Today we head to the Balkan nation of Serbia. I’ve not been to Serbia, but I have transferred through Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport. Incidentally, Nikola Tesla wasn’t actually from Serbia but was born in modern-day Croatia.

I’d love to visit Belgrade, and also Serbia as a whole. It also sounds like I’m not the only one as Serbia was voted the number one emerging travel destination in Europe for 2019. Admittedly, this was only on a small blog called Travel Lemming, but as it fits today’s narrative, who am I to argue? 

Anyway, I’d love to visit Belgrade as I’ve heard only good things from everyone I know who has visited. It’s a city known for its gritty culture and fantastic nightlife. For example, it has a large number of “splavs”, or river clubs. As far as I can tell splats are basically floating bars and nightclubs. 

Serbia is also home to what must be the world’s largest trumpet festival, the Guča Trumpet Festival which regularly attracts up to 600,000 visitors. That’s a lot of trumpet fans.

You’ve probably heard of Kosovo, a breakaway region of Serbia. Kosovo is home to mostly ethnic Albanians and wants to be independent, declaring independence 2008 after a brutal conflict in the late 90s. Yet Kosovo is still in limbo as it was unable to get a two-thirds vote to be recognised as a nation by the UN. Tensions between Serbia and Kosovo persist to this day as Serbia still views Kosovar territory as a key part of Serbia.

Serbia tops the global raspberry export tables and claims that in 2012, 95% of the world’s raspberries came from Serbia. I’m dubious of this.

I’ll leave you with a final fact before escaping to watch the England - Denmark game - most Serbian surnames end in “ić“. This is certainly true of the Serbian people I know.