Belgrade, Serbia

Belgrade's heart is Kalemegdan Fortress, on a high bluff where the Sava and Danube rivers meet — a stronghold that changed hands repeatedly between Ottoman and Habsburg rule, its park grounds now the city's main green space and evening promenade. Below the fortress, Skadarlija is Belgrade's bohemian quarter, a cobbled street of traditional kafanas (taverns) with live tamburica music every night. Knez Mihailova, the pedestrian spine linking Republic Square to Kalemegdan, passes the National Museum and Ethnographic Museum along the way. On the Vračar plateau, St. Sava Temple is one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world, while the Nikola Tesla Museum on Krunska Street holds the inventor's actual ashes inside a gold-plated sphere. In the Dorćol district stands the Bajrakli Mosque, the sole survivor of the roughly 273 mosques that once stood in Ottoman-era Belgrade and still active for worship today. Built around 1575, it was used as a church for 22 years after Belgrade passed to Austria under the 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz before reverting to a mosque; it was badly damaged by arson on 18 March 2004, then restored and reopened, and today serves as the seat of the Belgrade Mufti's office. From the Ada Ciganlija river beach on the Sava to the splavovi — floating river clubs moored along the Sava and Danube — much of Belgrade's energy plays out along its waterfront.