5 Days in Vrnjačka Banja

The whole town grew up around Topla voda, the warm spring, and that's where to start. Its water comes out of the ground at around body temperature, mildly carbonated and full of minerals, and Serbian doctors have prescribed it for stomach, liver and gallbladder trouble for more than a century. Under the pavilion in the central park, people fill cups and bottles from the taps and drink it slowly, walking up and down.

Try a glass. It tastes slightly salty and metallic, and it's meant to be sipped, not gulped. Locals will tell you how many glasses a day, at what time and before or after which meal: the spa's doctors really do prescribe it like medicine.

A few steps away is proof of how old the spa is. In 1924 workers digging here found a Roman well and around 200 coins, from Augustus to Valentinian, thrown into the water as offerings over four centuries. A figure of a Roman legionary and a plaque now mark the spot.

The spring was forgotten for centuries. Local legend says that a sick horse belonging to a bishop was set loose to roam and came back healthy, and the parish priest, Hadži Jeftimije Popović, followed it to the warm water. Jeftimije built the church on the hill above the park in 1834. A year later Prince Miloš Obrenović had the waters analyzed by a Saxon mining expert, Baron Herder, but the spa's first real season came only in 1869.

Above the springs rises Crkveno brdo, the Church Hill, also called Čajkino brdo, a wooded old volcanic hill with a 3 km path. On top are Jeftimije's church of 1834, the oldest building in town, the summer stage and a memorial room to Bata Stojković, and since 2023 a glass viewpoint 24 m high with the whole center below you.

Walk down past the old villas, which hold most of the town's 20th-century history. In World War I a British-Serbian hospital unit led by the doctors James and May Berry worked from Villa Arnovljević. In World War II the German command sat in Villa Turkulović, today Hotel Partizanka, and the 1944 airborne raid on Tito's headquarters at Drvar, Operation Rösselsprung, the Knight's Move, was planned there; the horse mosaic in the hall is said to have given it its name. Many of the villas are closed or in poor repair, so you see most of them from the street.

The Vrnjačka river runs through the middle of town under linden trees, crossed by more than twenty little bridges, and the promenade along it is Vrnjci's main street. Walk it slowly, the way everyone else does. Many of the bridges have stories: the Daljinar shows the distances to the world's capitals, in memory of Neđa Ilić, a waiter who loved telling guests how far they were from Paris or Tokyo; the bridge called Ko to tamo peva honors the actors of that famous Yugoslav film, among them Danilo Bata Stojković, who loved this town; and the golden Mathematics Bridge carries the formula of the golden ratio.

On the promenade is Gočko, a cartoon sparrow in a šajkača cap and opanci shoes, the mascot from 1990, when Vrnjci hosted the European TV game show Jeux Sans Frontières. Stop for coffee and cake at one of the cafés. Coffee in the side streets costs about half what it does on the promenade.

The most famous of the bridges is the Most ljubavi, the Bridge of Love, its railings covered in thousands of padlocks with names and dates. The story told here is of a local teacher, Nada, who fell in love with an officer, Relja, before World War I. He went to war, fell for someone else in Greece and never came back, and she died of grief. Girls in the town started locking padlocks to the bridge where the two used to meet, to keep their own loves safe.

There's no record of Nada or Relja, so take it as a legend. It was half forgotten until the poet Desanka Maksimović, who spent her summers in Vrnjci for decades, heard it and wrote Molitva za ljubav, A Prayer for Love, and today the bridge is where Serbian couples come for a photo. Bring a padlock if you want to join in.

A 50 m panoramic wheel with 32 enclosed cabins stands in the park by the lake. Ride it at dusk, when the lights of the promenade come on and the dark ridge of Goč fills the southern sky. It's touristy, and the view is worth it.

Walk down from the wheel for dinner, a long affair in Vrnjci. Order Goč trout, grilled or fried, a plate of kajmak and cheese from the villages on the mountain, ćevapi or a pljeskavica from the grill, and roast lamb or pork if you see it. Wash it down with a tamjanika or prokupac from the Župa wine region, just over Goč. Kruna, by the lake, with old-town songs on acoustic guitar, and Tri golubice are on the tourist board's list of local favorites.

Vrnjci has seven springs, four of them used for treatment, and each was once prescribed for something different. Make a morning round: start at Slatina, by the Lipovačka river, cold and fizzy and once given for anemia and a lack of appetite, then Jezero, the Lake spring, at about 27°C, the one for diabetes. After the Japanese Garden, walk on to Snežnik, at the far end of the promenade, cool and used for the stomach.

The springs have had a hard few years: drilling for bottled water and new buildings have weakened some of them, and Slatina and Jezero now run more slowly than they used to. It's still a pleasant walk, past old villas and through the park, and you'll see locals filling their bottles at every stop.

By the Jezero spring, the park turns into a small Japanese garden, laid out in 2011 with a pond and an islet, a cascade, a tea house and a wooden bridge, and lit up in the evenings. Next to it is a hedge maze of about 440 cypresses. Both are free, and both are better with a coffee from one of the kiosks.

The springs walk ends at Snežnik, at the top of the promenade, and a hundred meters up the road to Goč is Restoran Vir, with its own trout pond. Order the trout, grilled or fried, with garlic and chard, and a plate of kajmak and young cheese from the villages of Goč.

Above the Topla voda spring stands the town's grandest building, a white villa in the style of an Italian palazzo, built in the 1880s and 1890s for General Jovan Belimarković. He was a war minister and one of the three regents who governed Serbia for the boy king Aleksandar Obrenović. The idea came from his nephew Pavle Denić, the plans and building work from the Austrian engineer Franz Winter, and the white marble from the general's own quarry on Goč. Belimarković is buried in the family chapel on Brankova glavica above town.

Today it's the Zamak kulture, the Castle of Culture, with the local museum inside, and at the foot of the hill a small Museum of Spa Treatment shows how the cures were done: finds from Lađarište, a Neolithic settlement of the Vinča culture just outside town, a Roman room, the general's memorial room and displays on the spa's history. In late July, the castle hosts a free classical music festival.

Then into the water. The Fons Romanus wellness center, run by the Merkur spa institute in the old Thermal Mineral Bath by the central park, fills its thermal pool with the spa's mineral water and has saunas and a Kneipp walk. It also offers massages and mud treatments. Merkur's Waterfall aqua center, at the start of the promenade, has the largest mineral-water pool, at 28°C, for about 1,000 dinars.

Many hotels have their own wellness centers, but they often let in outside guests only when they aren't full, so call ahead.

Find a kafana with live music for the evening. Serbs come to Vrnjci to rest, and resting here involves a band, rakija, a mixed grill and songs everyone knows. Ask for sarma if it's on, cabbage rolls slow-cooked with smoked meat, or a karađorđeva šnicla, a rolled schnitzel stuffed with kajmak. Start with ajvar and bread. Kafana Miris lipa, by the river, is one of the old ones.

In July and August, check the program of the summer stage on the hill above the park, named after Bata Stojković, which hosts concerts and the screenplay festival.

Goč is often called the most forested mountain in Serbia: almost all of it is covered in beech, fir and black pine, with about 650 species of plants, and the University of Belgrade's forestry faculty has a teaching base here. Large parts are now a special nature reserve.

From the little settlement of Goč, a marked trail climbs about 1.4 km, an easy 45 minutes, to Krst, a viewpoint at 1,123 m. On a clear day you can see Kopaonik to the south, the peak of Rtanj to the east and the hills of Šumadija to the north.

From the center of Goč, a marked loop of about 6.3 km runs west through the forest to Selište, a small lake in the woods near Gvozdac, and back; shorter loops of 2.4 and 5.2 km circle the lake itself. It's quiet, shady and mostly gentle. The lake is a water supply reservoir, so no swimming or fishing.

If you want a peak, Ljukten, at 1,216 m the highest point of Goč, is a separate trail of about 3.7 km from the settlement.

Have lunch on the mountain. The specialties are trout from the fishponds on Goč's streams, kajmak and cheese from the villages, warm lepinja bread from a wood-fired oven, and in the cold months, kuvana rakija, warm brandy with honey.

With a car, take the longer road back through Gračac, a village 8 km west of town (about half an hour extra). Its church of St. Sava stands on old foundations that local legend dates to before Žiča, and it was rebuilt in 1812 and again in 1842. The 19th-century traveler Felix Kanitz believed the Roman baths of Vrnjci were here. The old village school from 1909 has a small museum.

Back in town, rest your legs with the evening korzo, the walk up and down the promenade that is the town's main entertainment. In summer it's packed until midnight; in spring and autumn it's quieter, and the cafés are yours.

Stop for an ice cream or cake at Slatko srce, and if you have energy left, the Trg kulture square by the library hosts concerts on summer evenings.

Žiča is painted red, the color of the martyrs, and it's one of the most important places in Serbian history. It was built in the early 13th century by Stefan the First-Crowned, and in 1219 it became the seat of the first independent Serbian archbishop, Saint Sava, Stefan's brother. Tradition says seven Serbian kings were crowned here, and that a new door was made for each and walled up after him; Kraljevo's coat of arms still shows the seven crowns.

Inside, look for the frescoes of the 13th and 14th centuries, damaged many times and still powerful. The monastery is a working convent, so keep your voice down.

South of Kraljevo, the Ibar runs through a narrow gorge called the Valley of Lilacs, because, the story goes, a Serbian king planted lilacs along it to welcome his French bride, Helen of Anjou. Above a bend in the river stands Maglič, the best-preserved medieval castle in the gorge, with walls and towers from the 13th and 14th centuries on a rock high above the road.

There's no bridge: the old footbridge collapsed in 2019-20, and since 2022 volunteers have run a free ferry across the Ibar, about every two hours, followed by a steep climb. If you miss a crossing, you wait, so either plan your departure from Žiča around the ferry or enjoy the towers from the riverbank.

The Ibar road is lined with roadside inns, and many serve the same thing: river trout and roast lamb or pork from the spit, sold by the kilo, with bread, kajmak and salad. Stop at one near Ušće, the village where the road to Studenica turns off.

In 1186 Stefan Nemanja, the founder of the Nemanjić dynasty, built a monastery in a remote valley 12 km up from the Ibar, as his own burial place. Studenica became the mother church of medieval Serbia, and it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Church of the Virgin is faced in white marble, with Romanesque carvings around the windows and doors, the finest example of the Raška school that blended Byzantine and Western building.

Inside are frescoes painted in 1208-09, among the finest of Byzantine art, and a famous Crucifixion. Nemanja himself is buried here. Take time for the smaller King's Church as well, from 1314, with frescoes of the life of the Virgin, and the treasury. Further up the Ibar, Gradac monastery was founded by Helen of Anjou, the queen of the lilac legend.

Drive back to Vrnjci (about 1.5 hours) for a quiet dinner and a last glass from the warm spring before bed. If you'd rather not drive in the dark, Mataruška Banja, a smaller spa near Kraljevo with hot springs, is on the way and has hotels.

On 13 October 1941, on the road between Kraljevo and Kruševac, the Vrnjci-Trstenik Partisan detachment and a company from Kraljevo, defending the edge of the short-lived Partisan territory around Užice, fought a German force several times their size. A few days later, after a Partisan and Chetnik siege of Kraljevo itself, the Germans shot around 2,000 hostages in the town, one of the worst massacres of the occupation.

The memorial, unveiled in 1981, is by Bogdan Bogdanović, the architect of the stone flower at Jasenovac. Its name is Nišan, the Sight, and locals call it Snajper, the Sniper: three blocks of granite lined up on one axis, like the sights of a rifle, a warrior keeping watch over the dead. Like many of the Yugoslav spomeniks, it's abstract, haunting and almost always empty.

Princess Milica, the widow of Prince Lazar, who fell at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, founded Ljubostinja in a wooded valley near Trstenik and retired here as a nun, along with other widows of the battle. She's buried here. The church, from the turn of the 15th century, is a fine example of the Morava style, with stone rosettes and red-and-white bands of brick and stone on the walls.

The nun Jefimija, the first Serbian woman poet, is buried here too. It's still a convent, one of the largest in Serbia, and the nuns keep a lovely garden. Come early, when it's quiet.

The hills around Vrnjci and Trstenik are wine country, the edge of the Župa and Morava regions, where tamjanika, an aromatic white, and prokupac, Serbia's native red, are the grapes to try. Back in town, the Grabak winery, 700 m from the center, makes both and has its own pools; call ahead for a tasting. Buy a bottle for the last evening.

Then one more soak: the Waterfall aqua center or another session at Fons Romanus. In July and August, the big Raj water park, with a wave pool and a long lazy river, is the noisier alternative.

For the last night, order the full table: pršut, cheese and kajmak, a šopska salad, roast lamb, and a slice of gibanica, the cheese pie made in every Serbian home. End with domaća kafa, Serbian coffee boiled in a copper pot, and a šljivovica. Then walk down to the Bridge of Love one last time.