Serbia

Into Serbia

After leaving Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, we headed west to the Bulgaria-Serbia border. 

After a longish wait at border control, our passports were checked and stamped by Bulgarian officials, then we moved into the Serbian side. 

Into Serbia

A short wait, the same checks, and we were through feeling slightly amazed at the lack of formality compared to many other border crossings we have made.

We had heard that Serbia (Srbija in Latin or Србија in Cyrillic) has a population of about 9.6 million, is full of history.

Niš Skull Tower

It has lots of natural springs with good drinking water, uses the Cyrillic language and is potentially dangerous in Kosovo to the south, due to a 1999 uprising.

We were aiming to learn more about the history, meet the people and sample the food, so onwards we went.

Niš Fortress

After a short drive through some interesting scenery consisting mostly of huge rock formations, we stopped at our first Serbian campsite, Kamp Carski Drum, just out of Pirot. 

A nice green space with internet.

We trucked on the next morning to Niš, founded in the year 312 and one of the oldest cities in the Balkans.

Our first stop there was at the amazing Skull Tower. 

Prolom Banja church

The tower was built with the skulls of Serbian rebels during their uprising against the Ottoman Empire sometime in AD 280-337.

We also walked (in scorchingly hot weather) around the Niš fortress which is linked to the city by a bridge across a river. 

Đavolja Varoš-us

A walk around the interesting fortress in the lovely shade, followed by a quick exploration of the city in the hot sun, and we moved on.

Trucking southwest, we headed to Prolom Banja (Prolom Spa) where we wanted to sample the water.

After driving up a very winding and narrow road, we found that the town was a place full of therapeutic mineral water spas. 

Đavolja Varoš Red Well-Marg

It was a pretty area and consisted mostly of hotels with a rehabilitation focus, and a lovely and simple church, accessed via a causeway.

A local woman checked out our NZ stickers on Vanni and was most impressed at where we were from.

Rural Serbia-horse & bullock carts

She could not speak a word of English but chatted happily, quickly, and without a pause. 

We figured she was suggesting we visit a particular spa pool for what ailed us. 

After politely extracting ourselves, we moved on - and settled for Prolom water in a bottle!

Serbian village

We then took another winding and narrow road uphill to see Đavolja Varoš - Devil’s Town.

This is a formation of around 200 rock towers that are between 10 and 20 m high made of red clay, and a red spring. 

The formation is apparently a nominee for one the Seven Wonders of the World.

Lake near campsite

We made the hot walk up to the top to view these interesting rocks.

When we got finally got back from our long hot walk, we decided to stay in the car park for the night as everyone else had left the area.

In the middle of the night we were woken by a car coming up the road, then lots of doors slamming. 

Lake Zlatibor

As we were the only ones up there and it was absolutely pitch dark we were worried.

It transpired that it was couple of guys setting up their tent in the dark, but it took us a while to work this out in the dark and to feel safe. 

Nocturnal Leigh held a late vigil, while Marg slept on!

Zlatibor street pre-flooding

It is illegal to ‘free-camp’ in Serbia so we and they were not exactly legitimate – hence their arrival and set up in the dark we think.

The next morning we were up early, passing the horses and carts, bullocks etc on the road.

Stopića Pećina entrance

We were headed south to the Serbian break-away country Kosovo. 

However, we ground to a halt in a queue for border control with 5 km still to go before getting there!

After about an hour of moving maybe 200 metres, and watching people drive up the wrong side of the road to jump the queue, we figured it was not worth the estimated 10+ hours wait.

Stopića Pećina terraces

With such a horrifically long wait we decided we didn’t really need to go to Kosovo that badly - we had planned only one or two nights there. 

So we turned around doing a many pointed turn and headed back, noting that the queue by then was more than 6 km long.

Most of the car number plates in the queue were Dutch, German and British. 

After chatting with people in the queue it appears that these were en-route to Greece for their summer break.

Kremna Camp & Vanni

Driving north now and still in Serbia, we went through lots of poor looking villages until we came to nicer area with a lake and attractive houses. 

We thought this could be a nice spot to camp.

We found the only camp there, but it wasn’t on the lake front and was rather dire.

It was very over grown, shabby with awful facilities and full of old broken-down caravans.

Not a pleasant play to linger in!

Our hearts sank but we parked up beside a friendly Polish couple in their van and stayed just that night. Again we were so grateful for having our own shower and toilet!

The next day, not being able to find the turn off to some caves we wanted to see, we ended up in the mountains in Zlatibor.

This is a pretty but touristy town by a lake that is obviously very popular now in summer, as well as in the winter ski season. 

We had a walk around before enjoying a traditional Serbian lunch at a lovely restaurant overlooking the lake.

Just as we were finishing up, a huge thunder-storm arrived. The rain was so heavy and sudden that Zlatibor flooded, so we dashed back to Vanni in ankle-deep water and got absolutely drenched.

Makes you appreciate how wonderful it is to have your wardrobe travelling with you!

Leaving Zlatibor we drove through some lovely rural countryside and tiny villages to find Stopića Pećina, a river cave. 

After a very long climb up and around the hills to the cave, we arrived to find that the Zlatibor thunder-storm had knocked out the electricity at the cave.

Thinking that we would have to forego our visit, one of the guides decided to bring out his flashlight and with that and our android phone lights, we safely entered the huge cave.

It was a ‘wow’ experience, showing stunning limestone deposits dating from the Triassic period. 

The constant flow of water has shaped a cascading set of containers with pools of calcium rich water – reminded us of photos we have seen of New Zealand’s pink and white terraces – really stunning.

Moving on north, we arrived at Kremna where we drove up a tiny lane which opened out into a pretty campsite in a pear orchard.

The owner, a charming gentleman with no English, welcomed us with Serbian coffee and his home-made pear brandy – rakia - very potent stuff!

His assistant spoke some English and helped with translations but it is amazing what you can do with sign language and some words that sound similar.

Sargan 8 railway-Leigh

He gave us a lot of local information and we spent a very peaceful time there before heading on to the village of Mokra Gora to ride on the Sargan Eight railway train.

This narrow gauge railway has been restored as a tourist attraction. 

Beginning in 1921, it took four years to build over difficult terrain up Sargan Mountain. 

The problem of the terrain and steep climb was solved by forming the track in a figure eight and adding 22 tunnels.

We travelled in a restored carriage with great views out over the mountains accompanied by lots of Serbian families, a commentary, and some lively Serbian music.

While we thought the south-eastern part of Serbia appeared fairly poor, the western part seemed much more affluent with attractive and well-kept homes, gardens and towns, and picturesque hills and mountains.

We will return to Serbia later in our travels, and trip around in the north. We are now headed a few kilometres up the road into Bosnia.