We only spent a few days in Belgrade, Serbia but it felt like the perfect amount of time to see what the city had to offer. Here’s what we did and some of our suggestions.
St. Sava Church - Incredible looking church from the outside. It is currently under construction but we were allowed to go into the lower level of the church and it was equally as impressive.
Museums- As you know, museums can span a wide variety of topics and can be hit or miss whether you learn much. We really enjoyed the museums in Belgrade because we learned so much in each one. Some of them were even free because it was Sunday.
Tesla museum (not free) - Honestly, we really only knew the Tesla name thanks to Elon Musk’s electric cars. So it was fascinating to learn about the man who is responsible for the design of the modern alternating current electricity supply system. The museum is a little different than most, in how it’s set up. You go into the museum, watch a 15 minute video about Nikola and then an employee does some “experiments” to show you what he invented and how it works.
Museum of Yugoslavia - We learned the most in this museum because our knowledge of Yugoslavia and it’s most famous leader, Josip Broz Tito, was sub-par at best. Going in I (and many others I am sure) just assumed that everything was black and white. Communism = bad. Communist Leaders = bad. Citizens living in a republic = happy. This museum and people we’ve talked to since have taught us that it’s not that simple. Tito was revered and still is to this day by many. The main reason for this was that most of Eastern Europe became satellite states of the Soviet Union following WWII but Tito and Yugoslavia refused, instead forming their own government. Yugoslavia functioned more like a socialist state than a traditional communist state. The majority of the museum is dedicated to the memory of Tito (including his grave) and the MANY gifts he received from leaders around the world who appreciated him as a leader (IE Nixon, Ford, and Kennedy).
National Museum of Serbia - This museum was closed from 2003-2018 which gave them plenty of time to get things right. We can report they succeeded. Personally, I think half the battle of making a good museum is the layout. If you can present things in an interesting and logical way then it will be successful. The National Museum of Serbia did a great job of setting up their museum. The first floor is arranged in chronological order starting from roughly the beginning of humans until the 20th century. Each “stage” has a good description of what was happening in the region and archaeological finds from that time period. The top couple of floors has artwork from the region and historical pieces from around the world (ie Monet and Van Gogh).
Belgrade Fortress - This complex is HUGE with a bunch of different areas to see and explore. We didn’t go into anything but walking around and seeing views of the city was fantastic!
To see ALL of our photos from Belgrade go here!