Best travel tips for Serbia - TARA/KOPAONIK

Tara National Park

(Links for Tour 1 - Visiting Belgrade - here)

Links for Tour 2:
You are into natural attractions or you enjoy sport activities
Discover the beautiful region of Tara National Park and Kopaonik region by bike! Here markowe, a brit with serbian roots suggests a 7 days trek from Kopaonik to Tara.

Kopaonik in winter

Day 1 - Kopaonik

Day 2 - Kopaonik-Raska-Golija

Day 3 - Golija-Sjenica

Day 4 - Sjenica-Gostilje

Day 5 - Gostilje-Zlatibor-Mokra Gora

Sargan eight railway station in Mokra Gora

Day 6 - Mokra Gora-Tara

Day 7 - Tara-HOME!

Panorama over Zlatibor mountains

I wrote also about that region and here are posts about the surroundings of Tara National Park and about Drvengrad the village build by director Emir Kusturica in Mokra Gora.

Mokra Gora

maps of the region:

If you try to look up Serbia in googlemap you will be a little disapointed what concerns Serbia, just a couple of highways and a little more around Belgrade. So I try to give here links to some maps that are more satisfying, if you wish to put an itinerary of West Serbia together. But for travelling you'll need a good road-atlas anyway.
This is one of the better maps of Serbia in internet. And this is one with a good choice of roads and you can print it out.

Typical restaurant in Zlatibor

And here the list of links for the attractions of the region: The Raca Monastery not far from Baijna Basta (description and panorama movie)

Raca Monastery

Emir Kusturica's Drvengrad "Küstendorf" the official website

Church in Drvengrad

Website of Kopaonik, the major place for skiing ans snowboarding in Serbia Tara National Park (the webiste with wonderful pictures)

Zlatibor Village

In the next posts there will be some more links:
Links for Tour 3: Visiting UNESCO heritage sites and spiritual places in Raska and Kosovo (23.10.2009)
Links for Tour 4: Enjoying rural tourism and Serbian traditions in ethno villages

Užice - The Serbian Hong Kong

Užice is like the little Hong Kong of Serbia (here in some fantastic pictures of Pedrag Supurovic), you wouldn't really expect such a city when you start to go up the mountain region of the Zlatibor district. From here it's agood starting point point to visit some of the most exiting places of Western Serbia: Tara National Park, Zlatibor, Mokra Gora and the Kusturica Village of Drvengrad.

Located at the river of the Djetinja River, Užice has about 60'000 habitants and a florishing textile and metallurgy indutry, since the city started to developing an indutrial town at the end of the 19th century.

It's also the first serbian city with a hydroelectric power plant. Within the former Yugoslavia (established after the Second world War), Užice was renamed "Titovo Užice". From 1992, following the collapse of the pro-communist administration, "Titovo" was removed, leaving the original city name Užice.
Because it was Tito's city and had an important place during the communist system, Užice received significant amounts of investments in infrastructure and local factories, which turned the city among highly developed ones of its size in former Yugoslavia.
This is probably also the reason, why it has many skyscrapers and for the summer there is a quite interesting beach "plaza".
During the 1990s Užice's economy performed very bad due to economic conditions (war, political instability, sanctions) and in 1999 the city was bombed multiple times during the NATO bombing.

Today, industry is the heart of the Užice municipality economic development. The most developed industrial branches are non-ferrous metallurgy, metal working and textile industries.
This "Textil's" commercial building that is located in Uzice's industrial zone, between the motorway, the railway, warehouses, a football field and a cemetery is a new building made by the group "NEO Arhitekti".
The architects delivered what they themselves describe as 'anti-design' in reaction to the surroundings and context. Ignoring all those external factors they are powerless to change, they concentrated on the interior.
The result is a building with an interesting perforated façade that reveals nothing of the very efficient spatial organization inside.

Maybe the suuroundings of the industrial zone is not very inspiring, but the center of Užice is very interesting.

Like this rocket-shaped building

which is an incredible eye-catcher!

And this H- shaped construction!
(picture by Ivan Micovic) 

Etno Selo - Sirogonjo

Sirogojno is one of the etno-villages in Serbia. It's situated about 30 km from the town of Užice and 24 km from Zlatibor Mountain and lies on the altitude of 900m. It's organized as an open air museum, realised by the plan of architect Ranko Findrik and the Republic Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments in 1980. The initial idea of the project of Sirogojno was to preserve the knowledge of domestic works.
In the course of time, the monumental complex of the St. Apostles Peter and Paul`s church from the 18th century and the open-air museum were placed under legal protection as a cultural asset.


The dinara cottages

The house style belongs to the Dinara region log cottage type. Its base is rectangular and its foundation built of stone. The walls are made of logs and with beams horizontally placed one over the other. The corners are with characteristic cross-shaped joints called "ćert". The roof is four-sided, steep and high, covered with straw, boards–shingle or stone. The opening in the sides of the roof (badža) allow channeling of smoke from the house. In the middle of the roof there is a typical chimney, the "kapić", cone-shaped with carved spindle at the top. Usually houses have two doors placed one opposite the other, the main door always facing east. Houses are divided into two rooms - `the kitchen` and `the main-room` . `The kitchen` is without attic and windows, with earthen floor.

The central place in the `kitchen` is the fireplace (a rectangular or circular surface covered with two stone stone pillars, called prijeklada, about 35 – 40cm high, built in at the edges of one of the shorter sides of the fireplace. The fireplace was used for food preparation and it was a gathering place for all the members of large family. The fireplace is also the ritual place of the house, where the most important family rites and ceremonies related to significant national holidays took place.
Today there a a few Ethno-Villages with possibility to visit, accomodation and food all around Serbia.

Here the links:
Etno Selo Trsic
Etno Selo Stanisici
Etno Selo Sirogojno
Etno Selo Latkovac
And here a post on an old forgotten cookie that you can buy in Sirogojno.

Trsic - Ethno Village

The small etno village of Trsic, 9 kilometers south of Loznica, is the birthplace of Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, the 19th century language reformer who is considered the father of the modern Serbian language.

A portion of the village has been turned into an ethnographic park, centered on a recreation of the Karadzic family home.







Many authentic 19th century items are in the home, including a portrait of ‘Vuk' from 1816 painted by Pavle Djurakovic. In later years an amphitheater was erected to stage the many cultural events that take place in Trsic, among which the best known is 'Vukov sabor' dating since 1933.

Tara National Park in Western Serbia

Milutinović Ratka, Fotografska radnja "ERA" 31250 Bajina Bašta

Recently I saw the movie "Zavet" by Serbian director Emir Kusturica. He shot the movie in Uzice and in the area of Tara National Park (in Western Serbia).

If you plan to visit this beautiful place you will be rewarded with a picturesque scenery (hills in dense forest and grass vegetation, spots with beautiful view, waterfalls, rivers and the wonderful Drina canyon with its impressive vertical cliffs)
and natural rarities - e.g. endemic species like the monumental Serbian spruce (Picea Omorika found by Serbian botanist Josif Pancic).

scene from the Kusturica movie

You can reach the National Park from little town of Bajina Basta, and on the way to tara is one of the most attractive cultural-historical values of this region: the Raca Monastery.


Interior of Kafana in Bajina Basta

To get in mood for this wonderful place, see Kusturica's movie and download the beautiful presentation of Tara National Park. More information on the english Tara Site here.

Tara National Park in Western Serbia

Milutinović Ratka, Fotografska radnja "ERA" 31250 Bajina Bašta

Recently I saw the movie "Zavet" by Serbian director Emir Kusturica. He shot the movie in Uzice and in the area of Tara National Park (in Western Serbia).

If you plan to visit this beautiful place you will be rewarded with a picturesque scenery (hills in dense forest and grass vegetation, spots with beautiful view, waterfalls, rivers and the wonderful Drina canyon with its impressive vertical cliffs)
and natural rarities - e.g. endemic species like the monumental Serbian spruce (Picea Omorika found by Serbian botanist Josif Pancic).

scene from the Kusturica movie

You can reach the National Park from little town of Bajina Basta, and on the way to tara is one of the most attractive cultural-historical values of this region: the Raca Monastery.

Interior of Kafana in Bajina Basta

To get in mood for this wonderful place, see Kusturica's movie and download the beautiful presentation of Tara National Park. More information on the english Tara Site here.

Hotel Palas in Mojkovac

Something really fascinating for me are big state owned Hotels build during Communist time all over the Balkans.

Some are still running, but most of them are quite run down and seek for privatisation, but allmost all have this Charm of Communist-Style Backwardness!
This interesting Hotel is situated in Mojkovac, a quiet place in the Northern Monenegro mountains.

I just found out that it's for sale - for 5.3 Mio.€ it's yours!


It's a good example for the Style of Communist Hotels built in the mountains.

The colors and the ideas for the interiors remind me also of Hotel Omorika and Hotel Beli Bor in Tara. (I wrote about it here.)

stylish item #6

The receptions of the Hotels Omorika and Beli Bor! The visiting card of the hotel, normally (except the phone boots) and the first thing you notice when stepping into a Hotel. And here they are friendly, unpretentions and helpful. And they work in that fabulous environment.

stylish item #5

A tribute to the color palette (combination of orange with turquoise and browns). If the color are well chosen they survive any fashion (and if there is no money to change them they survive anyway any fashion!)



I must keep in mind the power of turquoise, bordeaux and white!

stylish item #4

The lounges! I don't comment, just look at the pictures.
Chimney lounge in Hotel
Omorika Little Sofa lounge in Hotel Omorika
Welcome Area lounge in Hotel Beli Bor