Time to leave Belgrade. Shuttle to the airport and then an easy flight to London. UK passport control is notoriously rigorous but I have to say I didn’t get that vibe at all. Made it to our new home at The Collective, which is nice but may have originally been intended as a residence for ants. Celebrated with pizza and beer and, as usual, steadily escalating times into the early hours of the morning.

Leaving for London tomorrow meant another busy day today trying to finish work and get packed to depart. I worked at home for a while before heading to Submarine for lunch and then over to Smart Office to keep working. My favorite meal in Belgrade to date was also the first one at Ambar so some of us went there for our last dinner. And it turned out everyone had the same idea so there was a whole pack of us there. After that, I hitanother Belgrade favorite for the last time, Vox.

My time in Belgrade is coming to an end and I’d like to be packing more last minute things in but my changes in cities also align with the times that I’m most busy with work. It was a bit of a slow start this morning after a late night out the evening prior. Spent all day at Smart Office working and then in the evening returned to the Square Nine hotel for sushi on their roof. Sushi was above average but the setting was great, wish I had hit that up sooner. Afterwards had some ice cream from Crna Ovca (Black Cow) and headed home.

After all of the chatter I finally made it over to Square Nine to check out that hotel in the morning. I had breakfast there and read the news. Then headed over to Smart Office to continue to catch up on work after being away in Istanbul. Time in Belgrade is drawing to a close so in the evening there was a farewell dinner at Hyde Park which has a really nice garden terrace. From there things went as these things tend to and we ended up wandering from bar to bar around the city…

Back in Belgrade with a ton of work to catch up on. After surveying my neighborhood for another potential coffee shop with WiFi I found COOLcoffee and headed there to work for the morning and consume way too many Americano’s. From there I headed over to Smart Office to work for the rest of the day. In the evening I finally made it over to Wine Art which I had been hearing good things about. It’s a nice wine bar with a cool rooftop. Then home and down for more work tomorrow!

Finally found a coffee shop with good WiFi, and near my apartment to boot. Spent the morning at Svetozar having some productivity before realizing that the only draw back to this place is that they don’t have food. Having to head somewhere else for lunch I headed over to Monument, which I think is a small Belgrade chain of restaurants. The particular one I went to initially appeared to be situated in a parking lot but actually has really nice garden area seating. After that it was over to the office to work for the rest of the afternoon and do some preparation for my weekend get away. I had dinner in my neighborhood at Piazza dei Fiori which is an Italian and Asian (Why?) place. Good caprese, average pasta and great souffle. After that it was early to bed to catch an early flight the next day.

Continuing my quest to find a convenient cafe with great WiFi I started the day at Coffee Room by the office. The “room” part of the place is very nice, coffee was acceptably good and I got an above average (albeit just slightly) breakfast quiche. Sadly the WiFi was a non-starter for me so I had to head back to Smart Office. I worked there for most of the evening and then headed to local favorite, Blaznavac. The coolest thing about this place is just the setting… not sure how to describe it. Good cocktails and ok food. I got an email that demanded more focused attention so I had to head back to the office, though. After that I headed home.

It’s hot here which would normally have me consuming a lot of iced coffees. However, in Belgrade an iced coffee isn’t just a black coffee with ice in it. It’s this…

Continuing my run of productivity I headed over to Aviator Coffee Explorer in the morning to work and get breakfast before heading over to Smart Office to work for the rest of the afternoon. Wine tastings seem to be the theme of this week and I headed over to another one in the evening at Pampour Wine Bar. The tasting itself was excellent, we had been doing Serbian wines at the others but this was all wines from Bordeaux:

1.       Chateau Carbonieux 2013, Pessac Leognan Grand Cru Classe
2.       Chateau Smith Havt Lafite Blanc 2013,Grand Cru Classe de  Graves
3.       Chateau Cantemerle 2011, Haut Medoc Grand Cru Classe
4.       Chateau D’Issan 2012, Margaux Grand Cru Classe
5.       Chateau Duhart Milon Rotschild 2010, Pauillac Grand Cru Classe
6.       Chateau Leoville Poyferre 2009 , Saint Julien Grand Cru Classe

The Lafite was one of, if not the, best white wines that I’ve ever had. The setting itself was also very nice and worth a visit:

I’m getting better and better about getting into the habit of, you know… actually working. So started off the day sitting outside and doing some work at Coffee Dream, which is a Belgrade chain of coffee shops. People really seem to like this place around town but I was rather underwhelmed. Then I headed to Smart Office and worked all afternoon. In the evening we went to Homa which is easily one of the best restaurants in town. Did the eight course tasting menu with wine pairings which was excellent and definitely recommended to anyone passing through Belgrade. Sadly, it was dark so the picture of the last dessert didn’t come out. But, it was a little clay pot with cookie dirt, candied mint, candied rocks etc. Very neat presentation.

Had a pretty uneventful day spent working. In the evening we went to a really cool wine tasting, the genesis of which was one of our group simply meeting a guy at a coffee shop. Belgrade, like many cities that existed within the Roman Empire, has an elaborate network of tunnels that run underneath the city. Our wine tasting was set inside these tunnels and done entirely by candlelight. In addition to wine we had a break for a little Serbian BBQ and then finished with a Rakija tasting. Rakija is a big part of Serbian culture and many (most) families have their own stills and make their own. It can be great or terrible but the round that we had at this tasting was by far the best I’ve had yet.

Since these daily updates are intended mostly for me I don’t usually include photos but I thought this warranted one or two even though they aren’t great because it was so dark.

The walk in

The setting