Belgrade

Tuesday, April 9th

This morning we woke up in Belgrade, capital of Serbia. Our tour consisted of a guided walk through the grounds of Kalemegdan Fortress, now a beautiful park.

Belgrade Fortress represent old citadel (Upper and Lower Town) and Kalemegdan Park (Large and Little Kalemegdan) on the confluence of the River Sava and Danube, in an urban area of modern Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Stari Grad. Belgrade Fortress was declared Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and it is protected by Republic of Serbia.

Belgrade Fortress is located on top of the 125.5 meters high ending ridge of Šumadija geological bar. The cliff-like ridge overlooks the Great War Island and the confluence of the Sava river into the Danube, and makes one of the most beautiful natural lookouts in Belgrade.





Spring is finally coming!!!! This is the first dat that I would say the weather was comfortable.





Next stop was at the Square of the Republic





After a short stop at a restaurant for a bathroom break and a drink, we continued on the bus for an overview of Belgrade..


Parliament House





Damage from 1990s war


Tito's Museum. His home still stands behind the museum.

Our last stop was at St. Sava's Temple It is the Balkans's largest Orthodox church building. It ranks amongst the ten largest church buildings in the world. The church is dedicated to Saint Sava, the founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church and an important figure in medieval Serbia. It is built on the Vračar plateau, on the location where it is alleged that his remains were burned in 1595 by the Ottoman Empire's Sinan Pasha. From its location, it dominates Belgrade's cityscape, and is perhaps the most monumental building in the city. The building of the church structure is being financed exclusively by donations. The parish home is nearby, as will be the planned patriarchal building.
The building is not a cathedral in the technical ecclesiastical sense, as it is not the seat of a bishop. In Serbian it is called a hram (temple), which is in Eastern Orthodoxy another name for a church. In English, it is usually called a cathedral because of its size and importance, though basilica may be a more appropriate name.





Forty years after the initial idea, construction of the church began on May 10, 1935, 340 years after the burning of Saint Sava's remains. The cornerstone was laid by bishop Gavrilo Dožić-Medenica (the future Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo V). The project was designed by Aleksandar Deroko and Bogdan Nestorović, aided by civil engineer Vojislav Zađina. The work lasted until Second World War Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. The church's foundation had been completed, and the walls erected to the height of 7 and 11 meters. After the 1941 bombing of Belgrade, work ceased altogether. The occupying German army used the unfinished church as a parking lot, while in 1944 the partisans and the Red Army used it with the same purpose. Later, it was used for storage by various companies. The Society for Building of the Cathedral ceased to exist and has not been revived.
In 1958, Patriarch German renewed the idea of building the church. After 88 requests for continuation of the building—and as many refusals, permission for finishing the building was granted in 1984, and Branko Pešić was chosen as new architect of the church. He remade the original projects to make better use of new materials and building techniques. Construction of the building began again on August 12, 1985. The walls were erected to full height of 40 meters.
The greatest achievement of the construction process was lifting of the 4,000 ton central dome, which was built on the ground, together with the copper plate and the cross, and later lifted onto the walls. The lifting, which took forty days, was finished on June 26, 1989.
As of 2009, the church is mostly complete. The bells and windows had been installed, and the facade completed. However, work on the internal decoration of the building still remains largely unfinished.








We had planned to have lunch off the boat but unfortunately, the Serbs will not accept any currency other than their own...we did not want to buy any so we just came back to the boat.