Lack of funding for renovations kept Serbia's National Museum mostly shuttered for 15 years, but its much ballyhooed 2018 reopening has been a great source of national pride 鈥 it awoke from the dead on Vidovdan (28 June), the country's national day 鈥 and for good reason. Built in 1903 and reconstructed multiple times over the years, the museum's latest 鈧12 million makeover frames some 5000 sq metres of exhibition space over three floors.
Highlights include works by Croatian Ivan Me拧trovi膰, the most celebrated sculptor of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia; archaeological treasures from Roman-era Serbia; and extensive galleries dedicated to both 18th- and 19th-century Serbian art and 20th-century Yugoslavian art. Don't miss the museum's most haunting corner, where Stevan Aleksi膰's The Burning of the Remains of St Sava (1912) sits sidesaddle to 膼or膽e Krsti膰's The Fall of Stala膰 (1903), two hyper-realistic and menacing oils on canvas.
