Belgrade: Open for Business by Andrew Eames

My first taxi ride in Belgrade was a rather disconcerting experience. "An Englishman?" said the driver, in surprise, after I'd confessed to knowing absolutely no Serbo-Croat. "You, an Englishman? You look just like a Serb!"

I wasn't sure how to react. Looking like a Serb might be handy in Belgrade, but Serbs aren't exactly flavour of the month in the rest of Europe. And, I'm fairly certain that many UK householders would take a couple of paces backwards and close the front door if ever a Serb came calling. So, I nodded, smiled and mentioned the name of my hotel, hoping that an enigmatic response would pass for that fabled English reserve, behind which so much can be hidden.

In truth, arriving in a city which has had two decades of negative publicity is a strange travel experience. “Isn't it dangerous?” asked friends before I left. “And, surely there's nothing to see except hitmen and craters?”

Unfortunately, I didn't have a detailed answer, because Serbia is the only remaining country in Europe not to have a guidebook, unlike smaller neighbours Croatia, Montenegro and Albania. From a travel point of view it has well and truly been sent to Coventry - which is precisely why I wanted to go.

The first official bit of tourist literature I came across was the 'Welcome to Belgrade' magazine in my hotel, which kicked off thus: "Belgrade is a city of about two million inhabitants. Fortunately, more than half of them are beautiful, clever and unpredictable women." So, plenty to look forward to there, then.

Actually, you can get a fair impression of Belgrade's main attraction simply by looking at a map. The city sits on the confluence of the Danube and the Sava rivers, and in the past this was clearly a very strategic point. That location, combined with the Serb persona as the boy in the playground who's always ready for a scrap, has made Belgrade the most biffed-about capital city in Europe. In the last 100 years, it has been bombed five times, most recently by NATO in 1999, and a couple of strategic military targets still have their guts hanging out.

The only really old stonework is scattered through the peaceful, much-loved fortress park of Kalemegdan, which rises imperiously above the river junction and contains the carefully restored ruins of 500 years of Turkish and Austrian occupation. These days the park is a place for making love, not war; old men play chess under the trees, gypsies sell lace to passers-by, buskers play in the ancient gates and lovers sprawl across the battlements.

Architecturally, downtown is a mixture of lugubrious Vienna with occasional touches of Stalinist monumentalism, topped by the largest (and still unfinished) Orthodox church in the world.

But, Belgrade is a destination for those interested in people, not buildings, and at present it has an atmosphere not unlike Berlin after the fall of the Wall, as a predominantly young population parties energetically to make up for lost and dismal decades. Moreover the majority, as the official magazine suggested, seem to be young women, and they're dressed to kill. The amount of care and presentation which goes into the evening passegiata down the pedestrian promenade of Knez Mihailova would knock the Italian prototype into a cocked hat. When I inquire about this apparent imbalance in the sexes I get a variety of explanations, from the legacy of war to a matter of sexual technique. Whatever the cause, Belgrade man is plainly having a wonderful time.

A lot of the courting couples loiter along the banks of the Sava, under girder bridges clattering with trams. Parked here are some charismatic bits of floating ironmongery, including a couple of old paddlesteamers. Several of these ships have been converted to restaurants and nightclubs where you can eat grilled river fish and drink silky Montenegrin wine for around £6 a head. Around the corner on the banks of the Danube are many more purpose-built floating bars, some of them built to look like Serbian village houses and others imitating thatched beach huts in Hawaii.

Slotted in-between the bridges and marching housing estates is Belgrade's parallel universe - the shanty towns of the large Romany population, who make their houses out of packing cases and have satellite TV but no running water. On the weekend they form the rump of what must be the most eco-friendly flea market in Europe, on the far bank of the Sava in New Belgrade. Here they sit in the dust behind small heaps of military uniforms, dressing gowns, teddy bears and hardcore pornography, all of it recycled several times before.

Ironically my hotel, the Hyatt, a highly-polished oasis of marble and glass, is within walking distance of that sad market. It too makes fascinating people-watching, but completely at the other end of the scale. The hotel's reputation as the best in town makes it the inevitable gathering point for Belgrade's glitterati, however dubiously they made their money. It seems busy and prosperous, but the mix could be improved, says the Hyatt's Boyan Stanojevic. "We need tourism", he declares, in an engagingly frank conversation that includes everything from his war wounds to female companions. "We need people to stop believing the media images and come here to see what it is really like."

It is a sentiment echoed by Miljana, the lively representative of the Belgrade tourist office sent to fetch me for a press reception in the Diplomatic Club, where they're trying to persuade the families of the ambassadors to do some sightseeing - in the hope that they might send the message back home that it's worth giving the city another chance. "Sometimes I feel like we've been put in prison," says Miljana. "Our original jailer is locked up in the Hague, but still nobody has been able to find the key to let us free." Her window on the outside world turns out to be the unlikely combination of watching fishing programmes on the Discovery Channel and searching the Internet for the poetry of Pablo Neruda.

Despite the aura of danger which still surrounds its name, I leave Belgrade having never once felt threatened or unwelcome – though maybe that was because I look like a Serb. A weekend here is certainly not a mainstream tourism experience, but it is thought-provoking stuff for a traveller who is weary of the old city-break bill of fare. There's culture and history aplenty, but it is in the air, in the renewal of life, in encounters and conversations; it is still too raw and fresh to have arrived in the museums.

Pretty much the only place where the recent past emerges in plastic form is the Museum of Contemporary Art, in an ambitious building on the banks of the Sava. Amongst several installations making reference to war is a video projection which shows the Windows Media Player start-up screen, bearing the stark message 'Catastrophic Failure'. I'm not sure whether this was intended, or whether the machine had actually gone dreadfully wrong, but there was a huge irony in using such strong language to describe the breakdown of what is just a bit of software, in a region which had wasted so many lives.

Five must-sees

Museum. The Military Museum (Kalemegdan park, tel 00381 11 3343 441, entrance 50p), with enough hardware to re-arm most of Serbia, records Belgrade's 115 battles in 3,000 years; you name them, the Serbs have fought against them. The last room contains flying suits of US airmen shot down in 1999.

Restaurant. Klub Bahus (Bulevar Nikole Tesle, 00381 11 673 437, around £6 a head) is one of many floating restaurants on the Danube by the Yugoslavia hotel offering the likes of trout, pike, perch and catfish. Eating here is as much about the river ambience as the food.

Bar. The cobbled Skardarska street in the old Skadarlija district is lined with bars from end to end, and most Belgrade nightlife starts, or finishes, here. The Dva Jelena (Two Deer) is its most celebrated venue, but you have to hang around if you want a table.

Club. XL (Sarajevska 26, 00381 3610 385) is one of Belgrade's biggest dance venues, and the place to get sweaty with energetic young Serbs.

Tour. Belgrade's Tourist Office has a once-weekly bus tour, in English, of most of the city's major sites. Departure Nikola Pasic Square, 10am every Sunday, price £2.10 (information 00381 635 622, www.tob.co.yu)