Weekend in Belgrade - Sunday
Head out at 10 am to see the attractive St. Mark's Church. Unlike Roman Catholic or Protestant churches, there are no seats here - the congregation stands throughout. As you might imagine, there is a strong smell of incense and a powerful atmosphere of religiosity as worshippers queue to venerate the icons.
Walking back out into the sunshine, we make our way to the Nikola Tesla Museum a few streets away on Krupska. Tesla, who was born in Serbia, lived most of his life in the United States. With a list of inventions that includes the AC motor (enabling the first large-scale power stations to be built), the neon light, the first remote control system and a wireless transmission system that predated Marconi's (and is recognized as having precedence by the US Supreme Court), Tesla has to be one of the most influential people of the last 120 years.
The museum itself is very good indeed. It begins with biographical information about the man himself, a section that includes a number of personal effects and letters from other scientific giants such as Lord Kelvin and Einstein. Rather eerily, the urn containing Tesla's ashes is also on display. The second half of the exhibit consists of a number of hands-on displays that a guide leads you through. The highlight of these has to be holding a neon tube while standing next to a high-frequency oscillator-transformer generating 500,000 volts (the tube lights up). Very Star Wars!
One small criticism of the museum is that it almost totally glosses over Tesla's more esoteric experiments and inventions, such as his infamous 'Death Ray'. However, there is a short section on his 'World's Radio Station', an attempt to create a kind of Wifi 'hotspot' network 100 years ahead of time. Tesla wanted to transmit news, music and photographs around the world from his radio tower in Long Island and to power ships, cars and factories with the 'wireless power' it could generate. Sadly, his backers (chiefly J.P. Morgan) withdraw their support before his dream could be realized.
One point of interest for serious researchers, the Tesla Museum has an archive of more than 150,000 of the man's documents, including unpublished work.
After a refreshing Greek salad at Opera on Obilicev Venac, we decide to visit Belgrade Beach. With the temperature still in the mid-30s, it is packed. There must be close to 20,000 people enjoying themselves here. The beach is located on the island of Ada Ciganlija in the middle of the Sava. One of the river's channels has been dammed at this point to create an artificial lake and a shingle beach deposited alongside. The greeny-brown colour of the water does nothing to deter the throng from swimmimg, playing water polo, riding inflatable pedaloes, etc. In fact, despite the occasional twig or weed floating past, it's actually pretty pleasant in the water. Away from the riverside, the island's volleyball and basketball courts are all occupied, an indication of the popularity of these two sports. (In fact of any team sport that involves throwing a large round ball - the previous evening our taxi was caught in a city centre traffic jam as flag waving, horn-tooting youths celebrated the Serbia & Montenegro men's team's victory in the world water polo championships).
Back to the hotel, then back out for a last night on the town. We check out a couple more city centre bars - Simbol and Fun Casino (sitting outside the latter, you would not even realise that it was a casino - it's also very cheap: a half litre of lager costing the equivalent of less than 50 euro cents!)
Flying home the following morning takes twice as long as on the way out. The reason: there are not enough passengers to enable JAT Airways (the Serbian carrier) to run direct flights from Brussels to Belgrade and back. Instead, the plane also stops at Amsterdam. This Belgrade-Amsterdam-Brussels-Belgrade circuit is a further sign that the Serbian capital is not yet fully geared up for tourists. Enjoy it before the Prague pissheads arrive.
Walking back out into the sunshine, we make our way to the Nikola Tesla Museum a few streets away on Krupska. Tesla, who was born in Serbia, lived most of his life in the United States. With a list of inventions that includes the AC motor (enabling the first large-scale power stations to be built), the neon light, the first remote control system and a wireless transmission system that predated Marconi's (and is recognized as having precedence by the US Supreme Court), Tesla has to be one of the most influential people of the last 120 years.
The museum itself is very good indeed. It begins with biographical information about the man himself, a section that includes a number of personal effects and letters from other scientific giants such as Lord Kelvin and Einstein. Rather eerily, the urn containing Tesla's ashes is also on display. The second half of the exhibit consists of a number of hands-on displays that a guide leads you through. The highlight of these has to be holding a neon tube while standing next to a high-frequency oscillator-transformer generating 500,000 volts (the tube lights up). Very Star Wars!
One small criticism of the museum is that it almost totally glosses over Tesla's more esoteric experiments and inventions, such as his infamous 'Death Ray'. However, there is a short section on his 'World's Radio Station', an attempt to create a kind of Wifi 'hotspot' network 100 years ahead of time. Tesla wanted to transmit news, music and photographs around the world from his radio tower in Long Island and to power ships, cars and factories with the 'wireless power' it could generate. Sadly, his backers (chiefly J.P. Morgan) withdraw their support before his dream could be realized.
One point of interest for serious researchers, the Tesla Museum has an archive of more than 150,000 of the man's documents, including unpublished work.
After a refreshing Greek salad at Opera on Obilicev Venac, we decide to visit Belgrade Beach. With the temperature still in the mid-30s, it is packed. There must be close to 20,000 people enjoying themselves here. The beach is located on the island of Ada Ciganlija in the middle of the Sava. One of the river's channels has been dammed at this point to create an artificial lake and a shingle beach deposited alongside. The greeny-brown colour of the water does nothing to deter the throng from swimmimg, playing water polo, riding inflatable pedaloes, etc. In fact, despite the occasional twig or weed floating past, it's actually pretty pleasant in the water. Away from the riverside, the island's volleyball and basketball courts are all occupied, an indication of the popularity of these two sports. (In fact of any team sport that involves throwing a large round ball - the previous evening our taxi was caught in a city centre traffic jam as flag waving, horn-tooting youths celebrated the Serbia & Montenegro men's team's victory in the world water polo championships).
Back to the hotel, then back out for a last night on the town. We check out a couple more city centre bars - Simbol and Fun Casino (sitting outside the latter, you would not even realise that it was a casino - it's also very cheap: a half litre of lager costing the equivalent of less than 50 euro cents!)
Flying home the following morning takes twice as long as on the way out. The reason: there are not enough passengers to enable JAT Airways (the Serbian carrier) to run direct flights from Brussels to Belgrade and back. Instead, the plane also stops at Amsterdam. This Belgrade-Amsterdam-Brussels-Belgrade circuit is a further sign that the Serbian capital is not yet fully geared up for tourists. Enjoy it before the Prague pissheads arrive.
Labels: On the road
posted by Justin Toland at 1:22 am
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