 7th, essentially the "December bridge," as it's known, is a 3-day holiday.

And 2023 is a good year!

We decided to spend the December bridge in a new country- but given that we only have three days, the closest new country is...Serbia! Now, we've been to five of the seven former Yugoslavian countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia), but we've not been to Kosovo or Serbia. I hadn't made Kosovo a priority because it's just a city-state, like Monaco or Singapore, and difficult to get to. But why not Serbia? After chatting with a friend from Serbia, I realized I'd not prioritized it because I assumed it would be unbearably cold.

My friend helpfully pointed out that I'd confused SERBIA with SIBERIA. Oops. My bad. Time to rectify my error- with a 48-hour jaunt to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia!

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 10:30pm Wednesday evening, arriving at 1am in Belgrade. The only cheap airline that flies Barcelona-Belgrade is a truly shitty Hungarian airline called, and I shit you not, WizzAir (as in, "Time to take a Wizz!"). So color us NOT surprised when, at 8pm, we were alerted to an hourlong flight delay. But we decided to leave for the airport at the originally planned time- because you never know, right?

So imagine our surprise to arrive at BCN Airport at 9pm, and read on the departures board that our gate was ALREADY CLOSED. So we panic-ran through the airport, to the deserted security checkpoint, through the empty concourse, through the empty immigration checkpoint, to the gate. Whereupon an utterly confused WizzAir agent finally figured out that they'd confused flight numbers on the departure board, and our milelong airport sprint had been unnecessary. Because guess what, the flight was delayed an hour.

Thanks, WizzAir.

Anyway.

We landed in Belgrade at 2am, caught a taxi to our teeny AirBnB right off the main pedestrian shopping street, and finally went to bed at 3am.

The next morning, we set out to explore Belgrade. This city is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; it was settled by the Vinča cultures before the 6th century BC! Over the centuries it was conquered by the Celts, the Romans, the Slavs, and the Byzantine, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian Empires. World War I began here when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Apparently, over the millennia, this city has been involved in 15 wars and sacked 44 times.

And yet, I knew very little about it other than it's NOT Siberia. Wow.

We explored Belgrade with a four-kilometer walk. Our first stop was the Temple of Saint Sava, named for the founder of Serbia's Serbian Orthodox Church. Supposedly his coffin was burned here in the 16th century, and thus the Serbs built this church over his grave. But due to architectural disagreements, bureacracy, and several world wars, the first stone wasn't laid until 1935. Construction was paused due to Soviet occupation, and didn't resume until the 1980s; this Eastern Orthodox church, the largest in Europe, wasn't even consecrated until 2020, and the dome wasn't completed until two years ago.

(I feel as if Serbia wants to compete with Barcelona's Sagrada Familia for the title of "Longest Running Construction Project on Earth.")

Modeled after Istanbul's Hagia Sofia mosque, the church is shockingly enormous inside. I'm not gonna lie- I was not expecting that massive space.

Our walk continued to St. Mark's Church- not to be confused with St. Mark's Cathedral nearby- a stunning Byzantine church in a lovely park.

Our next stop was the Nikola Tesla Museum. Tesla (not just a car company run by a sociopath!) is Serbia's most famous son (Belgrade's airport is named Nikola Tesla International), and this museum contains both his most famous inventions and his grave. While I had every intention of visiting the museum, because Tesla was fucking AWESOME, the museum itself was not awesome. In fact, it was still adhering to 2020-era pandemic restrictions that only allowed twenty people to enter at a time, on the hour, while everyone else had to stand outside and freeze our asses off. So we said fuck it, and left.

Oh, did I mention it's FREEZING here? Well, it is. Despite being nearly as far south as Barcelona, Serbia's landlocked position makes for frigid winters. And I don't like to stand outside in them. Even for Nikola Tesla.

Our final stop was the Belgrade Fortress, once the entirety of the city when it was built in the 3rd century BC. Now, it stands in the city's Kalemegdan Park, overlooking the Danube, and is the most-visited site in Serbia. It's also very, very cold in the winter atop its 125 meter/412 foot-high cliff, so we bought some hot mulled wine from a vendor to keep warm during our (very brief) visit.

In the evening, we had reservations at the Michelin-listed Iva New Balkan Cuisine. Yes, that's right- Belgrade has some serious food action going on. There are no fewer than seventeen Michelin starred- or listed-restaurants in Belgrade. Classic Serbian cuisine is known for heavy Eastern European-style food, but younger chefs are focusing on the same ingredients, but with a bit more finesse than a hunk of meat plopped on a plate.

Our dinner reservation at Iva was shockingly early for Spanish residents: 6pm (or, "Spanish late lunchtime"). But the gray, oppressive light quality and darkness in Belgrade is so similar to Seattle's and London's that it felt like the middle of the night to us. And dinner was fantastic, so I will forgive this dining sin.

We started with coupes of Serbian sparkling wine (yes, Serbia makes sparkling wine, who knew), roasted local cheese, and local chicken liver pâté. For dinner, Matt ordered pork belly, and I ordered a chicken cutlet with pumpkin butter and potatoes. Dessert was very Serbian, but with an elevated twist: Sour plums in vanilla cream with plum essence gnocchi, stuffed with sweet Serbian cheese. I would say I liked this, but I am not gonna lie. I will say: Some things are Just Not Dessert. Hrrmph.

After our epic dinner, we searched in vain for a cozy bar, but were unable to find one that wasn't chock full o' smokers- yes indeed, in 2023 Serbia stills allows indoor smoking- so we headed back to our cozy AirBnB.Baca lagi