Sarajevo and Belgrade, once capitals of ex-Yugoslav Republics, are two cities that Funky Tours has brought together much closer by developing a lovely full-day connecting tour, which logically combines and covers regions of Eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina and West Serbia.
This is Sarajevo and Belgrade connecting door-to-door day tour, which covers the most unique destinations in East Bosnia and West Serbia.
This tour can go from Sarajevo to Belgrade or the opposite way, but in this particular itinerary, we will focus on the direction from Sarajevo to Belgrade.
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By far, per listed itinerary (7 stops), this is the most diverse connecting day tour between Sarajevo and Belgrade. Having tons of beautiful stops and outbound costs, always aiming at great travellers experiences, this tour in comparison to other means of travel, is the best optimised cost-benefit service you can get on the market. We guarantee it.
Among other outbound costs mentioned, such as Šargan Eight train ride or visit to Drvengrad village, we can’t pass by and skip beautiful Drina river cruise or visit National Park Tara.
Simply, perception of grandiosity of the UNESCO site of Mehmed Paša Sokolović bridge, can’t be experienced by just walking across it, and taking few photos from a side. You must go under it. In the same time, at Višegrad, we enjoy to help local boat businesses thrive.
National Park Tara’s most beautiful viewpoint is not accessible by asphalt road, part of it is macadam. We don’t mind detouring several tens of kilometre, and putting bit more amortization on our vehicles and gas costs, for our guests, to probably once in the lifetime, enjoy the amazing views from Banjska Stena.
If you ever get into situation where you are comparing products on the market, please don’t judge them by the price only, take a deeper look into what you get in return, aka: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
Departure Times Daily at 7.45 AM.
Pickup Locations This is door-to-door tour-transfer, so we pick you up at your address.
Activity Note: This is a full-day tour covering the most beautiful and scenic parts of East Bosnia and West Serbia. You will have a chance to experience a boat ride on the mesmerizing Drina River and ride in the famous Šargan eight train. This tour is adapted to all ages and is not physically demanding.
Meet our team at the office or at your preferred pickup location. Enjoy a scenic ride off the beaten path through eastern Bosnia and western Serbia. Your guide will introduce you to this region’s amazing historical and natural diversity. It will make sure no questions remain unanswered, even of a personal nature, so don’t refrain from sharing your thoughts and opinions at any moment in time.
After departing Sarajevo in the morning at 7.45 AM, we’ll take approx. 45-minute ride to reach Rogatica and the first stop of the day, Borak Stećci necropolis near the Burati village. This hidden gem deep in the misty forests of East Bosnia was recently inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage. We will discover the unique history of the Medieval Bosnian Kingdom and figure out why these blocks of limestone are scattered all around Bosnia and Herzegovina. The cemetery is hidden in the forest, so a bit of hiking is required to find them. Read more about the Stećci phenomenon in a BBC article.
Later, we ride for one more hour through mountain parts of Bosnia before we meet up with the turquoise Drina river canyon and arrive at 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 a reason to visit such a beautiful place.
The book: “Bridge Over Drina” by Bosnian and Travnik born, World famous Nobel Prize winner, and Yugoslav writer Ivo Andrić, has given most of the glory to this fantastic 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 the historical importance of this area from both a local and a global perspective.
As soon as we see the Bridge and take the river cruise through the amazingly green Drina River, we’ll explore the stone town of Andrićgrad (eng. Andrić town). Small, stone-made town, recently built, named and dedicated after novelist Ivo Andrić. The site also interprets the story of once glorious and successful Yugoslavian cinematography from the perspective of one of the best local directors – Emir Kusturica.
As soon as we finish the story of Višegrad, we’ll continue driving towards the east Bosnian border and, on the way, will pay a visit to one of the most important Serbian Orthodox monasteries, Dobrun Monastery. Initially built in 1343 with frescoes preserved until today is the ideal stop to learn more about local history and enjoy the fantastic nature surrounding it.
Later on, time to cross the Bosnia to Serbia border, and as soon as we do, we will enter the fantastic area of the nature park of “Šargan-Mokra Gora”.
The first stop (for lunch possibly) will be the ethno village of Drvengrad (eng. Timber Town), also know as Küstendorf and Mećavnik. Village-town was designed by the movie director Emir Kusturica for his movie “Life is Miracle” and the design 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 the world of architecture? The best is to come with us and see it for yourself.
After lunch, at Drvengrad, we are about to take a train ride, but not just any train ride; we will do the famous “Šargan Eight”.
The Šargan Eight is a narrow gauge (760mm) steam railway initially 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 at from the sky, looks like the number 8.
It was famous for its impressive engineering, which enabled it to rapidly climb a height of 300m over a short distance of 3.500m, whereas the total length of the railway today is 15.440m. Stunningly, all of that was achieved by passing through 22 tunnels and five bridges. Quite fantastic 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 reopened for tourist reasons but also for true lovers of old-school steam train engineering. Simply exciting and stunning.
Read more about Bosnian Gauge also known as “Bosnaspur” or “Bosnische Spurweite”.
As soon as we end the fantastic train ride, we’ll continue toward Belgrade. On the way, we will stop to explore the tremendous region of one of Serbia’s most beautiful National Parks – National Park Tara.
National Park Tara (declared in 1981.), with its biological diversity, is one of the most amazing areas in the 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 the stunning viewpoint of “Banjska Stena,” which offers a fantastic panorama of Perućac Lake on the Drina River, which naturally borders Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.
Generally, after Tara National Park explorations, the rest of the roughly three hours rides to Belgrade will take us through Bajina Bašta town with a last short stop at “House on the Drina“, where at the end of the day, we hope to be in Belgrade no later than 8 pm.
What Do I Need to Bring?
What a tour! Since I booked the tour, communication was promptly and smooth.
Then, on the day of the tour things were even better! If you are lucky enough you are going to get Ivan as your tour guide! He is a gem!
He was on time to pick me up, he was super knowledgeable and able to share all that knowledge and experiences with me. Excellent driver, excellent at customer service, always making sure that his guests were enjoining the tour. He suggested a very good place for lunch which made me really happy. I have done several tours, but without doubts, this has been one of the best ones!
I do highly recommend this company as well as I do highly recommend Ivan!
Muchas gracias
It was a fantastic trip. The ride was smooth from Sarajevo to Belgrade and we stopped at these unique sightseeing points according to the schedule. The UNESCO sites of old bridge and tomb were really worth to see and definitely we would like to recommend this tour. Funky Tours staff were also great and helpful as we met their office in old town of Sarajevo. Hope we can join other tours in a near future.
Highly recommended tour operator
I did two tours with Funky Tours – Dubrovnik to Sarajevo and Sarajevo to Belgrade. Both tours were very well planned and organised. Plenty of time at each site. Guides (Enis and Stephen) were very, very welcoming, helpful, kind and knowledgeable. Office staff are exceptional – replies pretty much instantly to my messages, no matter what time or day it is and tries to accommodate any request. Highly recommended using this tour operator
Superb tour company.
Just back from a 10 day trip to the Balkans- did three tours with Funky Tours in that time and they were all superb. We did the Dubrovnik- Sarajevo transfer tour, the War Tunnel and Siege tour in Sarajevo, and then the Sarajevo- Belgrade transit tour. All excellent- and all our guides and drivers were wonderful, I apologise for not remembering names!!
Both transfer tours were literally door to door, and the guides and driver were so helpful!! The transfer tours are a great way to see both popular places- Mostar/Visegrad etc, and some more off the beaten track places too.
It was great having local guides who have lived through recent history, and some younger ones too who talked about all their hopes for the future.
And Edna in the main office was so good with all our communications, booking us in and keeping us updated- really helpful and courteous.
Would recommend this company to anyone, they are truly excellent at what they do.
Highly recommended tour operator
I did two tours with Funky Tours – Dubrovnik to Sarajevo and Sarajevo to Belgrade. Both tours were very well planned and organised. Plenty of time at each site. Guides (Enis and Stephen) were very, very welcoming, helpful, kind and knowledgeable. Office staff are exceptional – replies pretty much instantly to my messages, no matter what time or day it is and tries to accommodate any request. Highly recommended using this tour operator