Travel tales
Adventures from here, there and everywhere.
Serbia: Belgrade and No Sleep Festival
Nov 14-Nov 22, 2018
Continuing on our journey south and east, next up was Belgrade, Serbia for No Sleep Festival. No Sleep is put on by the organizers of Exit Festival, one of the largest and most well known in Europe. A little bit of interesting history: Exit Festival began as a student protest in 2000 against regime under the rule of Slobodan Milošević. "Exit" refers to the end of the regime.
Getting into our new apartment was a bit of an adventure... We were picked up from the airport by a taxi service arranged by our AirBnB host and dropped off—at what we thought—was our apartment downtown. This all seemed to run smoothly until we rang the buzzer— our host was supposed to be waiting for us upstrairs but no one answered. With the little data left on our Orange pre-paid SIM cards, we looked up her number and called long enough to figure out that we have been dropped off at completely the wrong place! With close to freezing temperatures in the middle of a Sunday night in Belgrade, with no WiFi or any other way to contact anyone, we waited outside an apartment building hoping that our host will come and pick us up. Thankfully, after 15 minutes of shivering and trying to keep warm, Diana and her husband rolled up in an SUV and drove us to the correct location— a cozy apartment in the Droćol neighborhood.
Now in Eastern Europe, I already felt at home. The people, the houses and the food were all familiar, and I even understood a bit of the language. The elevator to our apartment was tiny and the stairwell smelled of old-man cologne, the kind that my grandfather has been using for the past 40 years. We settled in nicely and since we had been to Belgrade before for a short stopover, didn't feel obligated to do all the touristy things (see the fortress, walk by the Danube, etc.) but just relaxed and enjoyed the vibes of the city, while working out of our apartment.
Belgrade's beauty is impressive, and truly deserves its name, which means "White City". Perched on the rolling hills of the Danube, you can see far and wide over the hills. While the architecture is distinctly Eastern European, the promenades feel wide and well organized. My favorite part of Belgrade was definitely the food—tomato and cucumber salad with feta, beans with ham, soups, chevapi and fresh pastries all day (there was a 24 h bakery and grocery store right on our street!)
No Sleep Festival was interesting and really well run. With music at a variety of venues across the city, there was the opportunity to see lots of venues in a short amount of time. With lots of locals attending, it was also a pretty sweet way to feel part of the growing electronic scene in Serbia (some call it the new Berlin). My favourite venue was a barge/old boat on the river, smokey and decorated with quirky bits of fabric, picture frames, and carnival beads.