In May 2018 we went to Serbia with some thoughts about what we would see over there. On Youtube, the search box auto-completes the name of “Belgrade” with a bombing.

None of us went to Yugoslavia as a child. Instead of describing day by day what we saw, what we ate, what we bought and what we did, I’d like to share with you some unobvious (surprising) things we experienced.

Astonishment #1

You cannot buy an ordinary black tea. Mint, chamomile and various other herbs – no problem, but if you’re tea-lover, you should bring your own 🙂

Astonishment #2

We’ve been warned that in Belgrade we should use the public transport because there’s not enough space in the city. But it seems that in the centre there’s a lot of underground garages and the total price was lower than a day ticket for the public transport for our family.

Astonishment #3

Speaking of parking – parking lots are very narrow and probably designed for Yugo (local brand car)?

Astonishment #4

In the streets, you can see a lot of “youngtimers” – Yugo and Zastava. Maybe this is an explanation for #3? 🙂

Astonishment #5

A great entrance into the ground in the centre of Belgrade is not the entrance to the subway, but to the passage under the street. There’s still no subway in Belgrade 🙂

Astonishment #6

Card payments are not available anywhere yet. Take your own cash if you want to visit the Tesla Museum.

Astonishment #7

In commercial places (cafes, restaurants, museums) most of the subtitles are in the Latin alphabet, but official notifications – for example, “The post office is closed”-  are still written in Cyrillic.

Astonishment #8

Sometimes it is easier to communicate in Polish than in English.

Astonishment #9

The International Labor Day lasts for 2 days, so May the 2nd is also a day off.

Astonishment #10

The Lemonade – ice water with a huge amount of lemon juice, and no sugar in it! The sugar is served separately and you can add as much sugar as you like.

Astonishment #11

In Poland Kajmak is the name for Dulce de leche. In Serbia, it is something totally else. It tastes wonderful with fresh bread.

Astonishment #12

Do you want to buy some fresh bread? No problem! You will find a bakery opened 24 hours a day almost everywhere. We suppose that this is a kind of local fast food – a yoghurt and a roll, or something more sophisticated: a slice of hot pizza freshly baked.

Astonishment #13

Belgrade is a beautiful mix of the classical architecture and the 20th-century brutalism.

Astonishment #14

There are no signs of war at least in the centre.

Astonishment #15

A place for commemoration (a monument in honour of the killed people) is to serve people. And it is not strange to lay out a blanket in its shadow and make a picnic with your family.

Astonishment #16

The church of Saint Sava is really big. And it is still being constructed. And it has a vault made of bare concrete.

Astonishment #17

If we were vegetarians, we could eat the Shopska Salad there all day long. Unfortunately, we are not, so we had to eat also a lot of other delicious food – for example, Ćevapi and the meat from veal’s head.

Astonishment #18

We did not need to specially prepare our Saab 9-5NG v6 xwd car for this trip.

Finally, it is not a surprise then that 3 days in Serbia is definitely too short and we will back there to find other astonishments.