With the beautiful nature, its landscapes that will take your breath away and mouthwatering food on top of all, western Serbia will easily make its way to your heart.
Highlights: open air ethno museum "Old village", Stopica cave, Gostilje waterfall, Sargan Eight heritage train ride, Wooden Town Mecavnik
Zlatibor mountain is the most popular tourist resort in West Serbia, about 220 km from Belgrade, where we will visit a unique open air ethno museum "Old Village"in Sirogojno and Stopica Cave with its awe inspiring cave stalactites and an underground river. This is also a destination for a genuine gourmet, where you can taste prsuta (smoked ham), kajmak (a creamy cheese spread delicacy), “komplet lepinja”, tea made from mountain herbs and, of course, a shot of traditional drink “sljivovica” – plum rakia. After we taste some of these delicacies, we are going to visit one of the most beautiful waterfalls in western Serbia - Gostilje waterfall.
On this tour we also discover The Wooden Town, also known as Küstendorf andMecavnik - a traditional village that the Serbian film director Emir Kusturica built for his film entitled "Life is a Miracle". It is located near the National park "Tara", two hundred kilometers southwest of Serbia's capital, Belgrade. Because of the Wooden Town, Kusturica was the recipient of the Philippe Rotthier European Architecture award in 2005.
The Wooden Town has a library, named the Ivo Andrić Library after a Serbian author Ivo Andric, a Nobel Prize winner for literature; an art gallery named Macola in honor of a sculptor Dragan Jovićević (it was previously known as Anika, after a character from Ivo Andric's fiction); Stanley Kubrick Cinema; a main house which houses a cinema-hall in the cellar, a living room, a guest room, a closed yard, a swimming pool, a gym, a sauna and private chambers for the Kusturica family; a sports hall; a restaurant; a cake shop, as well as a souvenir shop; and finally, a Church dedicated to St. Sava, a Serbian Orthodox Church Saint.
The streets in the village bear the names of various individuals that Kusturica holds in high esteem or finds to be personally significant: Nikola Tesla, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Diego Maradona, MiodragPetrovićČkalja, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Joe Strummer, Novak Đoković and of course, Ivo Andrić, who the main street is named after.
The Sargan Eight is a narrow-gauge heritage railway in Serbia, running from the village of Mokra Gora to the Šargan Vitasi station. An extension to Višegrad in the Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina, was finished on August 28th, 2010. The former East Bosnian railway with a gauge of 760 mm (2 ft 5 15⁄16 in) was an important part of the former narrow-gauge main line from Sarajevo to Belgrade and closed in 1974. Between 1999 and 2003 the section over the Šargan pass was rebuilt by the Serbian Ministry of Tourism and the Yugoslav State Railway (now the Serbian Railways), with a huge help from Emir Kusturica. Nowadays, travelers have the chance to go on an amazing train ride around the mountains in the Sargan Eight.
ITINERARY:
DAY ONE: Departure from Belgrade in the morning 8 AM, drive to Zlatibor mountain with refreshment breaks, visit to Stopica Cave and open air ethno museum "Sirogojno", lunch in an authentic surrounding. Departure to Gostilje waterfall, the arrival to the Zlatibor center and getting to our accommodation. Time for rest or a walk around Zlatibor lake. Overnight stay.
DAY TWO: After breakfast we leave to Mokra Gora and visit Kusturica's Wooden town, old train ride to the Sargan Eight. A break for lunch and taking some time to round up our impressions...Arrival in Belgrade in the late evening (around 10 PM). End of the tour.
Price per person:
220 e (1 pax), 160 e (2 pax), 140 e (3 pax), 120 e (4-7 pax), 100 e (8-20 pax)
Duration: 2 days
(total 10 hours transfer time)
Departure: 8:00 am first day
Arrival: 10 pm second day
Pick up: Anywhere in Belgrade
Included:
Transportation (car or van)
Accommodation - one night in apartments
Sirogojno Ethno village and musem entrance
Stopica cave entrance
Entrance to Wooden town
Sargan eight train ride (2h)
English-speaking guide
Tour organization
* possible upgrade to hotel 4*
Operation months: April - October