Tara
A canyon, a narrow-gauge railway, and a village built by a film director
- When to go
- September 18° · 10 rainy days
- Per day
- €€price 2 of 5
- How many days
- 2–3days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 83 km Kraljevo
- Right now
Tara is a national park where the mountain drops into the Drina canyon, hundreds of metres down to Lake Perućac. On the southern slope of the same mountain, in Mokra Gora, are the Šargan Eight railway and Emir Kusturica's Drvengrad.
Banjska Stena is the most visited of the park's ten or so marked viewpoints. From Mitrovac a six-kilometre gravel road runs to the car park, and from there it's about fifteen minutes on a flat forest path — fine with children. Without a car, the same six kilometres from Mitrovac can be walked on the forest road.
The Šargan Eight and Drvengrad aren't in the national park: since 2005 Mokra Gora has been a nature park of its own, on Tara's south-eastern slope, at the pass towards Zlatibor. So Tara is best planned in two parts — the viewpoints and the lake in the north, the train and Kusturica's village in the south — with timetables, tickets and Drvengrad entry covered on the Mokra Gora page.
Guides for Tara
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Tara in 2 days
→The first day keeps the viewpoint and the forest on the park's north side, the second the lake and a boat down the…
What to see in Tara
Banjska Stena
A viewpoint at 1,065 metres, straight above the Drina canyon and Lake Perućac. Best in the morning, while the fog still sits in the valley.
free; parking is charged
The Šargan Eight
A narrow-gauge railway climbing the slope in a figure-eight, through twenty-two tunnels, looping out from Mokra Gora; the full ride, with stops at the stations, takes about two hours and twenty minutes.
€12.77 · booking: recommended
Drvengrad (Mećavnik)
The village Emir Kusturica built for the film Life Is a Miracle, from real log cabins gathered from the surrounding area. It has a hotel, a cinema, a gallery and a church, and hosts the Küstendorf festival in late January.
Perućac and its lake
A lake created by damming the Drina in 1966. From its beach a boat sails 52 kilometres up the canyon to Višegrad and the Mehmed Paša Sokolović bridge, in Bosnia and Herzegovina — bring your passport. Right by Perućac is the Vrelo, a river that falls into the Drina after 365 metres, which is why locals call it the Year.
lake free; boat €34.07
Forest and the Serbian spruce
About 80 per cent of the park is forest, mostly mixed spruce, fir and beech. It is home to the Serbian spruce, a conifer Josif Pančić found near Zaovine in 1875 and which grows wild only in the Drina valley.
free
Two things you probably did not know
The Serbian spruce grows only in the Drina basin and nowhere else in the world. Josif Pancic found it in 1875 and only managed to describe it years later. It had been considered an ice age species long extinct.
From the Banjska stena viewpoint the Drina lies five hundred metres below, a green arc between two banks. The river is the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina here.
Ready for Tara?
Within reach from here
Places sorted by straight-line distance from Tara — day trips or weekends.
Serbia
→The north an hour away by train, the mountains three or four by car — Serbia divides by the time you have
Montenegro
→The Bay, the riviera or Ulcinj for the sea, Durmitor for July — choose the coast by its beaches and the north by the month
Greece
→The north by road, the Cyclades by ferry, Rhodes by air — pick the region first and the island second
All 277 places we write about sit on one page — narrow them down by continent, country, price or what you are travelling for.
Within reach from here: Mokra Gora, Zlatibor and Sirogojno
See how much of that actually suits you — or pin Tara if you have been.
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