Serbia starts at the confluence. Then it drives.
Belgrade sits on a ridge where the Sava runs into the Danube, and nearly every good day in this country leaves from underneath it. How far out each one goes, what the minibus costs, and which are worth the early alarm.
Four days that decide what a week in Serbia feels like.
One morning on foot in Belgrade, one run up to Novi Sad, one down the gorge, and one night that goes on much too long. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morning3-Hour Small Group Walking TourThree hours through the old town, finishing on the fortress terrace where the two rivers meet. Do it before the heat and the day makes sense afterwards.
02The day up northSremski Karlovci and Novi Sad Full-Day Tour from BelgradePetrovaradin over the Danube, then the wine cellars at Sremski Karlovci. The flattest, greenest, easiest day Serbia offers.
03The day downriverGolubac Fortress & Iron Gate Danube GorgeGolubac fortress at the mouth of the gorge, then the narrows where the Danube squeezes between two countries. The longest drive on this page, and the one nobody regrets.
04The night outBelgrade Nightlife Bar Pub Club Crawl with DrinksBars, a club and a walk between them, in a city that treats one in the morning as the middle of the evening.
Six places Belgrade drivers point the minibus at.
A fortress in a gorge, a Habsburg town with wine cellars under it, a house standing on a rock in the middle of the Drina, a narrow-gauge railway tied in a knot, a hill with a mausoleum on top, and the old southern capital. All of them are a day, all of them come back for dinner.
Half a morning, a full day, or the whole of Saturday.
Every destination on this site is measured from one car park in central Belgrade. Sort the choice by how much of the day you are prepared to give it, then by what the seat costs.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in Serbia.
Every Serbian tour review →Two of these run once a day and sell the last seats a week ahead. What each one is, what it costs, and who it suits.
1
Sremski Karlovci and Novi Sad Full-Day Tour from Belgrade
Review of the Northern Serbia tour from Belgrade, with Krušedol Monastery, Sremski Karlovci, Bermet wine, Petrovaradin Fortress, and Novi Sad.
From · $78
Read our review →
2
Gems of Eastern Serbia
from $127
3
Belgrade Nightlife Bar Pub Club Crawl with Drinks
from $90
4
Belgrade Big Tour: Top Attractions and Belgrade Neighborhoods
from $72
5
Golubac Fortress & Iron Gate Danube Gorge
from $117
6
Along the Danube: Golubac Fortress & Iron Gate Gorge day trip from Belgrade
from $120
7
3-Hour Small Group Walking Tour
from $35
8
Belgrade Underground Tour w/ Sparkling Wine Along the River
from $35
Belgrade does not really have a closing time.
The bars in Savamala fill after eleven, the barges moored along the Sava run until the sun is up, and a guide is mostly there to get you past the door. Three nights out, priced, with what each includes before you start paying at the bar.
Rakija before the food, and nobody asking you to leave.
A Serbian evening runs on plum brandy, grilled meat and a table held for as long as you want it. These are the walks through the markets and the kafanas of Belgrade, plus the cellars an hour north that make the wine nobody exports.
What a day out of Belgrade actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Serbia is cheap by European standards and the gap between the cheap end and the splurge is mostly diesel.
Walking mornings, pub crawls, kayak hours on the Sava and the short run up Avala.
The standard day out: Novi Sad, the Iron Gate, the monastery run, a full day on the Drina.
Private drivers, two-country Danube days and the small-group trips that go west into the hills.
Three things that only happen in Serbia.
Gorges, wooden villages and concrete housing exist everywhere. A river squeezed to 150 metres between two countries, a railway deliberately tied in a knot, and a capital that kept its Yugoslav architecture instead of apologising for it, do not.
The Iron Gate
For 100 kilometres below Golubac the Danube is pushed between Serbian and Romanian cliffs until, at the Kazan narrows, the whole river fits through a channel about 150 metres wide. A colossal face of the Dacian king Decebalus is carved into the Romanian side, the Roman Tabula Traiana is bolted to the Serbian one, and both are only readable from a boat.
- 1Golubac Fortress & Iron Gate Danube Gorge★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 185 reviews
- 2Along the Danube: Golubac Fortress & Iron Gate Gorge day trip from Belgrade★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 185 reviews
- 3Iron Gate NP Tour with 1-hour speedboat ride + 2 viewpoints★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 148 reviews
The Sargan Eight
To climb 300 metres of hillside on a narrow gauge, the engineers of the 1920s simply looped the line over itself in a figure of eight through 22 tunnels. It hauled freight until 1974, sat abandoned, and was rebuilt as a two-hour ride out of Mokra Gora. Drvengrad, the wooden village Emir Kusturica built for a film and then kept, sits on the ridge above it.
- 1Šargan Eight Railway, Wooden Town & House on Drina river day trip from Belgrade★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 107 reviews
- 2Best of West (Drina House, Drvengrad & Sargan 8)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 104 reviews
- 3Belgrade to Zlatibor private transfer by car★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 16 reviews
Yugoslav Belgrade
Cross the Sava and the city changes century: New Belgrade is a planned grid of vast concrete blocks built for a federation that no longer exists, the Genex tower still bridging its own carriageway. On the other side, Tito lies under a marble slab in a greenhouse full of plants, with the relay batons of a hundred birthday parades in the room next door.
- 1Red Belgrade Communist Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 78 reviews
- 2Architecture of New Belgrade – Brutalism Decoded★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 24 reviews
- 3Communist Tour in Belgrade★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 19 reviews
Four Serbian bookings that do not wait for you.
Most of this country can be sorted the night before over a second rakija. These four run on boat slots, a single daily departure or a seat count that has already gone.
- 01Golubac Fortress & Iron Gate Danube GorgeThe speedboat run through the narrows carries a handful of people and goes once a day. The seats, not the fortress, are the bottleneck.
- 02Šargan Eight Railway, Wooden Town & House on Drina river day trip from BelgradeThe narrow-gauge train runs to a fixed timetable out of Mokra Gora, and a full-day trip from Belgrade is built backwards from it.
- 03Sremski Karlovci and Novi Sad Full-Day Tour from BelgradeSmall-group runs north leave once each morning and the cellar visit at the end is booked for a set number of glasses.
- 04RE:PLAY Pub Crawl BelgradeGroups cap out on weekends, when half of the region is also in town. Friday and Saturday close first.
When the kosava blows the boats off the Danube.
Serbian winter is a continental one, and the wind that comes down the Danube gorge in the cold months cancels river trips at short notice. It changes what you book rather than whether you come: the city goes underground, indoors and to the table, and everything gets cheaper.
By place, from the city outwards
Belgrade, Novi Sad, the gorge and the hills: the week almost everyone does first.
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