Land of sakura and red maples
One of the panoramic stops of Sharganskaya Osmitsa
In this story, you will ride with us on a magical little train high into the mountains, admire the cherry blossoms endlessly, eat a lot of delicious, albeit virtual food, enjoy the Norwegian views on the tops of the snow-capped mountains, and also live the different seasons of the year in one day! We are going to Serbia!
A little joy for Sky Up
Once UIA was our favorite with their low-cost tariffs, I already thought that those times would not return, but then Sky Up very successfully began to develop its company. Tickets to Serbia cost 3248 UAH for two and for this you didn’t even have to wait a year, we bought them in early March, and flew away in mid-April. The basic fare includes a large hand luggage of 9 kg in size and, most importantly, there is a call center where operators have information on the nuances of taking PCR for each country. I was worried that there would be a positive PCR test and the trip would be closed, but the girl reassured me, saying that in the case of a positive PCR, Sky up would allow me to change the dates. I endlessly appreciate such customer focus during a pandemic, I hope you never deteriorate and will always please us.
Belgrade
All the joy of the trip began from the airport, it was that rare flight, which is right in the middle of the day. And since we have activated the lounge zone on the cards, we arrived at the airport quite early. As a result, we sat in the lounge for an order of magnitude longer than our entire flight lasted. And in general, before Serbia, I was a little afraid that the lounge area would be the most striking event of the trip. The very word Serbia somehow didn’t sound joyful to me, I don’t even know why, some kind of association from childhood. But now, after the trip, this word evokes a feeling of magic and comfort in me. We flew in a small and half-empty plane, the flight lasted less than two hours, flew by unnoticed. In Belgrade itself, everything went very quickly.
Stamp in the passport, withdrew the money, went out into the street and after 7 minutes a city bus drove up. On the bus, we paid with paypas from the phone and after 40 minutes we are in the city, which is gradually shrouded in the red rays of the evening sun. We settled in our cozy apartments and went to one of the main attractions - the castle. Here we met for the first time with Serbian sakura, they were medium-sized trees, densely strewn with pink flowers.
Trees grew on a small boulevard, on the other side of the boulevard people sat at tables enjoying the evening sky. Romance was in the air.
The territory of the castle is quite large, enough for everyone, someone played the guitar in the meadow, someone relaxed on the benches, there were quite a lot of people, they were all united by the atmosphere of relaxation, the Serbs know how to relax. How good it is when the city enters like this from the first minute.
We joined the wires of the evening sun and, together with everyone, disappeared somewhere in the air with the last rays of the sun. What a wonderful and warm evening, but the weather forecast shows that you need to enjoy this evening to the fullest, as tomorrow will be the opposite. We walked along the main pedestrian street, there were unusually many people here, I had not seen such a number on one street for a long time. Serbs somehow don’t really care about quarantine, at least that’s the impression we got.
What I like about traveling during quarantine is the number of people at the sights, in most cases it is negative. When we got to one of the main tourist streets in the Skadarlie area, there was no one there at all. But, unfortunately, the reason was that the street was dug up and all under repair. On the other hand, what is there to be surprised about, a candidate for entry into the European Union, and there everything is constantly dug up and under repairs. I am by no means saying that this is bad or good, but it is, a fun fact. But on the other hand, the Zavi? aj Skadarlija restaurant made us very happy. It was delicious, cozy and the dishes were served in authentic dishes. As for the Serbian cuisine, it turned out to be very similar to the Montenegrin one, and we undoubtedly consider it one of the best.
What is typical for all Serbian restaurants is large portions, a lot of meat, low prices. In terms of servings for two, we usually ordered one first course, one second course and a simple salad, this was enough for Dasha and I to eat. You can make a critical mistake by ordering two main courses for two people. At the same time, the Serbs are all of the usual physique, not at all fat. Apparently they want to feed all the tourists, so that later they can win the slimming contest. The most interesting fact is our average check. The most expensive was around 1600 dinars ($17), but sometimes our meal cost 400 dinars ($5) and a record low 200 dinars ($2.05).
There was not always time and energy for a restaurant, so you could always buy two large slices of pizza and have a full meal. The cost of one large piece is about a dollar. Or go for a snack at the "bakery", here you will always find boreki and Serbian sweets. In terms of sweets, Serbia was also pleasantly surprised, their feature is delicious cream. In general, I will summarize - Serbia is great for a gastronomic tour. After a hearty dinner, we planned the embankment for an evening walk. You have to burn calories somehow. The embankment here is done well. It would be time to go to bed and gain strength before a difficult route, but I want to walk and walk, what a wonderful day, what a wonderful city! The final notes of romance were made by red maple, which we flew to Japan to admire.
I think in 10 years Japan will have a strong competitor in maples and sakura. Maybe even due to technological progress, but this is clearly not now. The architecture and transport infrastructure here is in a very backward state. We saw buildings here of the most fantastic forms and architectural solutions, but, unfortunately, from the point of view of the Soviet Union. It’s even hard for me to imagine how it once had to excite someone’s eyes, now one can only guess why this building is of such a Soviet form that the author had in mind. But since we don’t live here, it was very interesting to discover such “masterpieces”. With the transport structure, the problem is that there are no sites where you can buy bus tickets online, at least we did not find any, and the same goes for their timetables on the Internet. The only place where you can find out exactly where and when the bus leaves is the bus station, but at the Belgrade bus station, the cashiers every time brazenly try to cheat on change. Fortunately, this is the only fly in the ointment towards Serbia, in all other respects from the point of view of tourism and the residents themselves - everything is super!
Baina Bashta
It's not sakura, but there are plenty of them
I usually fall asleep for a long time, but apparently the body was preparing mentally and turned me off instantly. In the morning we took a four-hour bus to another part of the country. The first part of the road was quite ordinary, except for the workers who were eating something, this fact is funny because when we drove back they also ate. But it is not surprising when there is so much delicious food in the country - you need to eat! Before entering the mountains there was a long stop, just for a meal with pancakes, which Dasha baked for us on the road back in Kyiv. This is generally a cool topic, if you have one apartment without breakfast on your trip, then a supply of cheesecakes or pancakes saves a lot of time. Then the road went much more interesting, these were high mountains, from which gorgeous views of small settlements and towns in the valley opened, the only thing that strained this amount of snow, which became more and more, and below it was generally clear that it was going to rain with might and main . Just last night, when we were walking, I looked at the clear moon and asked her to continue to be clear even further, but it was all in vain.
So, we are approaching, we will need to get off the bus early, near the famous house on the water. After that, it will be a couple of kilometers to the city on foot. The only problem is that no one here speaks English. We understand people, they don't understand us. You can always try to guess how a word will be in Serbian, but if you make a mistake in at least one letter, they will not understand you. For a long time we tried to explain to the driver that we needed to be dropped off near the house. Someone still translated it to him, like ok. At the entrance to the house, passengers and the driver began to show us through the window, they say, look how beautiful it is. But we need to get out. Here no one could translate, the words stop and finish were also powerless. The driver understood that two passengers wanted something from him, but he didn’t even guess what exactly they might want. Sign language also fails here, in a word, Brazil number two. Passengers and the driver began a real briefing in Serbian. It was evident that someone was showing him with gestures that we wanted to get out, but the driver clearly did not agree that someone might need to stop here. Come on man, convince the driver! Otherwise, we will have to cut an extra two kilometers. Then the driver stopped and opened the door, but it seemed that he was still sure that we were not going to go out. Behind the bus, an emerald-colored river and the same house were waiting for us.
On the other side of the river is Bosnia and Herzegovina. She was so close, but there were no open borders nearby.
Looking at the house, we decided to eat at one of the two restaurants located here. By the way, restaurants in Serbia should be chosen according to the degree of density of cigarette smoke inside, I immediately remembered the saying “smoke even an ax hang”. We chose "Two Lindens" because there was an unprecedented luxury - a non-smoking room. The decision to eat near the house on the water was really successful, since the only two restaurants in the whole city are only here on the outskirts, in the city itself there are only cafes and fast foods. While fast food is to be commended, it's chic here!
Our lunch consisted of cevapi, salad and veal soup. Chevapi is something like small splashers, only of a different shape)
The only problem with this restaurant is the Serbian menu, but the guys quickly adapt to customers. After complicated attempts by the waiter girl to explain in English what these dishes are, the restaurant already made a menu in English the next day. How delicious it was for us! Now we are full of energy, we begin our route. First, with things, two kilometers to the apartment. Then 6 kilometers of hiking route towards the Racha monastery.
The whole road was accompanied by stable rain. Of the interesting things on the way, we met a salamander, from a sudden meeting, my heart almost stood up from horror.
Then in the distance there was a mountain similar to the Chinese Avatar Mountains.
And, in fact, the monastery itself. The monastery looks really beautiful.
As soon as we entered the territory, a cat immediately ran up to us, which became our best friend - do not spill water. She was definitely waiting for us here, the cats have never met us with such joy. As it turned out, the most interesting part of the route was waiting for us behind the monastery. A river flows there, the course of which was artificially changed and the main part of the water was let through a closed levada. Walking right along the levada is extraordinary and picturesque.
We understood that the further we go, the longer it will take to return, but our eyes said: “Come on! Forward! Even further! " Photo, unfortunately, will not convey all the beauty and comfort of the situation, there is only one way - to feel it, fly in and take a walk. Until we reached the end we could not stop, this adds up to two kilometers to the route.
Apparently, the river bed was changed here to produce electricity, but the water labyrinths that were built here for this must be seen with your own eyes. It even happened that part of the river flows naturally straight, and part crosses it perpendicularly along the bridge. We could not understand the logic of all these channels.
But there was something to discuss on the way back. When we finally reached the city, our legs were already falling off, but we wanted to eat in some cozy restaurant, not knowing that they were not here. The search for food lasted about an hour, until the owner of one of the cafes explained to us that we were either walking two kilometers to the house on the water, or we were going to a nearby fast food. At the thought that two more kilometers needed to be cut somewhere, I was completely unsettled. Therefore, at a fast food restaurant, we ordered two giant slices of pizza and a burger with a large splash. For all this we paid about 400 dinars ($4.1). It was no less tasty than a day in Lipy. And now we are sitting with dry feet in our themed apartments.
I would describe the apartment as an art object, it looks like it used to be a restaurant, but now it's a cozy place.
Mokra Gora
Now the real magic begins. We came to the bus station in the morning, but the cashier told us that we needed to take a taxi to Mokra Gora, although yesterday she was still sure that we had to take two buses. They caught a taxi driver, he agreed to take us for 2000 dinars ($20.5), by the way, according to the meter, the fare would be higher. The road takes about forty minutes, but what a road! We climbed high into the mountains, into the very clouds. They even felt sad that everything would be covered in fog, but the Serbian fairy tale, for that it is a fairy tale, everything always works out for the main characters in it. First we climbed into an incredibly snowy forest, every branch, every twig was covered with snow. This is a real black and white realm.
The taxi driver gladly made a stop so that we could enjoy the winter in dense forests. It was the deepest winter ever.
After driving for literally ten minutes, we drove into the tunnel, when we drove out we saw thousands of purple blooming flowers breaking through the snow cover, we were driving through real spring, now the landscapes were pink and white, winter was already somewhere behind, we are enjoying spring! But here's another tunnel, what's next?
And then autumn, everything is covered in a thick, heavy fog. I didn’t want to stop here at all because of such moisture, you can instantly get wet and it will be cold, give the next tunnel! In the meantime, the meter had just reached 2000, and the driver turned it off. And behind the next tunnel, spring was waiting for us again, but already quite late, there was less and less snow, the air was completely transparent, the tops of the mountains shrouded in mist were visible. We were already quite close to our point. The man dropped us off near a small tourist tunnel and said that we had to go through it to the train. Behind the tunnel, spring was already waiting for us in all its glory, brightly flowering trees, lush grass and the same miniature train on which we will now go on a trip.
Sharganska Osmica
In mid-April, the train departed twice a day, at 10:30 and at 13:30, the schedule can be found by phone from the Internet, you can even book your seats a day in advance. Tickets cost 1.000 dinars ($10.3).
The area is very reminiscent of Japan. In the morning there were not many tourists, there were twenty people for four carriages. They put the bag in the car, and they themselves took a place at the railing between the trailers.
Let's move! Our one and a half hour journey around the places of Kusturica's film "Life is a miracle" begins. The train climbs higher and higher into the mountains, its tracks form a figure-eight pattern, hence the name Osmica.
The atmosphere of the trip is greatly enhanced by the conductor, who walks between the cars, tells interesting facts and, with all his good-natured mood, brings comfort and warmth to this trip. The most interesting places, as for me, are between the cars and on the balcony at the end of the last pasture. At first, it was a little scary to stand between the cars when the train entered the dark long tunnels.
But then we became so bold that we even crossed between the cars in almost complete darkness. The train rose higher and higher, there was still spring, the weather was clear, you could see far into the distance, purple flowers were already thickly covering the mountains without snow at all.
The trip to the final station in the mountains took 45 minutes, the train goes there non-stop. On the way back, the train made photo stops at places with panoramic views.
At one of the stops we had 30 minutes. We immediately took the opportunity and climbed even higher up the mountain in search of interesting panoramas. Here is just a small trekking route.
The venture turned out to be successful! As a reward, we received another panorama from a high mountain to lower hills, as well as one of the train tunnels.
There is also a restaurant at the station and you can buy a coffee for yourself on the way back. On the train, everyone was already acquainted and rode like one big family. Sharing travel experiences in covid times. This train should be on the “must see! ” list when traveling through Serbia. And how lucky with the weather!
Tara National Park
Taxi, we are back at the Mokra Gora station, on the daytime train you can see that a lot more people are going. It's good that we came for the morning. Further, according to the plan, we have the Village of Kusturica, and we need to find out when the next bus is to move further along the route, and the next bus is in 4 hours... We arrived. But what is a fairy tale without a happy ending? A car stopped in front of us, in which a man asked where we were going. He did not have to go to the village, but he can drop us off in some city if we need to. I asked him what route he had, he was going to drive around the entire Tara Nature Reserve by car. We instantly revised our plans, I asked if he would mind if we join his route, he happily agreed, and we immediately set off on a trip! Our new friend's name is Max, he is now on a big eleven day trip around Serbia. Go on adventures with Maxim! Our first stop was again in early spring, where beautiful flowers were making their way through the snow deposits. We have already begun to take the constant change of season for one day for granted. Now we have descended into late and even already sunny spring, to one of the shortest rivers in the world - Vrelo.
Its length is only 365 meters, and the river begins and ends with excellent waterfalls. The river itself flows into the emerald Drina.
You can admire the color of the second river forever, and even to the songs of local birds.
The second important point of visit was the stems, these are from the tombstones of the 14-15th century, which are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Max has one of the important travel goals - visiting UNESCO sites around the world. Until a couple of hours ago, I didn't even know about these stacks, and now we are becoming experts in them. There were only two places on the route with such tombstones, the second one was noted by Max right on the territory of the Serbian grandfather's house. But do not miss because of this now a UNESCO site. We went to look for stone tombstones at my grandfather's dacha, but we could not find them, later a disgruntled grandfather came out and indicated with a gesture that we should get out of his dacha. But we can’t take it and give up like that, apparently grandfather himself doesn’t know what wealth he has on the territory, or maps are mistaken. Nevertheless, we decided to get to the bottom of the truth, having studied the dacha of the disgruntled grandfather well, we found out that he really does not have tombstones. And I'm afraid to imagine how many more tourists made such a mistake, grandfather probably already hates this world heritage that has fallen on his dacha. As a result, the battle between the Serb and the mark on the maps ended in favor of the native, the ancient stechki were right behind the fence of his territory. Well, at least he didn’t get “rougeau” with salt. But ideally, at the entrance to the cottage, just hang an arrow to the left, which pointed to the path to the stacks.
But back to the river. We popped into a restaurant and ordered a soup for ourselves, just to have a bite to eat faster and go further along the route so as not to waste precious time. But it was this restaurant that for some reason poured soup on plates for a record long time, apparently everyone needed their soup that day. But here they brought the soup, they drank it in a quick way and on and on. Now we have a stop near the dam. An interesting fact, but the river here is not so beautiful, it is much more beautiful to look at it from above, so after a ten-minute walk we rushed to the mountains. At the very first gorgeous panorama, summer sunny weather awaited us.
Incredibly beautiful panorama of the dam and the river going beyond the horizon. It was very unusual to see the sun today after the morning deep winter and yesterday's stable rain. More photos, even more joy, we are like bunnies that got out on a sunny lawn! And how timely it came out!
Initially, our route was supposed to end at this place the next day, but since we are now with a car, we are significantly ahead of schedule and can move even higher! The next panorama was more terrible from a sharp cliff than beautiful, here I was no longer like a bunny on the lawn, but like a frightened hare after meeting a wolf. But this is not the very top. The mark on the map shows that there is the best panorama of these places waiting for us high in the mountains. Forward, summer ended as quickly as it began, again snow-covered landscapes outside the windows, we are again in winter, we are driving along dense forests. Soon the good road ended and the off-road rally began. Fortunately, Maxim was confident in his driving skills, and I am ready to push the car out of any hole. We arrived as close as possible to the mark on the map, it was a dense forest without the slightest trace of civilization. It remained to walk 600 meters to the mark. But where to go if there is a grove and snowdrifts around. My first thought was that Maps Me had decided to get rid of us again. The second guess was, about which I directly clarified with Maxim - whether he was a maniac. In fact, we got into a car with an unknown man, and he drove us deep into the forest, referring to a mark that only glows in his map. Max said that he, fortunately, is not a maniac. Well, at least it's good, you can go deep into the thickets with him. Now we took a sure course deep into the forest, making our way through the snowdrifts along an imaginary path. We immediately stumbled upon the footprints of a bear, the size of its paw exceeded my foot.
One of the paws seemed to be slightly injured. The three of us were a little taken aback, but still continued the route. And the traces continued, what an intelligent bear got caught, apparently also decided to take a walk to the review. I thought like this: if our paths do cross, then the bear will be able to eat only one of the three most likely, but who will he choose one of the two Ukrainians or the only Russian, then I started thinking out loud and it turned out that Max had already figured it out in his head Which of the three of us is at greater risk of being eaten. Fortunately, our paths with the clubfoot diverged in different directions. Oh, and here is a sign with a painted bear and a very important text in Serbian “Beware of bears! ”. I never thought about how meaningless this inscription. We know that a big bear is wandering around here, but how is it to be “beware”? How will it help us when we meet him. Yes, and trees, as luck would have it, some without knots to climb on them. And on the other hand, if the bear chooses not Dasha and me, then we don’t know how to drive a car to leave... Then the discussion came down to the fact that at least a finger should remain uneaten so that we can unlock the phone...
So, back to the peak from which the panorama opens. Our efforts to get to the observation deck were rewarded with a real Norwegian panorama. Serbia is just wow! Five out of five! In the morning we were impressed by the train, and now by this “Norway”. How cool that our planet is so different!
And again that joyful feeling when you look and cannot see enough! How wonderful that we crossed paths with Max. Now there are nothing left, to return whole to the car. As soon as we sat down and closed the doors, we all immediately felt better. But nevertheless, this point is called Banjska Stena, and it should also be on the mandatory list to visit. Then we had a beautiful evening in spring style, the sky red from sunset, slender pines and green nature. We returned to Bajina Bashta again for an overnight stay, where Max arranged for us a tasting of tinctures that he had collected from different parts of Serbia, and then, with a light head and tired legs, we all went to celebrate a successful day in our already beloved “Two Lindens”. This time, delicious local sausages and, of course, Serbian soups were waiting for us there, and for dessert, admiring the evening house on the water.
We said goodbye to our new and already dear friend and went to the hotel to correct the route, since in fact we now have one more day. On the advice of Max, we have adjusted it in favor of the city of Novi Sad. That evening we did not post any photos, did not call our relatives, we had to go to bed urgently, since we had an earlier check-out on the new route and the bus was already at half past six in the morning.
Novi Sad
The night flew by like one second, as if we didn’t go to bed, at the bus station they asked to change our pre-purchased tickets. The cashier's procedure required a couple of stamps and a corrector. The bus station is generally interesting here, there is a large schedule, which is already outdated. Therefore, the girl writes the schedule of buses of interest for the day ahead to everyone on pieces of paper, she does this from memory and sometimes makes mistakes. So today we slept another 15 minutes less. The bus came for us with the same driver who, surprised, dropped us off at the house on the way here. Most of the four-hour route to Belgrade was in a dream. So we arrived in the capital itself already cheerful. But since Novi Sad is even further away, without checking into the hotel, we immediately jumped onto the next bus, which departed in 7 minutes. Here they go every 30 minutes until late in the evening.
The journey took another 01:15. And upon arrival in the city, things were unloaded into a storage room at the bus station. True, finding a camera turned out to be another quest, since for this it was necessary to know how the storage rooms would be in Serbian. Somehow, after all these buses, we were tired again, but only the beginning of the day))) Naturally, to replenish our strength, we went to the local bakery, where we were served excellent boreki with cheese and potatoes.
Despite the dead appearance, Violeta Pekara cooks perfectly.
But in fact, it turned out that in Serbia all bakers and confectioners cook delicious food! And now, in fact, about the city itself, it is radically different from Belgrade. The walking street of Novi Sad takes you to Europe. Although we are not fans of European pedestrian streets, it was joyful to take a sip of Europe during the closed borders. And if you are tired of all this Europe, then move to Japan to cherry blossoms in Dunavsky Park.
Although, in Serbia you can easily find sakura and not only in parks. Sakura viewing was of course a great discovery on this trip, we did not even suspect that they were here on such a scale. Why do people still associate sakura only with Japan? But if you are a very whimsical tourist, then here are the coordinates of a really giant sakura in this city 45 ° 15'14.1 "N 19 ° 51'46.1" E, this is near “Samostan svetog Јurјa”.
But since we are already in this part of the city, we already need to climb the castle. By the way, the signs show that we are already in the city of Petrovaradin, although we just crossed the bridge over the river. The scale of the castle here is also impressive, although the building itself looks very dull behind the walls, but there is where to climb and see many panoramas.
On the way to the castle, of course, you can still admire the tulips, but the sakura mood overshadows them.
And for the finale, you can take a good walk along the embankment, it’s a pity there are no bicycles for rent here, but the embankment is simply gorgeous.
But, unfortunately, everything in the city was not so perfect, if in Belgrade the lockdown somehow did not have a strong effect, then only summer terraces were open here, and it was really cold outside to sit in the open air. Who will not shelter us as another delicious confectionery, which deliciously fed pizzas and cakes for about 500 dinars ($ 5.1). Another super-day in cozy Serbia. We climbed onto the second floor of the bus and, in a retreat mode, drove back to Belgrade. There were many buses today, although not as many as red cars in this country.
Dasha and I noticed that the red color of the cars dominates here and even played the game "Guess how many cars the red one will pass through".
Belgrade Again
We had a little more than half a day left in the city, but since the airport is very close to the city, and getting there does not take much time, we will now have a full day. We spent the first half walking around the Zemun district, which was previously a separate city, but now merged with the capital.
I would once again talk about the fantastic cherry blossoms that grow here near the Glamoure Event Center, but I’d rather tell you about the swans who decided to take us in numbers, and a flock of pigeons circled over their heads.
In principle, we weren’t surprised at anything anymore, we were tired of doing it all the time in Serbia) And what cozy streets with a flea market are here... And of course, one of the main attractions is the Gardosh Tower.
We recommend the district, really pleased. And now let's move on to the most long-awaited part of the journey. Many years ago, long before I became a traveler, my grandmother showed an interesting thing on TV - an electric tower, near which fluorescent lamps glow in the hands. I was very impressed, so much so that after many years I periodically recalled that program. About three years ago, I told Dasha that we need to google what it is and where it is, because we travel a lot and someday we will visit the country where there is a museum with this exhibit. But google hands did not reach. And now, a few weeks before the trip to Serbia, we find out that my childhood dream is waiting for us at the Tesla Museum. The whole trip I could not wait for this moment, and now I have a lamp in my hand!!!
The girl who led the tour of the museum asked if we liked it, I told her how I had been waiting for this moment for more than 20 years! I was not just happy, I was in seventh heaven! Now the plan has been overfulfilled and you can fly home and prepare for the next trip, but you need to catch up on the lost time from last year!
Serbian verdict. Now you have a choice where to fly to the cherry blossoms - to Japan or Serbia))))
Travel Information
Date of travel: 03/10/2021 – 03/17/2021
Flights: Sky Up
Hotels: Booking
Excursions: All by yourself
Difficulty of the trip: 4/10 (There is little information on the Internet about buses)
