Museum railway Šargan 8 – ride on Serbia!

*Post includes Booking.com affiliate link for accommodation

We are heading towards the Tara Mountains in the Western Serbia.
The museum railway Šargan 8 (or Šargan Eight or Šargan Osmica in Serbian) is awaiting us as well as the ethno village of Küstendorf aka Drvengrad.
The day is getting hot, as usual in Serbia at this time of the year.

If you prefer to read in Finnish continue here: Museorautatie Šargan Eight ja Küstendorfin etnokylä.

It’s early Saturday morning in Serbia in August 2019.
We are starting our two-day journey to Mokra Gora mountain.

Tanja’s old schoolmate living in Rome, Tanja as well, has sent us a message earlier that she’d come to Serbia again to meet us.
She wanted to visit other places in the country besides Belgrade.
We agreed since at the time we hadn’t been traveling around Serbia too much to get to know this country very well.

After a little research, Mokra Gora Mountain was selected as the destination.

How to get to Mokra Gora from Belgrade

Tanja of Rome first thought that we could rent only a car without a driver, which is affordable in Serbia, but we quickly made her change her mind. Even though Serbia has by no means the worst traffic in the Balkans, it’s still bad enough for a newbie.
At that time roads in the western area were narrow, windy, and busy in summer and way to drive is reckless, to say the least.

Often the most reckless drivers don’t have Serbian license plates. The hurried ones are more often only passing through Serbia rushing to their home countries.

A car and a driver are our choice

As public transport to the area is slow and a new motorway was not yet opened (at the time), we decided to rent a car and a driver for us three.

We get a tip for a good driver. The details are agreed on the phone with the owner and he also promises to book us tickets for the museum train, since during the high season they are not likely available at the spot.
So we rent a car and a driver, not too expensive for three persons either.

You don’t necessarily need local help to buy tickets for the museum rail, however. You can also buy them on the website of the Serbian Railways for a thousand dinars (8.50 euros).

Public transportation

It’s also possible to do this trip by bus/train and taxi combination.
A bus from Belgrade to Zlatibor and a taxi from there to Mokra Gora would take four and half hours and it costs 28-46 euros per person one way, train and taxi 21-28 euros and around five hours.

First stop Valjevo

Our driver Nenad picks us up from home on that hot Saturday morning, next we pick up Tanja of Rome from her inn and the journey can begin. Hiring a professional driver is proving to be a great choice in every way.

Nenad is of course used to the local traffic and can predict the daring overtaking of other road users.
As he speaks good English he also acts as our interpreter when needed and can tell us about places along the way.

Before the town of Valjevo, the landscape begins to turn into a typical mountainous one of western Serbia.
We stop in Valjevo shortly to buy bureks, local meat, or spinach pies for breakfast.

This is our first touch to this pretty town, though we’ve visited there couple of times later on as we also have some friends living up there.

Refreshing Tara mountains

The rugged and forested Tara Mountains with its National Reserve Area and the Drina River flowing alongside it is the pearl of Western Serbia and a popular tourist destination.

We stop on our way to see the famous little house in the middle of the Drina and admire the views up the winding road in the mountains.

The flora of the mountains is abundant and partly indigenous and there wander bears and wild boars among many other species. The air is wonderfully fresh for us coming from Belgrade.

We had also planned a small mountain hike, but due to a communication misunderstanding, information about this had not been passed on to Nenad. At the end of the day we admit that there was actually no time for that.

Drvengrad ethno village is a positive surprise

As the forest turns into fields and meadows, wooden buildings emerge from behind a couple of bends. Küstendorf!
Its Serbian name Drvengrad, simply means “wooden city”.

We leave the car in the parking lot and march to the ticket office.
Nenad joins us. – I’ve brought a lot of tourists here, but I’ve never been inside, he reveals.

We’ve been a little skeptical about Drvengrad. Movie director Emir Kusturica designed this traditional look-a-like village originally as a film set.
We’re curious to see this famous tourist destination, but we’re wondering if the artificial village would be really interesting.
Fortunately it is.

Street named by Andrić, cinema by Kubrick

The village with its traditional houses is skillfully built and surprisingly large.
Its streets bear names of Kusturica’s idols like Che Guevara, Maradona, Nikola Tesla, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, and Joe Strummer, among others.

The main street and the Drvengrad library are named after the Yugoslav Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić.
The village also has a Stanley Kubrick Cinema, a sports hall and a church.

You can accommodate here, either in traditional houses or in a hotel.
Facilities include a restaurant and a café.
In the main house of the mini-town, there is an apartment reserved for the use of the Kusturica family.
Even a few local workers live in Drvengrad.

We wander around with no hurry and beside the village we admire the valley landscape opening behind it.
One alley has a line of peasants selling their products. A variety of wool knitwear and local delicacies are on sale.
We buy a jar of linden honey from an old man.

Stay overnight in Mokra Gora

However, it’s time to get back into our car well warmed by the sun and continue the journey. We are heading to our accommodation in the center of Mokra Gora.

The drive from Belgrade is 250 kilometers one way, so instead of a day trip, it makes more sense to stay for the night in the area, like in one of small family-run guest houses.
Apartments are inexpensive and clean, and there is no point to drive winding mountain roads back in the dark after a long day.

We recommend to book in advance during the holidays – there are not too many apartments, so they fill up quickly.
We have made a booking for the brand new *Mokra Gora Central Apartments via Booking.com.

As the place is new, it has not yet been properly marked, and the villagers do not seem to know it’s location.
Eventually, Nenad finds a knowledgeable resident and we park our car in the yard of a house standing along the road.

We are the first customers of this guest house and owners are little excited.
After a presentation of the excellent apartment we are seated under a courtyard tree, at a long table.
Snacks, refreshments and, of course, glasses of the house’s own rakija (fruit brandy) are served. – We are in Serbia anyway.
Nenad doesn’t actually even stay here, but who cares, the same offers are brought under our drivers’ nose.

However, we haven’t time to sit for very long. We got a train to catch.
Nenad takes his belongings to his apartment and drives us to the village train station.
The Šargan Eight, a narrow-gauge historic railway, departs and returns from there.

The Austrian Empire hits the road – Bit of background

In the year 1916 the Austrian Empire invided Serbia with huge difficulties in the Great War. It wants to connect it to neighboring Bosnia, which Austria has annexed earlier to itself. Austrians decide to build a railway that connects Serbian railway network to the Bosnian one.
The construction of the Šargan Eight line begins on the Mokra Gora mountain in West Serbia.

Austrians soon find out that the task is difficult due to the extremely moist and steep forestry mountain terrain, unstable rock, and snakes. The work is done in a hurry and by Italian and Russian prisoners of war, many of whom lost their lives during the construction work.

The Austrians realize what Mokra Gora means: The Wet Mountain. There are 365 springs on the planned route of the railroad and it also rains a lot.
They have to stop constructing and two years later they lost the whole war.

Museum Railway Šargan 8 is one of the most twisted

It’s the year 1925. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed after the Great War and it includes Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Serbia.
The government found connecting the different parts of the new state a very good idea indeed and the Austrian’s plan for a railway in Mokra Gora has recovered. This time it’s implemented with more time, better planning, and a skillful workforce instead of POW’s. Now the railroad is finally ready!

According to the Austrians’ original plan the railroad connects the Serbia’s railroad network to the Bosnian one.
The narrow-gauge line actually extends as far as the Adriatic coast to Dubrovnik. It’s functional almost a half century until it’s decommissioned in 1974.

A part of it was returned to its current tourist use ten years ago. In Mokra Gora, the track is so complicated that it really makes an octagonal coil at one point. Thus the name!
Beside those 365 springs along the route there’s also 22 tunnels on the track where water drips from the walls and roof.

Ride on Šargan 8

The section of the track currently in use is 15.6 kilometers long and runs from Mokra Gora to Šargan Vitasi station and back.
The route passes through bridges and gorges in dizzying mountain scenery.

We are standing on the open bridge in the front of the old-fashioned carriage. The view is as unobstructed as possible and in the thirty-degree heat the ventilation also works.
There weren’t any seats available anyway when we bought the tickets, but eventually even those traveling indoors start looking for cooler outdoor place to stand.

In some places along the route the view is directly down to a gorge, so those of us afraid of heights are a bit frightened.
The journey is relaxed as befits a museum railway.
Finally, we arrive at the Šargan Vitasi station where’s a long stop before the return journey.

During the stop you have the opportunity to use the restroom as well as buy food and drink, either to eat on the spot or to take with you. We content ourselves with admiring the old station and the scenery in front of it.

On the way back the train stops at a particularly nice vantage point so passengers can take pictures.

Don’t forget Višegrad

Some departures of Šargan Eight run as far as to Višegrad in Bosnia at a price of 1200 RSD instead of a thousand dinars price for the shorter trip in Serbia.

The Bosnian border is near and behind it is the Višegrad with its bridge, made world famous by the earlier mentioned Nobel laureate author Ivo Andrić. Town also has Andrićgrad an artificial village similar to Küstendorf.

We have left the visit to Višegrad for consideration. Even though it’s been a long day, we don’t want to miss the trip to Bosnia, we’re so close already. And we have a car and a driver to take us there in 30 minutes.

So we take a quick trip abroad. We have our passports with us anyway as they are needed for a registration of accommodation and Tanja of Rome is already on her foreign country trip anyway.

Prepare for your food early

Mokra Gora village is a small and, apart from tourists, quiet mountain village. There are grocery stores but they close early.
So if you feel like cooking in your apartment, you should go grocery shopping before leaving for the train.

Having returned from Bosnia, we dine out. Restaurant Šarganska Osmica (Šargan Eight) at the Mokra Gora train station offers Serbian food for reasonable prices.
At the dinner table Nenad tells us that his customers usually don’t ask him to join the company.
We don’t get it: Why on earth should our nice driver dine alone, when we all spend a couple of days together here anyway?

The next morning we admire the misty mountain slopes from the balcony of our room, before our journey continues towards the stunning scenery of the Uvać River.

Tourism in Mokra Gora

Drvengrad and the museum railway Šargan 8 are the most popular travel destinations in Western Serbia.
Still it wasn’t too crowded even on the high season weekend and the place felt pleasantly peaceful.

We made the trip in the summer of 2019, but the information in the article was revised while writing the article.
After our visit Mokra Gora’s tourism infrastructure has been further developed and the area has, among other things, a skiing center.
Last year (2021), the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) chose Mokra Gora as one of the best tourist villages in the world.

• Train runs April 1st ’til October 31st.
• Serbian Railways/Price List & Timetables: Museum Railway Šargan 8
• Here we stayed: *Mokra Gora Central Apartments

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