Destination 》Europe 》Central and Eastern Europe 》Serbia
Year Visited: 2018 – August/September
I visited Serbia with my younger Son during our backpacking journey through the Central and Eastern European countries. After about two weeks in Bulgaria, we took a bus to Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia.
Serbia, a Balkan nation and one of the Republics of former Yugoslavia, is a landlocked country in the Central Europe. It is situated on one of the major land routes from Central Europe to Turkey and further on to East Asia via Central Asia. There were seventeen Roman emperors born in the territory of today’s Serbia, and many of them left monuments and built palaces in or close to their birthplaces. Serbs are one of the most hospitable and welcoming, especially towards foreigners.
Little History about Serbia; the first Serbian state was formed in the mid 9th century, expanding by the mid 14th century to an empire comprising most of the Balkans. In 1389, the Serbs lost a decisive battle against the Turks and became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1459. An uprising in the early 1800s that grew in the full scale war led to the restoration of Serbian independence in 1815. The Austro-Hungarian Empire invaded Serbia in 1914. Following the first World War, In 1918, victorious Serbia gathered all south Slav lands into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes; the country’s name was changed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, the monarchy was subsequently abolished in 1945. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was renamed the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946, when a communist government was established. In the early 1990s, post-Tito Yugoslavia began to unravel along ethnic lines, all of efforts to preserve Yugoslavia were ultimately unsuccessful and bloody civil wars broke out. In the late 1990s, the conflict with the Albanian separatist movement in Kosovo led to a NATO bombing campaign and direct intervention. On 5 June 2006, Serbia declared independence, and re-emerged as an independent state, under its own name, for the first time since 1918.
Below are some places we explored during our a week long travel around Serbia. Click on any City to view my travel photos and stories.
After a week in Serbia, we continued our backpacking journey through the Balkans, moving towards south to Pristina, the capital city of Kosovo, a partially recognized country.
Window on the World 