Plan a first Belgrade trip with kids around these. They're the places we'd take visiting family first, picked because they hold a kid's attention and not only an adult's. Two rivers meet below the fortress, and much of a family day here runs along their banks. Here's what we checked, from Kalemegdan to Košutnjak Forest Park.
Belgrade Fortress sits on a ridge where the Sava meets the Danube, with Kalemegdan Park wrapped around its walls. Kids can walk the ramparts and old gates, find the Victor monument and the fortress cannon, and go down into the Roman Well, a military bunker or the Nebojša Tower.
The park side has two open playgrounds, a Dino park and the Belgrade Zoo, plus basketball and tennis courts.
Belgrade Zoo fills about 7 hectares inside Kalemegdan Fortress park and keeps around 200 species. Kids look for the white lions and white tigers, watch the penguins in their 2019 enclosure, and find Muja, an American alligator that has lived here since 1937.
A petting zoo has alpacas, rabbits and pygmy goats, and two cafés and ice cream stands sit inside the grounds.
Ada Ciganlija is a former river island on the Sava, now a 6km-long peninsula beside Lake Sava. Its man-made beaches run about 6km, hold the Blue Flag, and have lifeguards through the bathing season.
Away from the water there are playgrounds, including a natural-wood Eco Park, a hands-on Science Park with physics and astronomy exhibits, mini golf, paddle boats, and a tourist train that loops the lake.
The museum follows Nikola Tesla as an inventor and as a person, through authentic working models of his machines, his personal belongings and a film about his life by Dr. Branimir Jovanović.
Every visit is a guided tour, so a guide walks each group through the rooms and presents the machines. It suits school-age kids curious about electricity and inventions more than toddlers.
Zemunski kej is a riverside promenade that runs for kilometers along the Danube. Along the way are cafés on moored barges, restaurants, an amusement park and the former Hotel Jugoslavija, once the city's largest hotel. Kej Oslobođenja park sits on the quay itself.
In summer, a seasonal pontoon bridge links Zemun to Great War Island, and the Leto na Keju festival holds events by the river.
Gardoš Tower is a 36-meter brick and stone lookout built in 1896, standing inside the ruins of the medieval Zemun Fortress on Gardoš hill. Inside, vertical staircases climb past an art gallery to a balcony viewpoint over the red roofs of Zemun and the Danube.
Kids can explore the crumbling fortress corner towers around the base, and locals still call it the Tower of John Hunyadi.
A 204-meter TV tower on Avala mountain, rebuilt after NATO bombing destroyed the original in 1999. Two fast lifts climb to a circular viewing deck at 122 meters, with four binoculars and views stretching from Šumadija to Vršac.
At the foot, in pine forest, kids get a playground, the Elf Village (six treehouses linked by hanging bridges), a 7.5-meter climbing wall with instructors, and two sports courts.
Ušće Park spreads over 52 hectares of lawns, paths and trees on the point where the Sava meets the Danube, the largest park area in the city. Kids can bike the paths, watch the skaters at the skatepark, and look across the water to Kalemegdan fortress and Great War Island.
In winter, birdwatchers come for the rare waterbirds off the banks.
The museum fills the 1928 building of Serbia's first public power station, in Dorćol. On the ground floor, a science playroom lets kids feel centrifugal force, test their balance and puzzle over optical illusions, and a toy gallery shows over 150 toys from 1920 to 1970 at kid height.
The Aleksandar Despić gallery holds 400-plus objects, from steamships and old printing to the first Serbian-made computers and Tesla's induction motor.
The Aeronautical Museum keeps the aviation heritage of Serbia and Yugoslavia in a glass-domed building at Nikola Tesla Airport, opened in 1989 and now a protected cultural monument.
Its collections hold over 200 aircraft. Planes stand on two levels under the dome, with more in an open-air display outside, among them a Spitfire, a Hurricane, a Messerschmitt Me 109 and a P-47 Thunderbolt.
A guided sightseeing cruise on the Sava and the Danube, boarding at Beton Hala below the old town. The boat passes Kalemegdan Fortress and Nebojša Tower, heads out to the confluence with views of Great War Island and Zemun, then runs upriver past Belgrade Waterfront and under the Branko, Gazela and Ada bridges.
Guides on the daytime cruise speak English. The club also runs sunset and dinner cruises.
Košutnjak is a 330-hectare forest of oak, lime and chestnut on a 250-meter hill, crossed by paths and jogging tracks. Kids can look for squirrels, hedgehogs and woodpeckers, drink from the Hajdučka česma fountain, and walk the shaded path to the iron fence marking where Prince Mihailo was killed in 1868.
The name comes from the does (košuta) that lived in the old royal hunting grounds.
Plan a first Belgrade trip with kids around these. They're the places we'd take visiting family first, picked because they hold a kid's attention and not only an adult's. Two rivers meet below the fortress, and much of a family day here runs along their banks. Here's what we checked, from Kalemegdan to Košutnjak Forest Park.
Belgrade Fortress sits on a ridge where the Sava meets the Danube, with Kalemegdan Park wrapped around its walls. Kids can walk the ramparts and old gates, find the Victor monument and the fortress cannon, and go down into the Roman Well, a military bunker or the Nebojša Tower.
The park side has two open playgrounds, a Dino park and the Belgrade Zoo, plus basketball and tennis courts.
Belgrade Zoo fills about 7 hectares inside Kalemegdan Fortress park and keeps around 200 species. Kids look for the white lions and white tigers, watch the penguins in their 2019 enclosure, and find Muja, an American alligator that has lived here since 1937.
A petting zoo has alpacas, rabbits and pygmy goats, and two cafés and ice cream stands sit inside the grounds.
Ada Ciganlija is a former river island on the Sava, now a 6km-long peninsula beside Lake Sava. Its man-made beaches run about 6km, hold the Blue Flag, and have lifeguards through the bathing season.
Away from the water there are playgrounds, including a natural-wood Eco Park, a hands-on Science Park with physics and astronomy exhibits, mini golf, paddle boats, and a tourist train that loops the lake.
The museum follows Nikola Tesla as an inventor and as a person, through authentic working models of his machines, his personal belongings and a film about his life by Dr. Branimir Jovanović.
Every visit is a guided tour, so a guide walks each group through the rooms and presents the machines. It suits school-age kids curious about electricity and inventions more than toddlers.
Zemunski kej is a riverside promenade that runs for kilometers along the Danube. Along the way are cafés on moored barges, restaurants, an amusement park and the former Hotel Jugoslavija, once the city's largest hotel. Kej Oslobođenja park sits on the quay itself.
In summer, a seasonal pontoon bridge links Zemun to Great War Island, and the Leto na Keju festival holds events by the river.
Gardoš Tower is a 36-meter brick and stone lookout built in 1896, standing inside the ruins of the medieval Zemun Fortress on Gardoš hill. Inside, vertical staircases climb past an art gallery to a balcony viewpoint over the red roofs of Zemun and the Danube.
Kids can explore the crumbling fortress corner towers around the base, and locals still call it the Tower of John Hunyadi.
A 204-meter TV tower on Avala mountain, rebuilt after NATO bombing destroyed the original in 1999. Two fast lifts climb to a circular viewing deck at 122 meters, with four binoculars and views stretching from Šumadija to Vršac.
At the foot, in pine forest, kids get a playground, the Elf Village (six treehouses linked by hanging bridges), a 7.5-meter climbing wall with instructors, and two sports courts.
Ušće Park spreads over 52 hectares of lawns, paths and trees on the point where the Sava meets the Danube, the largest park area in the city. Kids can bike the paths, watch the skaters at the skatepark, and look across the water to Kalemegdan fortress and Great War Island.
In winter, birdwatchers come for the rare waterbirds off the banks.
The museum fills the 1928 building of Serbia's first public power station, in Dorćol. On the ground floor, a science playroom lets kids feel centrifugal force, test their balance and puzzle over optical illusions, and a toy gallery shows over 150 toys from 1920 to 1970 at kid height.
The Aleksandar Despić gallery holds 400-plus objects, from steamships and old printing to the first Serbian-made computers and Tesla's induction motor.
The Aeronautical Museum keeps the aviation heritage of Serbia and Yugoslavia in a glass-domed building at Nikola Tesla Airport, opened in 1989 and now a protected cultural monument.
Its collections hold over 200 aircraft. Planes stand on two levels under the dome, with more in an open-air display outside, among them a Spitfire, a Hurricane, a Messerschmitt Me 109 and a P-47 Thunderbolt.
A guided sightseeing cruise on the Sava and the Danube, boarding at Beton Hala below the old town. The boat passes Kalemegdan Fortress and Nebojša Tower, heads out to the confluence with views of Great War Island and Zemun, then runs upriver past Belgrade Waterfront and under the Branko, Gazela and Ada bridges.
Guides on the daytime cruise speak English. The club also runs sunset and dinner cruises.
Košutnjak is a 330-hectare forest of oak, lime and chestnut on a 250-meter hill, crossed by paths and jogging tracks. Kids can look for squirrels, hedgehogs and woodpeckers, drink from the Hajdučka česma fountain, and walk the shaded path to the iron fence marking where Prince Mihailo was killed in 1868.
The name comes from the does (košuta) that lived in the old royal hunting grounds.
