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Belgrade Highlights
Knez Mihailova Street
The main promenade and shopping centre. A pedestrian zone, it stretches between Terazije and Kalemegdan Park. It is named after Prince Mihailo Obrenović, the most enlightened ruler of modern Serbia and the younger son of Prince Miloš. He came to throne after his father's death in 1860 and was assassinated during a stroll through Košutnjak Park in 1868. Sets of representative buildings and mansions erected in the late 19th century adorn the street
Republic Square
The main city square lined with the National Theatre building (completed in 1869), National Museum, and monument to Prince Mihailo erected in 1882, popular with Belgraders as a meeting point. Once it was the location of the infamous Stambol Gate, the main gates to the Belgrade Fortress. Today this square hosts concerts, protests and various other events. The National Museum is closed to visitors due to inadequate conditions for display and a reconstruction will take several years, so you will be unable to see a large collection of international painters (particularly impressionists), or its most valued treasure - Miroslavljevo jevanđelje (Miroslav Gospel), the oldest preserved manuscript in Serbian Cyrillic Script (from 1190) with very rich decorations.
Serbian Parliament (Skupstina)
Trg Nikola Pasic 13.
This building certainly has seen a fair bit of action. Started off in 1906, building activities were interrupted by the First World War; it was completed in 1932, while the Playing Black Horses statues were added in 1939. In 1945, the Yugoslav Republic was announced here, and more recently the building had its 15 minutes of fame on October 5, 2000, when part a crowd of 900,000 gathered in Belgrade stormed the building, throwing out fraudulent ballot papers, setting fire to a room or two and scooting off with bits and pieces of the building and its interior, while RTS (Serbian state TV) happily chose to ignore all the fuss. BBC's John Simpson reported: 'when demonstrators brought out hatstands, chairs and policemen's helmets from the parliament building, it was more in the spirit of souvenir hunting than looting'. When the new authorities later kindly asked the public to bring back the furniture, nobody was surprised that many did so.
Albania building
Knez Mihailova 2-4.
Located on Terazije - the centre of the city and the Balkan Peninsula. Terazije is a landmark from which all distances in Serbia are measured. Completed in 1939, Albania was the tallest building in Belgrade and the Balkans for a long time. It was named after a tavern named Albania, which occupied the same site. Workers digging its foundations turned up a mammoth's skeleton. It is one of the symbols of Belgrade, and one of very few buildings which were spared the destructions of WWII.
Cathedral Church
Kneza Sime Markovića bb.
The main church of the city, dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel. The present church (from 1845) was built on the site of a former Cathedral Church, dating from the 16th century, which had been repeatedly demolished and desecrated by the Ottoman Turks. The church treasures the holy remains of Serbian saint Emperor Uroš (the last of Nemanjić Royal house), and it is the burial site of some of the most important figures in Serbian history: Vuk Karadžić, Dositej Obradović, and Serbian rulers of the Obrenović dynasty - Miloš, Mihailo and Milan. The interior is richly decorated with a gold-plated carved iconostasis. Across from the church is the seat of the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, a building completed in 1935.
Kalemegdan Park
Kalemegdan Park was created as late as the 19th century, on a plateau in front of the fortress, which had been cleared for centuries to allow for unobstructed view of the advancing enemy. The park is popular because of its many shady benches, random sculptures, art pavilion, Zoo, amusement park, souvenir vendors. It is the favourite haunt of chess players, squirrels and couples in love.
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