Belgrade Underground Tour

Useful Information

Location:	City library, Kneza Mihailova 56, Beograd 11000. (44.820038, 20.453475)
Open:	All year Tue 10, Thu 17, Sat 11:30, Sun 14:30, 15. [2022]
Fee:	Adults EUR 15. [2022]
Classification:	Water Supply Cistern World War II Bunker Casemate Cellar
Light:	LED Lighting
Dimension:
Guided tours:	D=2.5 h.
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	GO2 Serbia, Strahinjića Bana 36, Beograd 11000, Tel: +381-62-800-15-68. E-mail: Belgrade Walking Tours, Gospodar Jevremova 49, Beograd 11000, Tel: +381-66-509-17-93. E-mail: Felix Travel, Obilićev venac 18/4, City passage, Beograd 11000, Tel: +381-11-405-99-56. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1717-1731	Roman Well or Big Well dug.
1718-1720	Pulvermagazin (gunpowder warehouse) built by the Austrians.
1953	air raid shelter built.

Description

The Belgrade Underground Tour is quite new, and offers a 2.5 tour to several underground site in the city center, mostly inside the Belgrade Fortress Kalemegdan. And it is offered by several operators, tourist agencies, and the tourist bureau. It is intended for foreign tourists, so the guides speak English, and various other foreign languages too on request. On the other hand the fee is charged in Euro and for Serbia quite steep. But it is definitely a good value, and a free wine tasting is also included.

The tour starts with the Roman Well or Big Well. Despite the name it was dug between 1717 and 1731 when the Austrians rebuilt the city. The idea was to have a safe source of drinking water for the castle in times of war, unfortunately it did not work. They never found water, and so finally they stopped construction and used the well as a dungeon and later as a cistern for rain water. The first use of the name Roman Well was in the 19th century. The cistern is quite huge, and there once were wooden ladders which allowed to descend, but they are gone. Today visitors can only look down, though the floor is in darkness and invincible.

The second stop is the Air Raid Shelter, which is located inside the castle. Actually there are two bunkers, both were constructed during the 1950s, one has the date October 1953 on the wall. Unfortunately it was so secret, it was completely lost who actually built them and what for. However, there is a small room with three beds, and a cuppola for air defence guns, which are now gone. Obviously it was not a fallout shelter.

The third stop is a Pulvermagazin (gunpowder warehouse) or Barutana built by the Austrians 1718-1720 to store explosives. The huge underground chamber with barrel vault ceiling is used as a museum for Roman sarcophagi, gravestones and altars made of stone. It was a part of the collection of the National Museum, which stored rather random finds from Belgrade and other Serbian sites here in 1970. So they transformed the abandoned warehouse into an exhibition by placing electric light.

The highlight is the fourth and last underground site, a Lagum, which is special for Belgrade. There are numerous Lagums in the city, cellars which were dug into the limestone as cellars and warehouses for goods which were delivered by ships on the nearby Danube. Those cellars can be found under the Savamala, along the Karadordeva road. While some are unused, or still used as cellars, this one was transformed into a wine tavern and hosts the wine tasting at the end of the tour.