Yulko Polo Travel Blog

General Info

Country: Lithuania | Language: Lithuanian, Russian | Currency: EURO (EUR) | Flag: 🇱🇹 | When visited: Oct. 2023

____________________________________________________________________________

🚗 How to commute

The best and cheapest way to reach the city centre is by bus. The bus stop is located just opposite the main airport entrance, and there are multiple buses: #88, #1, #2 or #3G which is the quickest (ca. 15-20 minutes to the city centre) and the most frequent one. 🚌

🏨 Where to stay

We haven't been staying overnight. But if we would, we would stay at the “Grand Hotel Kempinski Vilnius”. 😀

🍽️ What and where to eat

The range of inexpensive and tasty food is huge: from ready to eat dishes in the supermarket to cafés and restaurants with local cuisine 😋

Some highlights include: – Narvesen (multiple locations around the city) where one can buy traditional for Baltic countries street food – hot dogs 🌭 – Maxima supermarkets where one can buy pastry, ready to eat salads, meat, fish, vegetable etc. The quality is great, prices are super affordable and it's tasty! 🍰 supermarket1 supermarket2

-Šnekutis (Šv. Mikolojaus g. 15, 01133 Vilnius) local pub with a great selection of the local beer and food 🍺 pub1 pub2

Of course, there are all familiar fast-food chains, and some local food/coffee chains like Vero caffee, Caif Cafe, Caffeine etc. and it is worth to notice that they have some local menu, like for example coleslaw burger in KFC or Halloween special coffee in Caffeine. caffee

👀 What to do and what to see

  • Vilnius Old Town including Town Hall Square, multiple churches and cathedrals, Gates of Dawn, Angel of Užupis, Literatų g. street and more Literatų Town Hall Square

  • Gediminas Castle Tower is worth a visit. It provides 2 amazing experiences: great viewpoint over the whole city, as well as interesting and new experience with the Funicular to the Gediminas Hill, which functions similar to an elevator! It costs just 1EUR, and one need to try it out for sure 😀 Gediminas1 Gediminas2 Gediminas3

  • Historical architectural ensemble, including Vilnius Cathedral, Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania and some monuments around. Cathedral

  • Baltasis tiltas bridge and area around on both river banks. Bridge

  • Lukiškės Square and area around including Interactive Fountains, Church of Apostles St. Philip and St. Jacob, Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Vilnius District Court, Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights and so on.

💡 Some highlights

  • It turned out that #1 foreign language there is Russian, so almost all people there speak Russian (or at least understand it).
  • The city provides a captivating mixture of historical epochs: one can see a lot of Soviet Union buildings, from houses till Museums, which co-exist in harmony with old buildings common for European cities.
  • In general, so many things around remind about Soviet Union: from sweets in supermarkets to buildings and public transport such as old trolleybuses.
  • Tasty food, pretty inexpensive products, and a lot of familiar food in supermarkets and cafés from our childhood :)

General Info

Country: Serbia | Language: Serbian | Currency: Serbian dinar (RSD) | Flag: 🇷🇸 | When visited: Oct. 2023

____________________________________________________________________________

🚗 How to commute

From the airport to the city, one can commute in 3 ways: – taxi (the quickest and the most expensive option around €10-15, though it's relatively cheap in comparison to German prices), – mini-bus shuttle, – or public bus #72 till the city centre (the longest (ca. 45–60 minutes to the city centre), but also the cheapest option, which costs <€1 if you'll pay at all 😊 ).

Around the city, we have been actively using public transport. 🚌 Important thing is that they have a new interesting payment system via SMS, and it's quite complicated considering that there is a roaming, and sending SMS may cost more than a ticket itself. As we were moving around with a local friend, it was easier for us. Sometimes he even wasn't sending any SMS at all… no one were checking. But according to our friend, there are people checking tickets sometimes, and it's quite easy to send SMS anytime if it might be needed. Not proud of moving around without a ticket sometime, but this is how it is :)

And worth to notice that buses in Belgrade are really old and not that well maintained in most cases 😞

🏨 Where to stay

We have been staying with our friend this time, so can't share anything.

🍽️ What and where to eat

There is a pretty good and budget street food such as pizza, or local dishes like pljeskavica or cevapcici with meat wrapped in bread, as well as bureks with various fillings, and a huge range of cafés and restaurants with Russian cuisine 🥙

We enjoyed a great Borscht and Okroshka at PATRIKI (Strahinjića Bana 68, Beograd 11000), and also yummy ice cream with unexpected tastes like lemon and cucumber at Crna Ovca (Kralja Petra 58, Beograd 11158). 🍦

Special attention deserve breweries, bars and beer shops, as they provide a huge range of international beer of all sorts, and great one-of-a-kind atmosphere! Docker 1 Docker 2 At the Docker Brewery&Bar (Žorža klemansoa 27b, Beograd 11000) one can experience atmosphere similar to German Biergartens, but having much bigger variety of local and international beer (up to 30 sorts). Beersheep Beer Store in the city centre (Balkanska 21, Beograd) provides huge variety of craft beer (they even have a smoothie beer!) both for take away, or to seat and drink there with a nice company of owner, company dogs and visitors 🍺

Balkan Express near Zemun district (Despota Ðurďa 22, Beograd) is a lovely, quite place at the river front, which definitely worth a visit especially if you are visiting Zemun during the sunny warm days. But be careful, as it's pretty popular and gets busy, it's better to reserve a place in advance to avoid the situation we had, when we couldn't enjoy the place on Sunday, as it was fully booked for the whole day long! 🤷‍♀️

👀 What to do and what to see

  • City centre including Republic Square, areas around with House of the National Assembly, Glavna Pošta etc., St. Mark Church and park around, Some building destroyed by NATO and left as a historical evidence like Zgrada Rts-A Srušena U Nato Agresiji 1999 etc. Republic Square St. Mark Church
  • Belgrade promenade, waterfront, and Brankov Bridge (check this area in the evening, it gets even more beautiful with lightning!) Promenade Promenade at night
  • Belgrade Fortress, Pobednik Pobednik
  • Zemun, and especially Tower Gardos with amazing viewpoint just behind it Zemun
  • Silosi space, it's beautiful murals and epic “Holy shit!” toilet. Holy Shit toilet at Silosi

We didn't have time to visit any museums, but there are plenty of them, including Nikola Tesla and Yugoslavia museums.

💡 Some highlights

  • It is worth to visit Belgrade with friends, and to have a lot of fun partying around together!
  • Try to get from point A to B with public transport for 🆓
  • Enjoy some beer in the Russian bars or at bars on the water, which are open after 12am (most local bars should be closed after that time according to local “calm time” rules).
  • On the way to Zemun Gardos Tower one passes a graveyard, and there is one special thing about that: one can see there some graves with a birthdate and no death date. It's due to the local tradition to “reserve” graveyard spots “for the future” because of different reasons.
  • One can print their face on a local banknote at the National Bank of Serbia every week day from 10am to 4pm. Check it out! Have your face printed on national money