🇷🇸 Serbia
Belgrade
Belgrade (Beograd — "White City" in Serbian, population 1.7 million in the city, 2.1 million in the metropolitan area — the capital of Serbia and the former capital of Yugoslavia) sits at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, on a strategic plateau that has been fought over, conquered, destroyed and rebuilt 44 times throughout its 2,300-year history — more times than any other city on Earth. Belgrade has been successively Roman (Singidunum), Byzantine, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Ottoman (for 300 years (1521–1806, with interruptions) — the longest single period of foreign rule), and Yugoslav. The result of all this turbulence is a city with an unusual cultural energy: the philosophy that nothing is permanent, combined with the Serbian national character (the combination of hospitality (srpsko gostoprimstvo — the Serbian concept of hospitality as sacred duty) with hard-partying hedonism), has produced the most vibrant nightlife scene in the Balkans and the cheapest European capital for food and entertainment. Belgrade's Kafana culture (the traditional Serbian restaurant-tavern, a cross between a restaurant, a pub and a folk music venue, where the gusle and the tamburica players move between tables and the food is grilled meat and domestic wine) is the most distinctive urban social institution in the Balkans.