It was too hot and tiring to do much sightseeing so I can't tell you the best restaurant in Belgrade, or even my favourite, since we didn't sample many.
On Wednesday evening we went for the second time to Skadarska. We didn't take any photos so these are from Flickr.
We went to a restaurant called the Two Deer (Dva Jelena) It had tables under a timber roof and a group of musicians were playing. As we took our seats the humidity sprays came on, giving us a shower. It was really no more than a light spray but it was a bit surprising. The whole roof had been piped to water the guests, rather like the humidity sprays in tropical botanical gardens (I had been to Kew a week or so earlier). Later we saw quite a few restaurants spraying water onto fans to keep their guests cool.
The musicians were playing a mixture of local folk songs but as they went round the tables they played requests from whatever country the diners came from. We didn't like this as much as the other restaurant we had been to earlier, where the music was local and more interesting. The musicians (a double bass, two guitars, two smaller guitar like instruments and something like a ukelele) also sang and the combination of loud music and crowding round the table was a bit much for us.
Later in the evening a lady in full Victorian dress, with large hat appeared in one corner. She looked like someone from an old music hall act and we wondered what she was going to do. Eventually, she joined the musicians and sang, looking like something from the Merry Widow (she was not so young). Older men from the audience were pressed into service (some willingly, others not so) as waltzing partners. Just before the end she launched into a spiel of rather convincing Italian. Altogether more puzzling than entertaining. Here she is on another occasion (looking a bit younger). The food was dismissed as typical Central European, and a lot of the menu was "off". Photo by sunniako
Skadarska itself is a tourist street with cobbled streets, restaurants and galleries.
(this photo from Shinjirod)
It is not so long or steep as Kyiv's Andreiski Uzviz, but it does have more restaurants and less tourist tat. At the bottom is a magnificent trompe l'oeil: several multi-storeyed houses painted in full 3-D on a blank wall. Really quite impressive. This photo came from here
We stayed in the Kasina hotel which had the advantage of being central and cheap at around 80 Euros. Not so cheap at all but cheaper than others we were offered which were already full despite charging 100 Euros or even more for single rooms and nothing else special. When we arrived I realised I had stayed there in 2001 when I came for an interview. Not much had changed, new furniture in the rooms, and internet in the lobby being the most noticeable. In the last six months we have all got used to having wireless in the hotel room, which wasn't available. Just as we left I grumbled about the lack of wireless and the reception staff laughed. They explained that it was easy to piggy back onto the wireless systems of the two hotels opposite. I had actually noticed that my computer picked them up but it seems they only connect on the ground and first floor, and I was on the 3rd. So for the last half hour I had free internet courtesy of the Moskva hotel. Clearly open access wireless is a new form of socialist goody.
Actually we were surprised that neither the hotel in Saloniki or Belgrade charged for internet, printing or faxes. This makes a nice change from all the itemised bills for every little service that you tend to get in Western Europe.
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