The artistic Belgrade #travel #art #hip

Alina Aliman| June 7, 2015

Rumors say that every city is different in the eyes of every visitor. Therefore, my Belgrade was different: I didn’t chase the town for the secular churches and I wasn’t looking around for the best traditional food. My Belgrade was sunny and colorful, very hip, with a lot of art galleries and street art, with beautiful buildings, exquisite wine bars and delicious coffe, plus nice Serbian designers selection.

To eat: Try the Beton Hala – a former concrete industrial building on the river banks, transformed into a hub for bars, restaurants, terraces, lounges. Take a walk on the river’ side and stop for lunch at Cantine di Frida or Sakura (the mix of oriental spices and balkanic food is delicious). In the heart of the city you will find Manufaktura (facebook.com/pages/Manufaktura). Fancy for little restaurants? Walk on the elegant streests of Stari Grad and you can find Mamma’s Biscuit House (mammasbiscuit.rs), Eatalian (47 Lord Jevremova Street), Pedrario wine bar (nice atmosphere and good wine, unfriendly waiters, though). For the best icecream: Moritz Eis (moritzeis.com). For waffles: Avgustin Waffle&Ice Bar at Belgrade Art Hotel (a very good place to stay – belgradearthotel.com – just in the heart of the city).

To see: start your journey with the Danube promenade and the huge park at the end of the Kneaz Mihailova street. Enjoy a short visit to the historical fortress of the city; even you don’t love so much the archeological sites. Then take a walk through the wide green park and admire the view over the river. On the way back, stop at Salon of Museum of Contemporary Art for the newest exhibitions (14 Pariska Street) and indulge you with a bag full of popcorn on the street.

For the most conservative ones: must pay a visit to Nikola Tesla museum (the unfortunate scientist that discovered the neon lamp at the same time as Edison), the churches and the history museum.

For street art lovers and not just for them: Continue your itinerary through Belgrad in Savamala, the artistic district of Belgrade and kingdom of hipsters. It may seem unfriendly at a first glance, maybe dirty someplaces, but you won’t be dissapointed. A lot of funny grafitti on the walls, old and shabby buildings transformed into creative hubs, little local food delicacies (baklava, halva, nuga, biscuits and on). On Karadjordjeva Street stays Mikser, one of my favourite (http://house.mikser.rs/), a creative and cultural hub with a restaurant and a lot of local designers’ creations. The other was Geozavod building (former institute and bank), splendid renovated and transformed into an art gallery, which host now an enormous project about the reconstruction of the New Belgrade and an exquisite restaurant, 1905.

For fashion scouters: Belgrade Design District (the new&hip fashiopn designers, http://www.belgradedesigndistrict.blogspot.com), Zanat Concept Store and Rish store (nice shoes, Serbian made).

Curiosities: you will find odd that Zepter is present all around the city (with showroms, hotel and even a museum). But, inded, the owner is Serbian. On the streets you can listen to clasical music played by very talented artists (with piano, violin and musical sheet). Be aware: the street’s names are sometimes written with Latin characters, sometimes are in Cyrillic alphabet.