The main tourist destinations in Serbia are primarily the capital Belgrade and the other major cities of Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac and Subotica, but also smaller towns such as Jagodina, Užice, Požarevac and numerous health resorts, including Vrnjačka Banja and Sokobanja, or the Kopaonik and Zlatibor mountains as well as the Danube, which is used by cruise ships and boats.
In the past, Serbia was often a borderland of important empires. The border between Western and Eastern Rome once ran along the Drina through Serbian areas. There were several important Roman legionary camps (Singidunum), large cities (Sirmium, Viminatium) and imperial residences (Sirmium, Naissus, Mediana, Felix Romuliana) of late antiquity on the Sava, Danube and along the Via militaris.
The architecture in Serbia is as diverse as the country's history. Byzantine architecture is important, especially in the numerous Serbian monasteries, some of which have been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The most important patrons of architecture were the members of the Nemanjid ruling dynasty. Since the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher by the dynastic founder Stefan Nemanja in the Studenica Monastery, all other Serbian kings have acted as patrons of the arts and, in particular, of religious architecture.
From this, the fresco painters developed a special style and a certain content, which is visibly different from both the subject matter in the Serbian churches of the 13th century and the iconographic content of those large ensembles that were created around the middle of the 14th century. In the Milutin school of painting, which belonged to the so-called Palaiological Renaissance, a whole army of painters, of whom the names of the Greek court painters Mikhail Astrapas and Eutychios have come down to us, worked on the fresco design of Milutin's numerous foundations in Serbia, Thessaloniki, Constantinople, the Holy Mount Athos and Jerusalem.
There is also a rich “independent” music scene in Serbia, which can be linked to the youth scenes in the former Yugoslavia, which were suppressed during the time of the Milošević regime. These include electronica acts like Darkwood Dub or indie rock combos like the Partibrejkers. Well-known popular Serbian singers of various genres include Đorđe Balašević, Lepa Brena, Neda Ukraden, Željko Joksimović, Mile Kitić, Aca Lukas, Marija Šerifović, Zdravko Čolić and Ceca.
Once again traveling on the highway from Izmir towards Augsburg, we chose the second largest city in Serbia, Niš on the Nišava, for this time's overnight stopover during the approximately 2,400-kilometer-long journey.
At the invitation of the Camping Club Serbia, we drove from Belgrade along back roads above the Danube to a campsite near Smederevo, where we planned to attend the club's annual meeting.
After our extensive city tour through the center of Belgrade in the impressive Cabriolet of Ducan we had agreed to explore the Castle ourselves and then go back to the Camper Stop Station 38 - Camping Center Belgrade.
After the invitation to the camper club meeting on the river banks of the Danube at Smederevo, we left Belgrade on narrow side and country roads, which led us high above the Danube.
After a few days of organizational office work in Germany, we supposed to go via Brunn am Gebirge (further talks on the planning / designing of a camper stop) to Belgrade, where an interim overnight was planned.
Until 1850, the historic old town of Belgrade, today a large part of the Stari Grad district, was almost congruent with the entire city area, i.e. actually a small town.
We were impressed by the size of the fortresses, which from the distance from the opposite banks of the Sava river looked rather inconspicuous. Only with the tour and through the overview from above, the importance and also the mightiness will become clear, so the visitor should also bring enough time for an extensive tour.
From the 6th to the 4th century BC Thracian and Scythian tribes immigrated to the region around modern Belgrade, who built the first fortification in the 3rd century BC.
Often we have already driven through Serbia, sometimes together with Dusan from Camper Stop Belgrade, we have also noticed the remaining damage of the conflicts during the so-called Balkan War in the capital,
For Sultan Mehmed II, after the fall of Constantinople, Belgrade and the completion of the conquest of Serbia were the preconditions for reaching Central Europe.
During the first half of the 4th century, Singidunum had a period of peace: the city gained the status of a Roman colony, which further strengthened its autonomy.
Singidunum was once the name of the ancient Roman city at the mouth of the Sava River into the Danube, which we today call Belgrade. In the Roman Empire, Singidunum was part of the defensive fortifications along the Danube Limes.
And even if the sign in the background suggests something else, we are actually on the road in Belgrade and in Dusan, the operator of the camper stop in the city centre, we have found a Tour guide, who gives us a first overview to Belgrade in his way, within yellow old-timer convertible, a pleasure for sight-seeing.
In the continuation of our project work we were going to Belgrade after first meeting with discussions on establishing a Camperstopp in Brunn am Gebirge.
In search of further stations within the Camper Route, we stopped at the idyllic Campsite Zasavica of Jovan, who was also willing to show his city Sremska Mitrovica to us, which was in German formerly called Syrmisch-Mitrowitz.
As already mentioned in the text about the Christmas market in Alexandroupoli, we had booked into a guesthouse in Morović for the first night of our return journey from Austria, which we had found on the internet.
Our route to the north should this time lead us passing Skopje, Nis and Belgrade along the main route E 75 or A1 / E 70 through the Balkans into the Serbian Vojvodina, next to previously little known Campsite Zasavica next to the city Sremska Mitrovica, once a Roman imperial palace with fortress which was called Sirmium.
Our first tour through Sremska Mitrovica had led us to the office of Vlada (in the picture on the left), who, together with Jovane and some other committed citizens, had already been able to implement some changes in the cityscape to improve the still dreary image of Sremska Mitrivica.