East Bosnia & West Serbia Off the Beaten Path – UNESCO Full Day Tour from Sarajevo

Meet our team at the office or your preferred pickup location. Your guide will introduce you to cultural, historical and natural diversity of these two regions and will make sure no questions remain unanswered, even of personal nature, so don’t refrain from sharing your thoughts and opinions at any moment of time.

After departing Sarajevo in the morning 7.45 AM we’ll take approx. 45min ride to reach Rogatica and first stop of the day, Borak Stećci necropolis near the Burati village. This hidden gem deep in the misty forests of East Bosnia just recently inscribed as UNESCO World heritage, so we surely make a visit there. We will discover unique history of Medieval Bosnian Kingdom and figure out why these block of limestone are scattered all around Bosnia and Herzegovina. The necropolis is bit hidden in the forest so bit of hiking is required to find them.

>Borak – UNESCO Stećak Necropolis

Later, we ride for one more hour, through mountain parts of Bosnia before we meet up with turquoise Drina river canyon, and arrive to Višegrad.

Višegrad is home to UNESCO heritage too, an Ottoman time bridge built in 1577. by the Grand Vizier Mehmed Pasa Sokolović. The UNESCO summary: “The unique elegance of proportion and monumental nobility of the property as a whole bear witness to the greatness of this style of architecture.” is definitely reason to visit such a beautiful place.

The book: “Bridge Over Drina” by Bosnian and Travnik born, World famous Nobel Prize winner, Yugoslav writer Ivo Andrić ,has given most of the glory to this amazing place and we surely recommend you to read this novel before coming to this region and for this tour. This way you can better understand historical importance of this area in regard to a local but as well to a global aspect.

As soon as we see the Bridge and take the river cruise through amazingly green Drina river, we’ll explore stone town of Andrićgrad (eng.Andrić town). Small, stone made town, recently built, named and dedicated after novelist Ivo Andrić. Site also interpreting story of once glorious and very successful Yugoslavian cinematography from perspective of one of the best local directors – Emir Kusturica.

>Andricgrad – stone town dedicated to Bosnian/Yugoslavian Nobel Prize Winner Ivo Andrić and UNESCO site of Mehmed pasa Sokolovic bridge

As soon as we finish story of Višegrad, we’ll continue driving towards east Bosnian border and on the way will pay visit to one of the most important Serbian Orthodox monasteries, Dobrun Monastery. Originally built in 1343 with frescoes preserved until today is ideal stop to learn more about local history and enjoy the amazing nature surrounding it.

>Ortodox (Serbian) Monastery at Dobrun – Bosnia and Herzegovina

Later on, time to cross the Bosnia to Serbia border and as soon as we do, we will enter amazing area of nature park of “Šargan-Mokra Gora”.

First stop (for lunch possibly) will be ethno village of Drvengrad (eng.Timber Town) also know as Küstendorf and Mećavnik. Village-town designed by the movie director Emir Kusturica for his movie “Life is Miracle” and the design which won the “Philippe Rotthier European Architecture Award” from the Brussels Foundation for Architecture.

Why the place looks out of this world? Why it won one of the most prestigious awards in world of the architecture? The best is to come with us and see it for yourself.

>Drvengrad – Mecavnik – A wooden town in West Serbia

After lunch at Drvengrad we are about to take train ride, but not just any train ride, we will do the famous “Šargan Eight”.

The Šargan Eight is narrow gauge (760mm) steam railway originally built in 1925., famously called Ćira (Chira). Once it used to connect Sarajevo and Belgrade, and the name “eight” origins from the pure shape of the track which if looked from the sky looks like number 8.

It was made famous for the impressive engineering which enabled it to rapidly climb height of 300m over the short distance 3.500m where total length is of the railway today is 15.440m. Stunningly, all of that was achieved by passing through 22 tunnels and 5 bridges. Quite amazing stuff even on the global scale of rail and train engineering at the time, but the most amazing for us is that we are going to experience this story. Today the train, after it was closed in 1974, is again reopen for primarily tourist reasons, but as well for true lovers of old school steam train engineering. Simply interesting and stunning.

Read more about Bosnian Gauge also known “Bosnaspur” or “Bosnische Spurweite”.

>Šargan Eight Train

As soon as we end amazing train ride we’ll continue, and on the way we will stop to explore amazing region of one of the most beautiful National Parks in Serbia – National Park Tara.

National Park Tara (declared in 1981.) with its biological diversity is one of the most amazing areas in whole of Serbia, offering great nature experiences, stunning views, hiking and trekking opportunities, unique Picea Omorica, vast animal diversity, and many other ways to fully enjoy life.

One of the most important stops will be stunning viewpoint of “Banjska Stena” which offers an amazing panorama of Perućac Lake on Drina river, which naturally borders Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

Return to Sarajevo is planned in the very late evening, around 8-9 PM.

>Banjska Stena viewpoint at Tara National Park – Serbia