VISIT SERBIA: Visit the Royal Compound in Belgrade

VISIT SERBIA: Visit the Royal Compound in Belgrade

Visiting the Royal and White Palaces is organized that visitors with professional tour guides will get acquainted with the history, art and culture in a nice two-hour walk through the Royal Compound. The tour includes the magnificent Royal and White Palaces and the Royal Chapel dedicated to the patron Saint of the Royal Family - St. Andrew the First Called.

Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product

Stop At: The Royal Compound of Serbia, Dedinje, Belgrade 11040 Serbia

The White Palace

The White Palace is located within the same complex as The Royal Palace and it was commissioned by command of His Majesty King Alexander I as the residence for his three sons HRH Crown Prince Peter (the future King Peter II), Prince Tomislav and Prince Andrej. King Alexander I envisaged that his three sons would require their own private accommodation when they became of age, but his assassination in Marseille caused the destiny of his sons to take a different turn.

The young King Peter II became the new master of the Dedinje Complex and the completion of The White Palace was supervised by King Peter II great uncle HRH Prince Regent Paul. It was built from 1934 until 1936, as the project of the architect Alexander Djordjevic. When completed it became the official residence on loan to HRH Prince Regent Paul and his family, until King Peter II came of age.

The ground floor of this classicistic palace houses a large hall and a number of drawing rooms furnished in the style of Louis XV and Louis XVI with large Venetian chandeliers. There is also a library which had more than 35 000 books and a formal Chippendale dining room.

The Royal Chapel of Saint Andrew the First Called

The Palace Church is attached to the south side of The Royal Palace and linked to the main building by a colonnade of stone pillars. The Church is dedicated to St. Andrew the First Called (the Royal Family’s Patron Saint). The Church is based on the model of the monastery Church of Saint Andrew on the River Treska in Macedonia, which was built by Andrew the son of the Serbian medieval King Vukasin. The Church was designed and built at the same time as The Royal Palace.

The interior of the Church is covered with frescoes painted by a team of artists from the Belgrade Artist Association. Following King Alexander I instructions this group visited most of the Serbian medieval monasteries in order to copy their frescos. The group was led by academician Nikolai Kasnoff. After preparing the walls and cataloguing the drawings the final decision to go ahead was made by King Alexander I. The Russian painters Boris Obrascov, Nikolai Maiendorf, Vladimir Bickovski, Viktor Sevcov, and Reitlinger and Evgeny Varnu-Secret were chosen to paint the Church. All painters were requested to produce records of their previous work in medieval monasteries. The whole project for the completion of the Church took about 36 months.

Duration: 2 hours