Although we just arrived in Sarajevo (Bosnia & Herzegovina), we didn’t want too much time to go by before we reported on our overnight trip to the town of Golubac in Serbia. Golubac is 3 hours away from Belgrade by bus on the Serbia/Romania border, and seeing Golubac Fortress was the crowning jewel of our visit.
Although the recent heat wave put a damper on some of our plans, we had a great time. We recommend visiting Golubac for anyone staying in Belgrade for an extended period.
Read on to see what we did and how we did it.
Why Did We Visit Golubac (Serbia)?
Simple.
It was my birthday and I wanted to! 😁
Golubac is a charming town located in eastern Serbia, on the banks of the Danube River.
It is known for its impressive medieval fortress 4 km away, which stands atop a hill overlooking the Danube River.
The fortress, built in the 14th century, withstood years of war and battle, changing hands multiple times. It comprises 10 towers protecting three internal compounds, showcasing its defensive capabilities.
Golubac Fortress is impressive.
Golubac is also a popular destination for nature lovers like us, with its beautiful forests, vineyards, and the nearby Djerdap National Park. Although you need a car (or tour) to fully explore the park, there is access to several park trails near the Golubac Fortress itself.
Our Plan
So our plan was to take an early bus from Belgrade to Golubac and immediately visit Golubac Fortress. Afterward, we’d walk back to town, check into our hotel, rest, and then take a 2-hour riverboat cruise to the Iron Gates, a 130-kilometer-long gorge system on the Danube River.
For our second day, we wanted to hike some of the trails near Golubac Fortress in the morning before the heat kicked in. Then as time permitted, eat somewhere in town and take our scheduled bus back to Belgrade.
The recent heatwave disrupted our plans a little, but we were able to accomplish most of what we wanted to do!
Additional departures are at 1 and 5 pm. We purchased our round-trip tickets using the online platform Busticket4mefor 1,720 RSD ($16.02 USD) each.
The only downside of these prepurchased tickets is that you MUST have a printed copy for the driver! They keep a portion of the physical ticket for their records. But it wasn’t much of a bother to find a copy center to print our tickets a couple of days in advance.
Alternatively, we could have purchased our tickets in person at the bus station, but frankly, we didn’t want to take a chance on ticket availability or deal with language issues.
On the morning of departure, we had to pay an additional 300 RSD ($2.82 USD) per person tax at the station to enter the bus boarding area, but we’ve encountered that sort of thing before.
The nice thing about the BEOGRAD – POŽAREVAC – KLADOV route is that if you let the driver know, they will drop you off directly at Golubac Fortress since they drive right past it!
That is exactly what we did.
The bus was comfortable enough, and the strong AC was appreciated.
We had a spare set of clothes, toiletries, snacks, and water packed in our small daypacks, so going to the fortress first was not a problem. We would not recommend doing this if you plan on bringing any luggage though! You will have no place to store luggage at the fortress, and getting back to Golubac proper will be a big problem due to the likelihood you will have to hike back to town.
First Things First – A Short Scenic Hike!
We arrived at the fortress at around 9 am, which was 1 hour before it opened.
So we had time to kill.
We planned for this in advance though, and immediately took a short, scenic overlook trail that originated from one of the fortress parking lots.
The weather was still cool at this point, so the timing was perfect.
The trail we took was The Smoketree and Lilac Trail (PDF map link) which led to Dragon’s Garden viewpoint. It provided spectacular views of Golubac Fortress, although several overlooks along the route give excellent views.
Here is a photo of the trail map:
And here is the 2.5-mile up-and-back route we took.
Note from the topo map that it is a steady, sometimes steep, climb to the top of the trail, so make sure you are hiking fit!
Here are a couple of our favorite photos from our hike:
Castle view from the lower trail overlook.
View from the upper trail overlook, with 4x optical zoom.
Storming Golubac Fortress
We returned to Golubac Fortress right at opening, and a line had already started to form. Nothing terrible, but it made us thankful that we came early!
Tickets to Golubac Fortress vary in price, depending on how much you want to explore and how strenuous a climb you are willing to endure.
We arrived at the fortress on a Friday, because we wanted to purchase ZONE IV tickets (at 1,700 RSD/$14.30 USD each). These tickets allow for access to all of the open towers of the fortress, including the “Hat Tower”, which is reached after a scary climb up a rock face using a chain rope. Access to that tower is only allowed with a guide, which is provided.
Zone IV tickets are only available on Friday – Sunday, and REQUIRE proper hiking shoes with tread, and good personal fitness, to be allowed entry.
Although this is all explained on the Golubac Fortress website, we saw several people get denied Zone IV tickets due to not wearing proper hiking shoes. We had our hiking boots on, so we had no problems.
Here are some of our favorite photos from our visit.
The fortress campus was quite well-kept.
Inside the fortress walls is a maze of paths leading to different towers and a small museum. In the background is Hat Tower which requires steep rock climbs to access.
Halfway to Hat Tower!
Doing my best Southern Belle Instagram pose near the top.
The final push!
At the top of the Hat Tower, the start of the Iron Gates was easy to see.
The view from the top of Tower 3 was pretty special!
The interior at the top of Tower 3. Most of the tower interiors have been restored so tourists can access the tops easily.
View of the cannon tower, through an opening in Tower 8.
One of the cannon installations.
We had a blast scaling the many towers, exploring the grounds, cooling off in the air-conditioned museum, and rehydrating in the cafe.
And the fortress was well-planned from a language perspective. All media had both Serbian and English versions, which was a nice surprise! And the museum was a welcome diversion, with films describing the brutal history of the fortress, as well as the process of its restoration in the early 21st century.
We were finished exploring the fortress by 1:30 pm, so we had to get back to Golubac to check in to our hotel room.
Filling up on water at the fortress’ natural spring before hiking back to town.
Getting From Golubac Fortress To Golubac Town
There are 3 ways of getting back to the town of Golubac once you are done visiting the fortress: (1) walk, (2) call a taxi, (3) take a bus.
The bus option sounds like the best, but there are only 3 times that a bus passes by the fortress on the way to Golubac: 2:53 am, 12:06 pm, and 18:21 pm.
You just wave the bus down as it passes the parking lot and pay the driver. But the problem is that the times don’t work for our schedule!
Taxi was a possibility, and 6 contact numbers were provided at the ticket office. But we were certain that we would not be able to have an intelligible conversation over the phone to arrange a pickup.
I suppose we could have begged the ticket office to call a taxi on our behalf (they all spoke excellent English), but our pride got in the way.
So we walked the 4 km back to Golubac along the main road.
Now normally a 4 km walk is pretty easy for us.
But at this point in the day, temperatures were hovering around 100F. On the plus side, the walk was along a coastal road, with excellent views. And the cliff face largely shielded us from the sun for most of the walk.
But there was no sidewalk (or curb) to safely walk the road.
So we pressed ourselves against the cliff face when a car came so we wouldn’t get accidentally clipped! Thankfully cars respected the modest speed limits and pedestrians, but the blind corners and the occasional large truck made us fear for our lives a couple of times.
We made it to the room we booked through Booking.com (Soba Milojkovic), and at €26 per night, it was a steal. Right next to the Golubac bus station and waterfront, it was perfectly located to explore the town.
But after we checked in we were pretty exhausted! So we blasted the AC and took a quick nap before our boat tour, which we had scheduled for 6 pm.
Golubac Fortress & Iron Gates Boat Tour
When researching for our trip to Golubac, we did a quick Google Maps search for “boat tour” and stumbled across a company that offered a bunch of tour options: Golubac iz Brodića.
They had an English version of their website, so I was hopeful that their tours could be done in English. So several days before our arrival, I reached out to the provided email address (jovankocmanovic@gmail.com) to ask about their “BIG TOUR” 2-hour cruise, which sailed by Golubac Fortress and through the entrance to the Iron Gates.
A day later Jovan, the owner and main guide, responded affirmatively about tours in English, their scheduled departure times, and the cost of the BIG TOUR – 1800 RSD ($17.19 USD) per person cash only.
At 6 pm we met up with Jovan and his boat pilot at the waterfront, along with about 20 other tourists (mostly Serbs). Although it was still warm out, the boat had a canopy and the wind was blowing nicely off the water. During the tour, Jovan told us stories about Golubac Fortress, the town of Golubac, and the Iron Gates during times of conflict.
It was a really nice tour! Well worth the reasonable cost.
Here are some of our favorite pictures from the water.
View of the Iron Gates, as well as our boat pilot and tour guide.
It was fun to see the castle from a different point of view.
View from the back side of the fortress.
A lovely sunset at the end of the tour.
Our Food Oasis – Restoran Nana
After our tour, we were pretty famished.
We never had a proper lunch aside from snacks, and we were hoping to have a nice sit-down meal somewhere we could get authentic local food, with minimal language barriers, without getting fleeced.
Despite having an English online menu (menu only visible on mobile devices), a view of the Danube, outdoor seating, and waiters who know some English, their prices were about 40% cheaper than in Belgrade.
Our meals were delicious!
Rhonda got the pork kebabs.
I got the pork cutlet stuffed with cheese and bacon, with more cheese on top.
Good food, good prices, good waiter, and good location.
Our total bill, including a massive shared appetizer for two, the above entrees, 500 mL domestic beer, water, and tip, was 4,000 RSD ($37.56 USD).
Possibly our best restaurant experience in all of Serbia.
And after dinner, we staggered back to our apartment and crashed.
Day 2 In Golubac Didn’t Go As Planned
When we woke up the next day, we knew that we’d have to modify our Day 2 plans.
The original plan was to bang out the 7-kilometer Golubac Ring trail near the fortress (PDF map link), come back to town for a late lunch, then board our scheduled 6:30 pm bus back to Belgrade.
But our previous day’s experience taught us that this plan was silly in 100F heat, especially when it would have taken us almost an hour to get to the trailhead on foot.
Normally we would have had the trailhead transportation figured out in advance, but there is scant information on the interwebs about how to get back and forth between Golubac and the fortress area. Vague blogs on the subject suggest an easy 30-minute walk, instead of the death-defying 50 minutes it turned out to be.
And the heat couldn’t be helped. To be able to get Zone IV fortress tickets, we were locked into specific dates that had less than favorable temperatures.
If transport to the trailhead were easy, we might have given hiking a go if we loaded up on water. But in the end, we decided to not be stupid with heat exhaustion and dehydration in the wilderness.
Instead, we slept in, checked out of our room, and went to Restoran Nana for an excellent slow breakfast with many cups of cappuccino and Cafe Americano in the shade by the water.
Two Nana Special breakfasts, two cappuccinos, and two cafe americanos, plus tip was 2,000 RSD ($18.78 USD).
One Nana Special breakfast and a Cafe Americano.
Not a terrible plan B.
When our breakfast was over, we just had one problem. Because of the heat, we exhausted everything we could safely do in Golubac by 11:30 am. But our bus tickets were for a 6:30 pm departure!
And we weren’t going to bake in the sweltering heat unprotected for 7 hours waiting for the bus.
So we tried to see if our 6:30 pm tickets would be accepted by the driver of the 12:20 pm return trip. Thankfully, the driver had no problems letting us ride!
When passengers get on the bus along its route they usually pay in cash. So since the company already got its money from us, they didn’t mind when we rode so long as it was on the same day as our printed tickets.
We ended up getting back to Belgrade at around 3:30 pm with good energy and glad to be back home at a reasonable hour.
Closing Thoughts
We really enjoyed our visit to Golubac and would recommend it to any slow traveler in the area.
The heat put a damper on our explorations though.
Aside from our canceled hike, we would have enjoyed walking more of the waterfront and exploring the more touristy parts of town. But the scorching heat and lack of shade in town made everyone with common sense retreat to AC if it was available.
We strongly recommend visiting Golubac and Golubac Fortress.
But try to do so when Serbia isn’t in the middle of a 100F heat wave! 😂
Until next time…
Thanks for reading!
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2 thoughts on “Making A Trip To Golubac Fortress (Serbia)”
Hi two travel turtles,
Thanks very much for this helpful post. I am a solo female traveller and planning to visit Golubac Fortress but I saw in some comments that it’s hard to get there. You said that there’s actually a bus that can drop you to the fortress which is great if that’s the case. How about going back to Belgrade, do I need to catch the bus from the city centre or just wait in Golubac? I would really appreciate your reply. Thanks again and all the best!
If you check the link, you’ll see that Golubac is just one town along its route, and Golubac does have a tiny bus “station” so to speak (see Google Maps for location). The bus enters it along its route, so there is no mistaking it, especially if you track your position on Google Maps.
If you are considering a daytrip, I’d grab the earliest bus that leaves Belgrade at 6 AM. Let the bus driver know on boarding in Belgrade that you’d like to be dropped off at the Fortress, which the bus will pass after the stop in Golubac town. You’ll get there a little early so I’d do that short hike I wrote about to kill time. It is totally worth it.
By the time you are done with the hike, Golubac Fortress should be open. Chances are you will need more time to explore the fortress than the bus schedule back to Belgrade allows. The first return bus passes the fortress around 12:06 pm (there is no official bus stop at the fortress, so you have to flag the bus down), so I’d hike (carefully) back to Golubac town and grab an awesome lunch and explore the town and walk the coastal walking path there. Then return to Golubac town station to catch the 6:30 (6:40?) pm bus back to Belgrade.
Easy.
But if you don’t know Serbian be sure to write out a script on your phone and show it to the bus driver explaining what you want to do. They’ll appreciate it!
2 thoughts on “Making A Trip To Golubac Fortress (Serbia)”
Hi two travel turtles,
Thanks very much for this helpful post. I am a solo female traveller and planning to visit Golubac Fortress but I saw in some comments that it’s hard to get there. You said that there’s actually a bus that can drop you to the fortress which is great if that’s the case. How about going back to Belgrade, do I need to catch the bus from the city centre or just wait in Golubac? I would really appreciate your reply. Thanks again and all the best!
Hi Jeremy!
We thought it was super easy to get to Golubac Fortress, once you know about the bus!
To be clear, the only bus under discussion here is the Mobilitas bus line Beograd-Pozarevac-Kladovo route. Here is its complete timetable:
https://mobilitas.rs/beograd-pozarevac-kladovo-2/
If you check the link, you’ll see that Golubac is just one town along its route, and Golubac does have a tiny bus “station” so to speak (see Google Maps for location). The bus enters it along its route, so there is no mistaking it, especially if you track your position on Google Maps.
If you are considering a daytrip, I’d grab the earliest bus that leaves Belgrade at 6 AM. Let the bus driver know on boarding in Belgrade that you’d like to be dropped off at the Fortress, which the bus will pass after the stop in Golubac town. You’ll get there a little early so I’d do that short hike I wrote about to kill time. It is totally worth it.
By the time you are done with the hike, Golubac Fortress should be open. Chances are you will need more time to explore the fortress than the bus schedule back to Belgrade allows. The first return bus passes the fortress around 12:06 pm (there is no official bus stop at the fortress, so you have to flag the bus down), so I’d hike (carefully) back to Golubac town and grab an awesome lunch and explore the town and walk the coastal walking path there. Then return to Golubac town station to catch the 6:30 (6:40?) pm bus back to Belgrade.
Easy.
But if you don’t know Serbian be sure to write out a script on your phone and show it to the bus driver explaining what you want to do. They’ll appreciate it!
Make sense?