Niš has been a crossroads for as long as there have been roads. The Roman highway from Belgrade to Constantinople ran through it, and so did every army that wanted one or the other. The Romans called it Naissus, and around 272 AD a boy called Constantine was born here, the first Christian emperor, who would move the capital of the empire to the Bosphorus. Attila's Huns sacked it in the 440s; later it changed hands between Byzantium, Bulgaria and Serbia, and in 1189 the Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanja met the German emperor Frederick Barbarossa here on his way to the Third Crusade. The Ottomans took Niš in 1386 and, apart from two short Austrian occupations, held it until the Serbian army entered in January 1878. In 1914-15 it was briefly Serbia's wartime capital.
You can see most of that in a short walk: an Ottoman fortress on the river with a Roman street inside, Roman mosaics a few kilometers east, a tower the Ottomans built from the skulls of Serbian rebels, and a Nazi camp that some of its prisoners escaped in one of the bravest breakouts of the war. Niš is also the start of the Serbian south, and you'll hear it straight away: people speak a dialect the rest of the country loves to imitate, eat burek for breakfast, and take their grilled meat very seriously.
The city itself fills three days, and the region around it is the reason to stay for five. Day one is the fortress and the center, day two the Skull Tower, Mediana and the spa at Niška Banja, day three the 20th century and the market, day four a drive through the Sićevo gorge to Pirot, and day five Prokuplje and the earth pillars of Devil's Town. Start on a Tuesday: every site of the National Museum is closed on Mondays. For the rest of the country, see Serbia and the Belgrade guide.
Every stop from the plan below, colored by day. Pick a day to see its route.
A walk through the Ottoman fortress, the emperor's portrait in the Archaeological Hall, the square of the wartime capital and dinner in the last street of the old bazaar.
The grim monument to the 1809 uprising, the mosaics of a Roman imperial villa, a long lunch and a warm bath in the spa town, then sunset in the Jelašnica gorge.
Breakfast the Niš way, the green market, a preserved Nazi camp and its famous escape, the Three Fists of Bubanj and an evening with music.
A drive through the Nišava's limestone canyon, a fortress on the river in Pirot, its kilim weavers, and a lunch of cheese and pressed sausage.
The hill fortress of Prokuplje and the wine named after it, the strange earth pillars of Devil's Town, and a farewell dinner back in Niš.
Everything today is within a 15-minute walk of King Milan Square. The fortress is open and free all day, so take it slowly in the morning and see the Archaeological Hall before it closes at 5pm (3pm at weekends). The evening belongs to Kopitareva street.
Walk across the bridge over the Nišava and in through the Stambol Gate, the main entrance of Niš Fortress. What you see is Ottoman: it was built in 1719-23, after the Ottomans lost Belgrade to Austria and the border moved south to Niš, on a site that had been fortified since Roman times. You'll often read that it's medieval. It isn't, but the ground under it is much older than the walls.
Inside, the fortress is a park where the city comes to walk, drink coffee and sit on the grass. Look for the 15th-century Ottoman bath (hamam), the Bali-beg mosque from the 1520s, now a gallery, the lapidarium with Roman tombstones and altars, and a stretch of excavated Roman street with the foundations of an early Christian basilica. By the main path stands a granite obelisk shaped like a rifle bullet, put up in 1902 for Prince Milan Obrenović and the soldiers who took Niš from the Ottomans in 1878.
Back at the fortress bridge stands a memorial to Constantine the Great, with his face and the Chi-Rho, put up in 2012 for the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, which he issued with his co-emperor Licinius to give Christians freedom of worship across the empire. A second, more abstract statue of him stands on the quay. Constantine was born in Naissus around 272 and came back to it often as emperor, and the city is proud of it.
Walk a few minutes along the quay. Further on is a statue of Šaban Bajramović, the Roma singer from Niš who was called the king of Gypsy blues, and just east of the fortress walls is the Officers' Club (Oficirski dom). In December 1914, when Belgrade was under fire, the Serbian government sat in Niš, and the parliament declared that Serbia's war aim was the union of all South Slavs. The Niš Declaration was the first official step towards the Yugoslav state founded in 1918.
Cross King Milan Square to the Archaeological Hall on Nikole Pašića street, the small main hall of the National Museum. It's one room and well worth it: finds from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages, Roman jewelry, coins and portraits of emperors. The most famous find from Niš, a bronze head of Constantine with the big upward-looking eyes of late Roman portraits, is in the National Museum in Belgrade, but the story of Naissus is told best here.
Buy the combined ticket here if you plan to follow this guide. For 1,200 dinars (about 10 EUR) it covers every site of the museum, including the Skull Tower, Mediana and the Red Cross camp; ask at the desk how long it stays valid.
King Milan Square is the center of modern Niš, with the Monument to the Liberators of Niš in the middle, a horseman with a flag by the sculptor Antun Augustinčić, unveiled in 1937 for the wars that freed the city from 1878 to 1918. Behind it, the pedestrian Obrenovićeva street is where Niš does its evening stroll.
Ten minutes south is the Orthodox Cathedral, built in 1856-72 while Niš was still Ottoman, which is why it's set back from the street and has no proper bell tower. It's the third-largest church in Serbia. It was damaged by Allied bombs in 1944, burned in 2001 and took almost a decade to restore.
Kopitareva street, better known as Kazandžijsko sokače, Tinkers' Alley, is the only street left of the Ottoman bazaar that once filled this part of town. Coppersmiths hammered pots here, and the low houses with wooden shutters now hold one café and kafana after another. At the top of the street is a bronze of the writer Stevan Sremac, whose comic novels made the Niš dialect famous, sitting with Kalča, one of his characters.
Have your first southern dinner here. Order urnebes, the fiery cheese-and-pepper spread whose name means chaos, with warm bread, a šopska salad, and ćevapi or a pljeskavica from the grill. Kod Rajka, right in the alley, is one of the old names.
Today follows the road east, out of town and into the hills. Everything is on the way to Niška Banja, and free city bus line 1 runs along the boulevard past the Skull Tower and Mediana to the spa; keep taxis for the Jelašnica gorge, and arrange your ride back before you go. From late October the sun sets before 5pm, so shorten the bath if you want light in the gorge. Mediana closes at 4pm on weekdays and 3pm at weekends, so do it before lunch.
In May 1809, during the First Serbian Uprising, a Serbian force dug in on Čegar hill, east of Niš, faced a much larger Ottoman army. When the trenches were overrun, the commander Stevan Sinđelić fired into the powder store and blew up himself, his men and the Ottoman soldiers who had broken in. Hurshid Pasha, the Ottoman governor, had the heads of the dead Serbs skinned, and their skulls built into a tower by the road to Constantinople, as a warning. The battlefield itself, Čegar, is a 15-minute drive northeast, with a memorial tower from 1927 and a bust of Sinđelić.
Ćele kula held 952 skulls. Most were taken over the decades by families and souvenir hunters, and 58 remain, set into the walls behind glass. In 1892 the Serbs built a chapel around the tower, and it's now one of the most visited and most sobering places in the country. A skull said to be Sinđelić's is kept in a case of its own.
A few kilometers further east, between the road and the fields, is Mediana, a late Roman suburb of luxury villas built in the time of Constantine and his sons, when Naissus was an imperial city and emperors stopped here on their way between Rome and the east. The heart of it is a large villa with a colonnaded courtyard, baths, a granary and a water tower.
The reason to come is the floors. Hundreds of square meters of mosaics, with geometric patterns and figures, have been put under a protective roof, and a new exhibition for the 90th anniversary of the excavations opened in August 2026. Some guides call Mediana Constantine's birthplace. It isn't: he was born in Naissus itself, and the villas went up after he became emperor.
Ten kilometers from the center, on the slopes of Koritnjak hill, is Niška Banja, the city's spa town since Roman times. Its springs are warm, around 38°C, and mildly radioactive with radon, which Serbian doctors have long prescribed for rheumatism and heart trouble.
The spa park with its old villas is the place to sit down for a long southern lunch. Ask for whatever is cooked that day: a čorba, stuffed peppers, mućkalica (a stew of grilled meat with peppers and onions) or a plate of prženija, peppers fried with eggs and cheese.
Spend the afternoon in the water. The Radon hotel, run by the spa institute, has thermal pools and a wellness center that sells day tickets, and it's the easiest place to try the water as a visitor. If you prefer the outdoors, walk up through the park and the woods above town for a view back over the Niš valley.
A few kilometers past Niška Banja, a small river has cut a gorge about two kilometers long through steep limestone walls. It's a protected nature reserve, Serbia's best-known climbing crag, and one of the only places in the world where two rare plants, the Serbian ramonda and Natalie's ramonda, grow side by side. Natalie's ramonda can dry out completely and come back to life when it rains, which is why Serbia chose it as the symbol of remembrance for World War I.
Walk in along the path by the stream for the evening light on the cliffs, then take a taxi back to town.
Niš's 20th century was hard, and today goes looking for it, with a good breakfast first and a cheerful night at the end. The Red Cross camp is a short walk from the fortress; Bubanj is a few minutes by taxi or bus southwest of the center.
Niš takes burek more seriously than anywhere else in Serbia, and local legend says the first one in the country was baked here, by a baker from Istanbul, at the end of the 15th century. Nobody can prove it, but the city holds a Burek Days festival every summer, with a contest for the best one.
Do it properly: go to a buregdžinica, a bakery that does nothing but burek, order a quarter (četvrt) with meat (sa mesom) or cheese (sa sirom), and drink it down with a cup of yogurt. It comes cut into pieces and you eat it with your hands. Every local has a favorite bakery, so follow the morning queue.
The city's main green market sits between the fortress and the bus station. Come in the morning for farm cheese, kajmak, honey, peppers in every color, and in autumn sacks of red peppers that families buy by the dozen kilos to make ajvar at home. The south of Serbia is pepper country, and in October the smell of roasting peppers drifts over the backyards in town.
This part of the center has a darker memory too. On 7 May 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, cluster bombs fell around the market and the hospital, killing more than a dozen civilians, and people in Niš still remember it.
In 1941 the Germans turned old military warehouses by the Crveni Krst (Red Cross) railway station into a camp, run by the Gestapo, for Serbian communists, partisans, hostages, Jews and Roma. It's one of the few Nazi camps in Europe that has survived almost exactly as it was, barbed wire and all, and the memorial is a sobering visit.
On 12 February 1942 the prisoners broke out. About 147 of them rushed the guards and the wire, and while 42 were shot, 105 got away, most of them to the partisans in the hills. It was one of the first mass escapes from a Nazi camp anywhere. Inside you can see the cells, the solitary rooms and the names scratched into the walls.
After lunch in the center, stop at the synagogue on Davidova street, just west of King Milan Square, built in 1925 for the Jewish community of Niš, which numbered several hundred people before the war. Almost all of them were killed in 1941-42, many after passing through the Red Cross camp you've just seen. The building survived, and the National Museum uses it as a gallery today, with exhibitions that change through the year.
On a low hill southwest of the center, the Germans shot prisoners from the Red Cross camp and hostages from the city between 1941 and 1944. Post-war estimates speak of more than 10,000 people killed here; the exact number will never be known, because the occupiers burned the records and many of the bodies.
In 1963 the sculptor Ivan Sabolić put three huge concrete fists on the hill, for the men, women and children who were shot, and they're one of the best-known Yugoslav war memorials. The park around them is quiet and green, and locals come here to walk their dogs.
Galija, on Nikole Pašića street a few steps from Kazandžijsko sokače, is the city's cult kafana: for decades the meeting place of Niš's rock musicians, artists, students and night owls, with walls full of photos and a crowd that has little in common with the tourist grill houses. Order a rakija, something from the grill and a srpska salad, and stay for the conversation.
Niš is a music town. Šaban Bajramović, the Roma singer, was from here, and every August the city hosts Nišville, one of the biggest jazz festivals in the region, on the fortress grounds. Afterwards, the cafés and bars around the fortress and the river are the place to go on.
East of Niška Banja, the Nišava has carved a 17 km gorge, and beyond it lies Pirot, a market town known across the Balkans for three things: kilims, cheese and sausage. The easiest way is by car on the old road through the gorge, about 1.5 hours with stops. Buses to Pirot (about 1 hour 15 minutes, around 600 dinars) take the motorway through the tunnels, and suburban bus 18 only goes as far as Sićevo village at the mouth of the gorge.
The Sićevo Gorge is a protected landscape of steep limestone walls, oak woods and the green river below, and the old road through it is one of the most beautiful drives in southern Serbia. Stop at the viewpoint at the end of Sićevo village, where the gorge opens up below you, and keep an eye out for paragliders on summer weekends.
The village has a long connection with painters: in 1905 Nadežda Petrović, the Serbian expressionist painter, founded an art colony here, and it still meets every summer. Deeper in the gorge, the small monastery of St. Petka Iverica sits on a rock above the river.
Pirot's fortress, Kale, also called Momčilov grad, guards the Nišava on the edge of the old town. It goes back to the 14th century and was rebuilt by the Ottomans, and its towers have been restored in recent years, with small exhibitions inside and a view over the red roofs and the hills towards Stara Planina.
Pirot's other fame is on the plate. Pirotski kačkavalj is a hard, yellow cheese made from sheep's and cow's milk on the pastures of Stara Planina, and peglana kobasica, literally ironed sausage, is a dry sausage of beef, mutton and goat that is pressed flat while it dries in the cold winter wind. Have them for lunch before the museum, in one of the restaurants in the old town by the river, with bread and a glass of red wine, and buy some to take home. The town holds a cheese and kačkavalj festival in September and a sausage fair at the end of January.
Drive back to Niš along the motorway for the evening. It takes under an hour.
The pirotski ćilim is a flat-woven wool kilim with bold geometric patterns, each with a name and a meaning (the turtle-dove, the scorpion, the tree of life), and it has been woven in Pirot for centuries. Good ones take months, are reversible, and were once part of every bride's dowry from Serbia to Istanbul. The craft is on Serbia's list of intangible heritage, and only a few weavers still do it by hand.
The Ponišavlje Museum, in a merchant's house from 1848 near the river, has the best collection in town, along with folk costumes and old Pirot interiors. Ask there where to find weavers who still sell, then drive back to Niš along the motorway, under an hour.
Today goes southwest, through the Toplica valley towards Kosovo. Prokuplje is 40 minutes from Niš, and Devil's Town about 80 minutes beyond it, so leave by 9am; on the way you pass Kuršumlija, where Stefan Nemanja's first foundations, the monasteries of St. Nicholas and the Mother of God, stand on the hill above town. The site closes at 5pm, and in late autumn you'll drive back in the dark. By public transport, take a bus to Kuršumlija (about 1 hour 20 minutes) and a taxi for the last 27 km.
Prokuplje is a small town on the Toplica river, and the hill above it, Hisar, carries the remains of a fortress that goes back to Roman times. Walk up for the view over the valley and the vineyards, then down to the old Church of St. Procopius, the saint the town is named after.
On the slopes of Radan mountain, more than 200 pillars of soft earth stand in two gullies, between two and fifteen meters high, each capped with a stone that protects it from the rain. That's how they formed: where the rock sat, the soil below it was spared, and everything around was washed away. Below them, a spring of extremely acidic, mineral-heavy water, the Devil's Water, runs red over the rocks.
Local legend says the pillars are a wedding party turned to stone, after a brother tried to marry his own sister and the devil, or God, depending on who tells it, froze the guests in place. Đavolja varoš is one of the strangest landscapes in Serbia, and it made the top 77 in the New Seven Wonders of Nature campaign. A path leads up through the woods past the spring to the viewpoints over the pillars, about 20 minutes each way.
Prokuplje gave its name to Prokupac, Serbia's own red grape, grown in the south for centuries. For a long time it was the cheap blending grape behind the country's table wine, but in the last fifteen years the small wineries of Toplica and Župa have turned it into the red Serbian wine lovers get excited about: light in color, with cherry and spice.
On the way back through Prokuplje, stop at a winery or wine shop for a few bottles to open with dinner. Serbia's drink-driving limit is 0.2 per mille (zero for new drivers), so let a passenger do the tasting.
For the last night, go to Stara Srbija on Trg Republike, at the end of Kazandžijsko sokače, one of the two historic kafanas left in Niš, serving since 1876. This time skip the grill and order the cooked dishes of the south: sarma, prebranac, white beans baked with onions and paprika, mućkalica and pečena paprika, roasted peppers with garlic. The grill culture of the region centers on Leskovac, 49 km south, which closes its main street for a grill festival every summer, so if you have one more day, that's where to go.
Finish with a rakija or a glass of Prokupac. Živeli.
With a car and a few more days, the south of Serbia keeps going. These are the best additions, from a cave just outside the city to the highest mountain in the country, in order of distance from Niš.
Leskovac is Serbia's grill capital. The leskovačka pljeskavica and leskovački roštilj are names you'll see on menus across the Balkans, and every year at the end of summer the town closes its main street for the Roštiljijada, a week of grills, smoke and concerts. The rest of the year, any grill house on the main square will show you why.
Getting there: 49 km south, about 45 minutes by car. Frequent buses take 40-55 minutes.
In the 6th century the Byzantine emperor Justinian, who was born nearby, built a whole city in the hills here, with an acropolis, churches and baths. Most historians agree that Caričin Grad is Justiniana Prima, and it was abandoned within a century. Its ruins and floor mosaics are open to visitors, with a visitor center that opened in 2024.
Getting there: 63 km southwest near Lebane, about 1 hour 10 minutes by car. Easy to combine with Leskovac.
Sokobanja is one of Serbia's favorite spa towns, known for its clean air as much as its springs, between the Rtanj and Ozren mountains. There's a Turkish bath in the center, the ruined fortress of Sokograd above the Moravica river, waterfalls at Ripaljka and Bovan lake a few kilometers away.
Getting there: 61 km north, about 1 hour by car or 1 hour 15 minutes by bus
The Roman emperor Galerius built himself a fortified palace in the hills where he was born, and named it after his mother, Romula. Felix Romuliana is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with walls and towers, palaces, temples and mosaics, and the hill above it holds the burial mounds of Galerius and his mother. It's open every day, until 8pm in summer and 4pm in winter, for 500 dinars.
Getting there: 109 km northeast near Zaječar, about 2 hours 15 minutes by car via Knjaževac
The Balkan Mountains, which give the whole peninsula its name, begin on the Serbian border, and their Serbian side is Stara Planina. Midžor, at 2,169 m, is the highest peak in Serbia outside Kosovo, and Babin Zub, a rocky outcrop above the ski center, is the easier climb. In summer it's hiking and waterfalls like Tupavica; in winter a modest ski resort with a gondola.
Getting there: About 110 km east via Pirot or Knjaževac, 2-2.5 hours by car. There's no practical public transport.
Cerjanska is the second-longest explored cave system in Serbia, more than 7 km of passages with underground lakes and waterfalls. It isn't developed as a show cave, so visits are proper small-group speleological trips with helmets and lamps, organized through the Niš tourist office. A visitor center opened at the entrance in 2019.
Getting there: About 15 km north of Niš, by car or taxi. Visits only with a guide, arranged through the Niš tourist office.
The south of Serbia eats more peppers, more grilled meat and more pastry than the north, and argues about all three. These are the things to try in Niš and around it.
Thin pastry layered with minced meat, cheese or nothing at all (prazan, empty), baked in a big round pan and sold by the quarter. Niš claims the first burek in Serbia and holds a festival for it every July. Eat it for breakfast with a cup of yogurt.
Where to try it: A buregdžinica, a burek bakery, early in the morning. Follow the queue.
The south's grilled classics. A pljeskavica is a wide, flat patty of spiced minced meat, a ćevapi order is ten small sausages, and both come in a warm lepinja flatbread with raw onion. The gurmanska pljeskavica is stuffed with cheese and bacon. Ask for kajmak on top.
Where to try it: Any grill house (roštilj) in the center, and the kafanas of Kazandžijsko sokače.
In autumn, the south of Serbia smells of roasting peppers. Families buy them by the sack to make ajvar, a relish of roasted red peppers, enough for the whole winter. In kafanas, order it with bread, and try pečena paprika, whole roasted peppers in oil and garlic, and pohovana paprika, peppers stuffed with cheese and fried.
Where to try it: Kafanas all year; the green market in September and October for the peppers themselves.
Winter food. Sarma is sour cabbage leaves rolled around minced meat and rice and cooked for hours with smoked meat; podvarak is sauerkraut baked with pork or turkey. Both are best from autumn to spring.
Where to try it: Traditional kafanas, often as the dish of the day.
Fruit brandy, usually plum (šljivovica), but also quince (dunja), apricot and herbal travarica. Small family distilleries around Niš make some of the best. Sip it slowly and say živeli.
Where to try it: Any kafana. For something special, ask for a domaća, a homemade one.
A fiery spread of white cheese, ground hot peppers and garlic, whose name means chaos. It comes from the south, and in Niš it's on every table, next to bread and kajmak, the salty, creamy dairy spread that goes with everything.
Where to try it: Every kafana, as a starter.
Layers of pastry baked with white cheese and eggs. The south has its own version, sukana gibanica, made with hand-rolled pastry, and it shows up at every family celebration.
Where to try it: Bakeries in the morning, and some kafanas as a starter.
Two Pirot specialties: a hard sheep's and cow's milk cheese from the pastures of Stara Planina, and a flat dry sausage of beef, mutton and goat, pressed while it dries in winter. Both are protected local products.
Where to try it: Restaurants and shops in Pirot (day four), and good delis in Niš.
The south's sweets show their Ottoman roots: tulumbe are ridged fingers of fried dough soaked in syrup, and orasnice are crisp walnut biscuits shaped like little crescents, baked for every holiday.
Where to try it: Pastry shops (poslastičarnica) in the center.
Serbia's native red grape, named after Prokuplje and grown in the south for centuries: light, fresh and full of red cherry. Wineries around Niš and in Toplica have revived it in the last fifteen years.
Where to try it: Kafanas and wine bars in Niš, and the wineries around Prokuplje on day five.
Niš has a small but keen craft beer scene, with a few taprooms in the center. Elsewhere, beer means a cold Jelen or Lav.
Where to try it: Taprooms around Obrenovićeva street and the fortress.
Serbian coffee, boiled in a small copper pot and served unfiltered with a glass of water. Wait for the grounds to settle, and don't drink to the bottom.
Where to try it: Old-style cafés and kafanas, especially in Kazandžijsko sokače.
Niš is compact. Anywhere between the fortress and the Cathedral puts the first three days within walking distance.
Best for: First-timers who want to walk everywhere
The pedestrian streets, the fortress across the river and Kazandžijsko sokače are all a few minutes away. The catch is noise from the cafés on summer nights.
Best for: Short stays and early buses
Handy for the bus station, the market and the Red Cross camp, and close to the fortress park. Less charming than the center itself, but a five-minute walk from it.
Best for: A slower, spa-style stay
Quiet villas and hotels in the hills above the city, with thermal pools on the doorstep. It's 10 km from the center, so you'll rely on the bus or taxis for the evenings in town.
The practical stuff that makes the first day in Niš easier.
Every site of the National Museum, including the Skull Tower, Mediana and the Red Cross camp, is closed on Mondays. Plan the day trips or the fortress for a Monday.
Serbia uses the dinar (RSD), roughly 117 to the euro in October 2026. Cards work in most restaurants and hotels, but carry cash for bakeries, markets, museums and the smaller places outside the city. Exchange offices (menjačnica) in the center don't charge commission.
City and suburban buses in Niš are free for everyone, residents and visitors alike; timetables are on the JGP Niš website. There's no Uber or Bolt, so use a radio taxi or ask your host to call one. For the day trips, a rental car is much easier than buses.
Foreign visitors have to be registered with the police within 24 hours of arrival. Hotels and licensed apartments do it for you; if you stay privately, make sure your host does.
Smoking is still allowed inside many cafés and kafanas. Sit outside, or ask for a non-smoking place.
Serbian is written in both Cyrillic and Latin. Younger people speak good English, older people and market sellers less so. The Niš dialect sounds different from Belgrade, with no cases and a lot of humor, and locals love it when visitors try a hvala (thanks).
Serbia isn't in the EU roaming zone, so check your plan or buy a local SIM or eSIM from Yettel, A1 or mts. Plugs are European two-pin (C and F), 230 V.
Yes, if you use it as a base for the south. The city fills three days: the fortress, the Skull Tower, Mediana, Niška Banja and the WWII memorials. The other two go to the Sićevo gorge and Pirot, and Devil's Town. If you only have three days, do days one to three.
Niš Fortress, the Skull Tower (Ćele kula), Mediana, the Red Cross concentration camp, Bubanj Memorial Park, Kazandžijsko sokače and the spa at Niška Banja. Just outside, the Sićevo gorge and Devil's Town are the most spectacular.
Devil's Town, with its 200-odd earth pillars, is the most unusual, and Pirot with the Sićevo gorge the most varied. Felix Romuliana, a UNESCO-listed Roman palace near Zaječar, is the best for history.
By bus: about 3 hours, roughly every hour, for around 1,600-1,700 dinars (about 14 EUR). Direct trains run a few times a day but take 5.5 to 6.5 hours until the line is rebuilt. By car it's about 2 hours on the tolled E75 motorway.
Yes. Niš is a relaxed university city and crime against visitors is rare. Use normal sense at night and with unlicensed taxis.
No. It's cheaper than Belgrade: a burek breakfast is about 2-3 EUR, dinner in a kafana 10-15 EUR, and the combined museum ticket for every site is about 10 EUR.
Not if you're from the EU, the US, the UK, Canada or Australia: you can stay up to 90 days in any 180 without one. Other nationalities should check the Serbian foreign ministry's list before booking.
Find Niš on the map, learn the flag and check how much you really know about Serbia.
Serbia's biggest ski resort, planned sector by sector: red runs, a few blacks, kafana lunches, night skiing and a day off the snow.
Bases: Konaci, Vikend Naselje, Brzeće
Pine-covered hills, a gondola nine kilometers long, and the cheese, kajmak and pršut Serbs drive for hours to buy. Five days in the west.
Serbia's favorite spa: warm springs you drink from, a river promenade of twenty-odd bridges, a forested mountain and the great monasteries.
