Kalemegdan Park and Belgrade Fortress Walking Tour (Self Guided), Belgrade

The most beautiful park in Belgrade, Kalemegdan Park, or simply Kalemegdan, is also the largest park and the most important cultural and historical complex in the city. The actual park occupies a smaller portion, in the southern corner, of another, grander monument – the Belgrade Fortress (which is some two millennia older).

The fortress itself, often erroneously referred to, even by the locals, as Kalemegdan, is a national heritage (since 1979), perched on top of a 125-meter-high (410 ft) cliff, overlooking the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers. As for the park, which is currently split in two – the Great and Little Parks, it was developed in the area that was once the town's field within the fortress.

Inside the fortress, in the former building of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments (1904), there used to be located a Military Museum. In 1956, the museum moved to the nearby, larger building of the Military and Geography Institute, where it has remained ever since.

Generally speaking, the fortress functions as a major archaeological, artistic and historical treasury. As of 2014, it has comprised six monuments and memorials including the Pobednik or "The Victor" memorial (commemorating Serbia's victory over the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires in the Balkan and First World Wars, respectively), the Despot Stefan Lazarević Tower, the Türbe (tomb or mausoleum) of Damad Ali Pasha (one of the few remaining monuments of Islamic architecture in Belgrade, dated 1784), the Mehmed Paša Sokolović's Fountain and others.

Also, there is the Tomb of People's Heroes, built in 1948. In the vicinity of the Pobednik and King's Gate is the so-called Roman Well which, in fact, is neither Roman nor a water well at all, but an underground dungeon existent since the Middle Ages (circa 15th century).

To explore Kalemegdan Park and the Belgrade Fortress more closely, take our self-guided walking tour and enlighten yourself about this fascinating part of the Serbian capital!