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“It was a crazy time in Belgrade – a crazy time,” says Oggi, a young Serb, half-proud, half-shaking his head in disbelief. “So much party, so much. And every day NATO say on their website which buildings the American planes will bomb that night. So, some people go bomb jumping. They put on thick winter coats and stand as close as they can to the bombsite. Then, when the bomb lands – ka-boom! They are knocked flying – and thrown twenty, thirty feet into the air!”

Ever since the Romans set up camp in the first century AD and the Huns overran it in the fifth, the city has been bombarded and fought over. After 78 days, Milosevic gave way to NATO demands and the bombing stopped. The aerial onslaught had affected people in different ways. Many partied as if there literally was no tomorrow. Some even invented a new sport: bomb jumping.

Belgrade has changed since 1999 and since it was capital of Tito’s Yugoslavia. After the war, realising the value of visitors once more, the Serbian Tourist Agency scrapped tourist visas. Their website announced this alongside an unfortunate description of Serbia – ‘where hospitality crackles in the air.’

It seemed the ideal place for some safe post-war-zone tourism. Reminders of the bombardment were still evident. As our flight neared the airport, a bridge came into view that had been bombed into its river. On the slip road out of the Eighties-styled airport were mothballed Mig fighter jets.

Evident too were leftovers from Communism. Approaching Novi Beograd, twin concrete towers, connected by a walkway thirty or more stories high, loomed into view above low-rise identikit Tito-era housing.

Crossing Gazela Bridge into Belgrade proper, the scale of some buildings gave them an air of importance. Along Kneza Milosa Street the significance of some, like the Yugoslav Ministry of Defence, was confirmed by the twisted heavy metal, the missing windows and the burnt-out craters that indicate a direct hit.

Between buildings awaiting the bulldozer, Belgrade had become a bustling and recovering post-war city of Le Corbusier-inspired blocks and wide neoclassical boulevards.

During the hot continental summers, the sun parches the city. Locals escape to cafes and restaurants like the Lui in trendy Vracar, or the Dva Bela Goluba in bohemian Skadarlija district, Belgrade’s answer to Paris’ Montmartre. The Serbs eat cevapèièi with kajmak, a sort of paprika-fuelled burger and cream cheese, and toast meals with a shot of sljivovica – plum brandy – and the Serbian toast: ‘ziveli!’

Between the department stores on pedestrianised Knez Mihailova Street, street vendors were hawking boxes of clucking baby chicks and racks of postcards. Each revealed something of the Serb psyche. The postcards told the tale of the city at the end of the twentieth century. Beneath an image of an American Stealth bomber, some stated: ‘no-one told us they were invisible’. The Serbs shot two down. Others portrayed Asterix as an indomitable Serb, the only European holding out against invading American legions. A part of you feels admiration for their spirit.

Belgradians get away from the city in Kalemegdan. Derived from two Turkish words, kale meaning ‘field’ and megdan ‘battle’, it is the city’s biggest park, crowned by medieval-looking Belgrade Fortress. This castle features in the Serb tale of independence. In 1867 Ali-Riza became the last Ottoman commander to rule the Serbs when he handed the keys of the fortress over to Knez Mihailo.

From here, the views are away from the city. To the right across the Danube is the fertile Pannonian Plain. On the left along the Sava’s far bank are many docked boats – Belgrade’s mini-riviera of floating bars and restaurants.

Some attract families during the day and Belgrade’s partygoers later on. We met Oggi on one called Blaywatch, a disco-bar and swimming pool. Others are the way to start a Saturday evening for the city’s new rich.

Acapulco was soon our favourite. Speakers were blasting out traditional music set to modern dance beats – the infamous techno-folk popularised in Milosevic’s time. Oversized, cheaply dressed gangster-types shook their plus-sized stuff as they tried to impress the local sponsorusas – literally meaning ‘girls looking for sponsorship’. And it’s OK to laugh – on the way in everyone was frisked for guns.

Every so often near the opposite bank of the Sava what looked and sounded like a giant bumblebee was taking off and landing. It could have been something knocked together by old friends, and looked as safe. To an ordinary motorboat they’d added a lawnmower engine (whose whine went up one octave just before take-off), a fan and a pair of microlight wings.

Subsequent attempts to find out about this strange boat-beast have unearthed nothing. No one else seems to ever have seen or heard about it. Perhaps the city was just getting to me. After all, this is the city that invented bomb jumping.

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