Dhanya Damodaran

Oct 7, 202210 min read

Serene Serbia

Visited In September 2022

Добродошли у Србију!!

It was our dream to take our parents to Europe, to show them that part of the world which is way different from where they live, to make them feel how awesome its to travel and explore, even with uncertainties in mind; to make them realise how magical it is to experience the unknown land where people, language, food are all so different from ours. We wanted them to feel and experience it, and also wished to be part of 'their trip'. So, I would call this trip of ours to Serbia as a dream come true for us, its not our trip, but theirs. We were blessed to see our parents enjoy the other side of the globe. Thank God, for making this happen!

Why Serbia? - Indian passport holders do not require a visa to enter this Eastern European country. We didn't want to get through the hassle of visa processing for parents and take any risks that might hinder our dream trip from happening.

It was an eight days itinerary in Serbia:

1) Arrive Belgrade and drive to Zlatibor

2) Mokra Gora Šargan Eight vintage railway, Drevengrad, Rača Monastery, Monastery Rujan

3) River Drina Gorge, Tara National Park, Lake Perućac, Banjska Stena Viewpoint, Zaovine Lake

4) Uvac Canyon - Boating and Hiking

5) Gostiljye waterfall, Stopica cave, Sirogojno museum, drive to Belgrade

6) Golubac Fortress, Belgrade site seeing

7) Novi Sad, Sremski Karlovsci, Winery

8) Fly back home

We flew from Kochi to Dubai and from there to Belgrade. I felt extremely nostalgic landing in Dubai after 5 months! Got to see Emirates Office, so close to the roads I used to drive while getting transferred by bus from one terminal to the other at airport. Fondly remembered the well spent days in Dubai. Dubai, you will always remain so special and close to my heart :)

We had booked 2 houses for our stay, one at Zlatibor for 4 nights and the other at Belgrade for 3 nights. The one at Zlatibor was an awesome three storey wooden house - Planinska Kuca which is fully furnished and has a fully equipped kitchen. The one we chose in Belgrade was a 3 bedroom fully furnished apartment with kitchen. This was our first trip where we did plenty of grocery shopping and cooking - the advantage of taking parents on your trip :)

Day 1 - Rent a car, drive to Zlatibor

We had booked a 7 seater car (Opel Combo) for our trip through Car Wizz. We took our car from the airport and drove to Belgrade to an Indian food outlet (warned our moms n dads that perhaps you will get such food only after 8 days :) ). After that we drove for about 3 hours to Zlatibor, which is part of Western Serbia.

Day 2 - Mokra Gora Šargan Eight, Drevengrad, Rača and Rujan Monastery

Our beautiful wooden house in Zlatibor:

There was rain forecasted, and we were like 'uff...' but nature was very kind on us :)

We started off the warm and pleasant day with a drive to Mokra Gora's famous Sargan Eight railway ride. The entrance to the railway station has the pictured narration of the construction of this railway line. This narrow gauge heritage railway line was constructed during World War 1 to connect Serbia to Austria-Hungary. Although it was destroyed in later years, tourist now can take this scenic ride in Serbia after the renovated line is open for public.

There are several tunnels we cross during this ride of around 3 hours up and down. The trip is complemented with narratives in English as well. The train stops are several picturesque places for us to walk around and enjoy. Overall, this was a great experience and well, our parents truly enjoyed, so much that they all fell asleep on the return leg.

Look at the 'Sleeping Beauties' :)

The next stop was Drvengrad, very near to Mokra Gora railway station. This site consists of several traditional wooden houses which depicts the age old Serbian lifestyle. This was constructed as a film shooting site by famous director Emir Kusturica built for his film Life Is a Miracle from 2003 to 2004. There is a small church, several houses, tea shops, restaurants etc in Drvengrad. We had our lunch here and after strolling around, taking several pictures, left the place to head towards Raca Monastery.

Since everyone of us except my son are vegetarians, finding the right kind of food was a small challenge. Its very hard to find vegetarian food on the menus of authentic Serbian restaurants. Even if we request to make a sandwich with only veggies (with the help of google translator). they still find it difficult to arrange. Most of the days, the restaurant guys suggested us of other international restaurants near by which serves Greek, Mediterranean and Italian food that has vegetarian options and this worked well in our favour.

Raca Monastery is one of the oldest and well known monasteries in Western Serbia. The monastery became a place where Serbian rulers, nobles, and church dignitaries were buried. There were grape wines spread all across the old monastery building, and for us it was a splendid view. We offered our prayers and then drove towards Rujan Monastery.

It was a scenic drive to Monastery Rujan, and so was the location where the monastery stood. Beautiful river by the side, lush green grass all around, exotic flowers, picturesque monastery building in pink stone.

By the way, this was our first trip where we cooked breakfast and dinner! Shopped at Maxi supermarket in the evening for groceries, cooked rice at home for dinner.

Day 3 - River Drina Gorge, Tara National Park, Lake Perućac, Banjska Stena Viewpoint, Zaovine Lake

Bread, Omelet, Rice and Yoghurt, Muesli - wow! we started off with sumptuous home cooked breakfast and fully energized, drove to Drina river house.

I read that this wooden house is one of the most pictured spot of Serbia. Local fishermen and swimmers constructed this little house on top of a stone in the middle of river Drina. Several times during high tides or heavy water flow, the house was washed off. However, the locals always made sure to reconstruct the house. Its picture perfect view from the banks of the river to watch the house.

We entered the world famous Tara National Park! The beauty of the landscape exponentially grew and at times we were all speechless appreciating the nature. We visited Lake Perusac, it was Bosnia and Herzegovina on the other side of Drina river. We further drove up the Tara reserve to Banjeska Stena view point.

The views were definitely a reward to our eyes. We knew that we had a to do a kilometre walk to reach the Benjeska Stena viewpoint. Well, I was a little thoughtful if parents would make it to the point, but it wasn't really the case :)

The walk was easy on flat surface through the pathway, a bit of climb into the woods to finally reach the viewpoint. The views were incredible!! So beautiful, that I didn't want to step out from there. See and enjoy!

After a power packed lunch from a small fast food outlet, we drove to Zavoine lake for the evening views.

Day 4 - Uvac Nature Reserve

There was only one plan for the day - visit the Uvac Nature Reserve, boat ride and hike (only hubby and myself). We drove to Uvac in the morning after breakfast, on our way took a picture stop at Zlatar Lake.

Uvac canyon is a natural wonder where the water of river Uvac forms meanders. While boating gives us a view of the place at the eye level, the hike up to the viewpoint gives us wonderful views of the entire nature reserve and the twisting meanders from a birds eye view. The trek is slightly strenuous, so our parents didn't opt for it.

After Uvac, we drove back to Zlatibor, had lunch, strolled around the beautiful town. This was our last night in our lovely wooden house. The next day after breakfast, checked out and our plan was to reach Belgrade by evening.

Day 5 - Gostiljye waterfall, Stopica cave, Sirogojno museum, drive to Belgrade

A few more must do's in Western Serbia and it was our last day in this region. We drove to Gostiljye waterfall in the morning. A bit of walking in the pleasant weather was refreshing. The waterfall is beautiful, but there wasn't a lot of water at this time of the year. We can hike down following the water fall to explore nature trails.

After the waterfall, we drove to Sirogojno museum, which is an open air museum. There are several houses built and preserved here which depicts the heritage and traditions of Serbia. We can cover the place is a an hour or two. The museum is well maintained and has description of all the displays in English for us to follow.

Countryside has always been a fascination for me and I never miss to visit scenic locations like this in every country we choose to visit. The traditional wooden houses, the barns, stables, dairies etc displayed here lets you imagine the quite, simple and peaceful life people in Serbia would have enjoyed in such countryside.

The next stop was Stopica Cave. We can park at the big parking ground before the cave and walk a few hundred metres to reach the spot.

The cave has a huge entrance and and as we step in, there is enough lights and also well set ladders and pathways to visit the big cave. There is water all around, so we have to mind our steps to not skid. We can enjoy the huge natural lime stone formations inside the cave. We had seen such before in other countries, but for our parents it was their first time. they thoroughly enjoyed the place.

We had late lunch from a pizzeria at Zlatibor and then drove to Belgrade. It was a long one, so we took breaks in between and finally reached Belgrade by evening. We decided to visit Belgrade fortress for a walk and also enjoy the breezy evening from the top of the fortress. We get nice views of the city and river Danube and Slava from the fortress.

It was indeed a long day for us. We checked into our apartment, had dinner and slept off. We had rented a 3 BHK apartment and was located at a very convenient place.

Day 6 - Golubac Fortress, Belgrade site seeing

We drove to Golubac from Belgrade and was around 2 hours plus of a drive. Golubac fortress is in Eastern Serbia, has a very long history related to the various dynasties and rulers who tried to capture it and take power and control over the area, considering its strategic location. We can see Romania on the other side of River Danube from here at Golubac.

Danube river is so special and it feels like this river follows us wherever we go! This river is quite wide in front of the fortress and the views are awesome here.

As we drive on the highway, we get the glimpses of the fortress from far and it really looked magnificent and majestic as expected.

The fortress offers different trails for visitors and are of different difficulty levels to cover. Green is easy and covers almost all major areas. Black is the most difficult one which includes a hike to the tallest watch tower. The exhibition halls displays a lot of artefacts and belongings of the various rulers who occupied the fortress over the period of time.

Post lunch, we visited Tumane monastery and then drove back to Belgrade and walked around the city to enjoy the evening. The monastery has several livestock reared within its premises. We got to see several of them, including lama.

Day 7 - Novi Sad, Sremski Karlovsci, Winery

On the seventh day of our trip, both moms dressed up in traditional Indian attire Saree and they looked gorgeous in the outfit. Lot of people gave admiring looks to them on the street as they walked around. They gave their pretty smiles in return and enjoyed the walk.

We started by visiting the Saint Sava Church in Belgrade. We drove past the Republic Square and Parliament of Serbia.

After that, we drove towards Northern Serbia to visit Novi Sad and Sremski Karlovski. Novi Sad is a beautiful city with several pastel coloured buildings. It was very tough to find a parking in the city. We drove around for almost 45 minutes to finally find a free parking space almost a kilometer and half from the city centre. We walked to the main square and walked around to see the main attractions like churches, museums and synagogue.

Post lunch was the most awaited Winery visit. Both moms were very skeptical about visiting winery! Why should we go to one was the question. The answer given was, even though you wouldn't taste wine, there is no harm seeing how wine is made from grapes, processed and bottled before it is out for supply. Half heartedly, the plan was agreed for :)

I could see a 360 degree shift in mindset as we approached the winery. The Djurdjic winery welcomed us with their fairly large wine yard full of red grapes hanging all around! This was what mom wanted to see in her lifetime, I felt so seeing her excitement. She was running around giving big smiles, all energized seeing the grapes. Not to see her excitement any less, as there are no opportunities for people from Kerala to see such large wine yards or apple orchards. The manager at the wine yard was so keen to make moms happy and he gifted them a few bunches of ripe red grapes freshly plucked from the wine yard. What more could have made them happier!! Finally, this is how wine yard visit became the best experience in the entire trip for them!! The manager of the wine yard gave us an orientation of processing grapes to make wine end to end.

By the way, hubby and I thoroughly enjoyed sipping home made white and red wines from the orchard.

We bought a bottle of wine also, now that we know how to age wine, why not give it a try! :)

Day 8 - Fly back home

Wake up, have breakfast, pack bags, check out, leave to airport, return rent a car, board flight, travel back via Dubai to Calicut. that's how the exciting trip with parents got concluded. Tons of beautiful memories for life!! Thank You Mom, Dad, Mom, Dad for making our wish to take you abroad for a trip come true. We enjoyed this trip so much and all that is because of YOU!

Help from locals:

The locals of Serbia, especially around Zlatibor were very helpful. Even with language issues of we not knowing Serbian and them not English, lot of them helped us guiding with routes etc. They even offered grapes and apples! So sweet!!