Topola: Royal Dynasty Half Day Tour from Belgrade

This tour offers a fantastic blend of history, natural beauty, as well as a chance to taste some of Serbia’s best wines, all within easy reach of the capital. Our tour starts at your accommodation, and we are heading towards the central Serbian province of Šumadija, Serbia’s scenic heartland. We’ll enjoy the beautiful landscapes and hear stories about the Serbian struggle for independence from the Ottomans at the beginning of the 19th century and the history of the royal dynasty Karadjordjević.

After only 20 minutes, our first stop will be Mount Avala, Belgrade green mountain. Situated less than 20km south of the city center, it is one of Belgrade’s most popular green areas, a perfect spot for recreation, picnic, or just enjoying nature. Entirely covered with wood, it serves as home to many birds and animal species. We drive through green forests until we reach the highest spot of Avala. In the 1930’s Aleksandar I, King of Yugoslavia, decided to destroy a medieval fortress of Žrnov that was situated here to build the largest monument in the kingdom – Monument to the Unknown Hero. For this job, he engaged his court artist, world-renowned sculptor Ivan Mestrovic who indeed created a majestic structure, made of black marble with colossal sculptures, to resemble Antique tombs. We’ll hear some exciting stories about how it was constructed and the symbolism of the monument.

After that, we go down to the second largest hilltop of Avala 440m high, where Avala tower is situated. Built in the 1960s as a TV tower, it was the largest concrete structure and the tallest structure in the entire Balkans. During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the tower was bombed and destroyed. It was reconstructed according to the same plans and reopened for visitors. The two elevators take us up to 123m with a viewpoint from which you stay breathless: you can see the Central Serbian province of Sumadija and the entire Belgrade, including the two rivers’ confluence the region of Vojvodina behind. After a short break, we get back into the vehicle, and we continue with our trip.

Half an hour on the scenic route will get us to Topola, a handsome town perched on a hill. Here we will visit the Karadjordje’s Konak and the old church, a place where Djordje Petrović -Karadjordje, one of the most important characters in Serbian history, lived and from where he started the First Serbian Uprising, a war against the Ottoman invaders.

After that, we’ll climb to the Oplenac hill, a beautiful green area covered with wood, where on the highest point a Royal endowment, the St. George church, is situated

At the beginning of the 20th century, the church was built as a house of prayer and a mausoleum – a resting place for all the members of the Serbian (later Yugoslav) Royal family of Karadjordjevic. A tall and elegant, Byzantine-style five-dome church is completely covered with white marble from Venčac, a mine in the vicinity of Topola.
But, what leaves you breathless is not the church’s appearance but its interior, a spectacle of colors and light, lavishly decorated marble floors, and colored glass mosaics with the gold plate on the walls. A surface of 3 500m2 is covered with more than 40 million peace of tiles, in more than 15 000 shades of different colors representing the most extensive gallery of copies of Serbian medieval fresco paintings in one place. In the left and the right-wing of the church, two of the most prominent members of the Royal family are buried: Karadjordje himself, as a founder of the family, and King Petar I, as the first crowned ruler.

After free time for walking among the wood and park around the church, we’ll visit the Royal vineyards and old cellar, where we shall see how the production of the vine used to look, and we’ll have a chance to see some of the old equipment utilized in that process.

After our eyes and souls experience this beauty, we'll have a lunch break (optional) and after lunch, we are heading back to Belgrade.