Serbia is a big country for the Balkans and there is a lot of ground to cover on a Serbia road trip. Coming up to Belgrade from Kosovo via Montenegro, we saw much of the country and it is a beautiful place. This was my second trip to Belgrade after a 2007 visit that had me at odds with a Serbian cop who was bored and felt like busting balls. Needless to say, our Serbia road trip this year was much more pleasant!

As most of you know, I am a massive sports fan and tennis in particular. For years, Serbia has been the epicenter of tennis with 3 #1 ranked players on both the men’s and women’s sides. While the Serbian women have dropped in form, Novak Djokovic is on a tear unlike any I’ve ever seen. He is currently the #1 player in the world and will be for a while. So that’s the first thing I always think about when I think of Serbia and second is clearly Belgrade.

Belgrade has been a hot topic with my friends recently as a good buddy of mine is having his bachelor party in Belgrade in 2 weeks. Sadly, I can’t make it but we had a great stay in Belgrade during this Serbia road trip thanks mainly to some great recommendations from some friends I met via Instagram.

I love when social media actually allows you to make contact with quality, normal, positive people instead of negative trolls. That was the case for Belgrade. My buddy Joe and I met up with a group of friends who love travel and follow my social channels. We ate at a place called Toro along the waterfront in Old Belgrade and had a great time. It’s a really cool, trendy area that I can loosely compare to the Meatpacking District in New York.

We were also given some awesome recommendations for what to see and do in Belgrade the next day. Starting off with an amazing coffee at a place called Przionica and then some pastries at French La Petite Cantine. I love doing that type of thing and going to local haunts just as you’d do at home. It really makes you feel more comfortable and at ease in the city.

We stayed at the Metropol Palace Hotel; which was OK. It is a Luxury Collection hotel and is probably the worst one I’ve ever seen but it only cost $120 or so. That’s pretty good value and it was a good location to walk all over town.

The fortress is probably the top draw in Belgrade and it is pretty nice. It has some good views but the whole thing won’t blow your mind or anything and there’s a lot of construction going on. I much preferred just walking around the pedestrian street and checking out the big government buildings and churches in town. Belgrade is a nice town to hang out in but it’s best known for its nightlife!

We left from Belgrade for Novi Sad. I had long heard about Novi Sad and was really excited to finally get there. In reality, I wasn’t blown away or anything but I enjoyed it. The old town in Novi Sad was cool to check out and the Petrovaradin Citadel was the highlight without question.

The citadel towers over the modern city and is built on a 40m high volcanic slab of rock. The locals call it Gibraltar! It is cool to check out and a great place to have lunch with a fantastic view of the Danube and modern city below. There were a lot of cool pictures to be taken before the Serbia road trip headed down to Sarajevo.

So my take on Serbia is that it’s a nice enough country but Belgrade is unquestionably the highlight and is well worth a few days. Also, the southwestern part of the country is gorgeous to drive through and should be a part of any Serbia road trip.

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