Walking in Belgrade

 

Sign for our street

This May finds me unexpectedly in the city of Belgrade, the capital of the Republic of Serbia in central Europe. A May Term class at Coe College needed another faculty member. I leapt at the chance to explore a new city.  (New only to me, of course... the city has been occupied since pre-historic times.)

Belgrade is a city of 1.2 million people, with a metropolitan area population reaching 1.7 million (Source). (Do the others live in Serb-urbia? Sorry, it was a long flight.) Its city population is about the same as Dallas, Texas, but the capital city has a population density of 8390 per square mile compared to Dallas's 3841. Dallas's metro area is much larger, too, of course.

Our class is staying in a small hotel in the Vracar neighborhood south of downtown.

Vojvode Dragomira (street)

Vracar remains Belgrade's most densely-populated district, though it has lost over a third of its population since it peaked at 88,000 in the 1961 census. As you can see from the picture of our block (above), streets are mostly narrow, and both residences and businesses are built close to the street. A lot of residences, though, have walls or wall-like facilities along the street, creating a tube-like effect for walkers, except that every once in awhile a break in the wall will reveal a garden or some other intriguing view. 

On Vukice Mitrovic (street)

Sidewalks are narrow, sometimes as narrow as two feet wide, with the occasional obstacle.

Along Vukice Metrovic

(Do graffiti count as human activity contributing to an interesting walk? Or does it make it feel less safe? What if one struggles with the Cyrillic alphabet?)

Cara Nicolaja II (main thoroughfare)

Walking around this old city scores high on Duany et al's qualities of meaningful and interesting, with mixed results on safe and comfortable. In a dense urban area, there are plenty of everyday-life destinations. Cuburski Park, a large multi-function facility, is very close by.

Cuburski Park

On the other side of the park is this shady bunch of shops.

There are shops of all kinds close by--Belgrade apparently never went in for Euclidean zoning...

Maksima Gorkog (main thoroughfare)

...with an unusual frequency of drug stores, as well as gambling facilities.

One of many "slot clubs" along Cara Nicolaja II

A mere kilometer from our hotel up Maksima Gorkog, past the intersection with Petrogradska--Do you get the impression there are some cultural ties to Russia?--is the huge open air market Kaliniceva Pijaca...

...which offered very fresh fruit including strawberries to die for, flowers, clothes, and one bin of LPs and 45s.

Farther north are the long pedestrian-only street Knez Mihailovich...

...of which more later, and beyond that a park containing the historic Kalmegdan Fortress, parts of which date to Roman times...

...and which overlooks the junction of the Danube and Sava Rivers.

Cycling is rare on the narrow busy streets in our part of the city. I had just decided it was non-existent when I saw a cyclist.

Maksima Gorkog intersection with Cara Nikolaja II

Then I saw a few more. They tended to be of the most committed variety, the ones who are determined to cycle in any conditions. Downtown the sidewalks are wider and cyclists tended to stay there.

Bike lane downtown

 I also saw some scooters downtown, though again not many.

We'll continue walking around Belgrade during our stay here. My first impression is that there are a lot of reasons to walk, and a lot of interesting sights along the way as well as a lot of other people walking. Pedestrian infrastructure is not always the best, and crossing the busier streets can be a challenge. On the whole I feel welcome here--Belgrade is the sort of place that won't judge you if you won't judge it.

Traffic mirror at intersection of Vojvode Dragomira and Vukice Micovic

Wayfinding and useful information sign

Fancy "beg button"