Stara Planina
Serbia's tallest waterfall and a summit on the Bulgarian border
- When to go
- October 10° · 6 rainy days
- Per day
- €€price 2 of 5
- How many days
- 2–3days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 68 km Niš
- Right now
Stara Planina runs along Serbia's eastern border with Bulgaria, and it holds both the country's highest summit outside Kosovo and its tallest waterfall. While Kopaonik turned into a brand and Zlatibor into a weekend resort, this mountain stayed what Serbian mountains used to be: big, empty, and largely untouched.
Babin Zub is the centre of winter tourism and the easiest first point of entry. The ski runs add up to about twelve kilometres, spread across Babin Zub, Konjarnik, Sunčana Dolina and Jabučko Ravnište. In summer Babin Zub is the starting point for Midžor: about eight kilometres each way from the old mountain hut, roughly three hours' walk in decent weather, on a wide track with nothing technical — good boots and the fitness for some six hundred metres of climbing are enough.
The waterfalls are the reason to stay longer than a day, but they differ in how you get there. There's no marked trail to Kaluđerski Skok: the ground is overgrown and steep, and the Pirot tourist board makes a mountain guide compulsory. Tupavica is at the other end of the scale: about four and a half kilometres from the mountain hut in Dojkinci and some fifty metres off the road, with natural pools below the fall where people cool off in summer. Zavojsko Lake, seventeen or so kilometres north-east of Pirot, formed in 1963 when a landslide dammed the Visočica; today it's a hydroelectric reservoir and a place for a day off the trails.
Guides for Stara Planina
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Stara Planina in 3 days
→The first day runs to Zavojsko Lake and the base, the second is kept only for Midžor, the third pairs the guided…
What to see in Stara Planina
Babin Zub
A peak at 1,758 metres, reached in winter by the ski centre's chairlift — the only summit on the mountain you can get to without walking.
free; winter ski pass €29.38–31.94
Midžor
At 2,169 metres, the highest peak in central Serbia, right on the border — on a clear day the summit looks over the Bulgarian side of the range too.
free
Kaluđerski Skok
The tallest waterfall in Serbia: a 232-metre drop over a series of cascades, on the Kaluđerska river below Midžor, near the village of Topli Do. Few people see it precisely because you can't go without a guide.
booking: yes, guide only
Tupavica
The most accessible waterfall on the mountain: about fifteen metres high, at 1,050 metres, some fifty metres off the road. Good for families.
free
Zavojsko Lake
A lake some seventeen kilometres long between two mountain ranges; the whole of it is visible from the Kozji Kamen viewpoint, eighteen kilometres from Pirot.
free
Two things you probably did not know
At 2,169 metres Midzor is the highest peak in Serbia outside Kosovo, and it sits right on the Bulgarian border. The summit is flat and bare, so on a clear day the view reaches a hundred kilometres.
The mountain has dozens of waterfalls, Tupavica and the Piljski falls among them. They form where streams cross layers of hard volcanic rock that the water cannot cut through.
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Within reach from here
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