A walk through the centuries and the gates of Kalemegdan

Although the days of autumn 2025 are running out, some days still dawn without clouds, bright and sunny, with temperatures such that you can spend the day in shorts.

If it weren't for the yellowed leaves on the tree branches and the fact that you can't find horse chestnut fruit in some places, I would think it was still summer.

I almost always start my walk through Kalemegdan from the amusement park, where this big wheel has been offering panoramic views for half a century(like some big round time machine that takes me back centuries when I pass through the first gate I come across).
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And when such a day dawns, it would be a shame not to take advantage of it for a walk, even if it were a walk around the fortress that I have walked around many times already, the Kalemegdan Fortress.

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I particularly liked the beautiful contrast of the brick ramparts and white stone blocks, and the beautiful blue sky against the dark wooden beams and black metal doors, so during this walk I placed several Kalemegdan gates in the frame of my camera.

The gates on the outer ramparts, as well as those on the inner ones, were built to ensure passage to the center of the fortress, a large clearing at the highest elevation, right where the monument to Despot Lazarević is located.

Not far from his monument, there are underground, buried passages, waiting for a better time for excavation and research.

I am seriously planning to sign up for a guided tour of the Kalemegdan fortress's underground passages, through corridors and passages that do not have the same fate as this buried one and that are passable.
But until I do that, I am returning to the above-ground beauties of Kalemegdan.
From the plateau of the center of the fortress (or Upper Town), today it is possible to enter from three sides.

Next to the observatory, there is the Despot's Gate, built between 1402 and 1423, which was the main entrance to the upper town for centuries.

During the reconstruction of the fortress, at the beginning of 9the 18th century, when the Austro-Hungarians adapted the fortress to artillery weapons (cannons), the high ramparts on the other side of the upper city were demolished and new gates were formed, the King's Gate next to the Roman Well, built at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century, (it is located below the plateau on wchiich the monument to the Victor is located) which I photographed in one of my previous walks

As well as the famous Clock Gate under the clock tower.

Over the bridge you cross to the continuation of the Clock Tower, to the Inner Stambol Gate which was built in 1750 and together with the Clock Tower represents a whole, which with its ramparts defends the entrance to the upper city.
With the expansion of the Kalemegdan fortress, the ramparts and brick gates were also expanded, which increased the security of the fortress itself.

In the center of the walls of the gate, in the former dungeons, today there are souvenir shops.

So, near the inner Stambol Gate, the Outer Stambol Gate was also built (1750-1760).

As the fortress expanded to one side, with the construction of new gates, it also expanded to the other, so further along the path through the Despot's Gate we also have the crossed Zindan Gate, which was built in the period 1440-1456, of which I have a photo from a previous walk.

As well as the Leopold Gate (built in the period 1690-1696), when leaving the upper town.

In addition to these gates, there are several more on the outer ramparts of the fortress, which I will visit on a future walk, when the weather is nice again like I had for this #wednesdaywalk

Until then, I greet you and invite you, if you are passing through Belgrade and the weather is nice, be sure to visit Kalemegdan.

[//]:# (!worldmappin 44.825071 lat 20.450711 long Despot's Gate (Gornji grad,) Kalemegdan> d3scr)