If you are visiting Belgrade for more than a couple of days the visit to Avala Mountain is a must. Â The drive is short, about 16 km from downtown, so the destination is perfect for locals who want a quick escape from the city noise and pollution. When a friend heard us planning to get there by bus he offered us to give us a ride. His family has a vacation house not too far from the mountain and he loves the area very much. During the summer, a lot of Belgraders bike to the mountain and also people gather there for barbecues.
When I came to Belgrade in the fall of 2006 I visited an empty Avala due to the “colder” temperatures. They have a little hotel, also called Avala and I remember having a coffee and smoking in its nice terrace after taking some pictures of the stunning unknown soldier monument. The hotel is now being repaired and almost six years later the old tv tower of Avala, which was destroyed in the NATO’s bombardment of 1999, has been completely rebuilt, in the same place the old one used to stand.
We went up to the tower and the view of the zone seems to be in constant change. Large houses have been built in the surroundings, many of them are still unfinished but what attracted me quite a bit was the size of the houses. Some of them were small castles. 😉 On our way down to the car, the green of the trees and the ice cream cones made us stay there a bit longer.
