Stara Planina: the back story

About Stara Planina: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Ski Resorts Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

In the far east of Serbia, beyond Niš, a long green wall of mountains runs towards the Black Sea. This is Stara Planina, the Old Mountain, the range the rest of the world calls the Balkan Mountains. Its Serbian end is wild, high and quiet, with Serbia’s highest peak, a young ski resort and villages where old crafts are still a way of life.

The Old Mountain

Stara Planina is part of the Balkan mountain system, which runs for about 530 kilometres from Vrška Čuka in the west to the Black Sea in the east. Most of it lies in Bulgaria, where its highest peak, Botev, reaches 2,376 metres; only its western end lies in south-eastern Serbia, near the towns of Knjaževac and Pirot. It is the range that gave the whole peninsula its name, and in Serbia it is simply the Old Mountain, loved for its long ridges, beech and spruce forests, waterfalls and wide summer pastures.

The roof of Serbia

The highest point is Midžor, at 2,169 metres the highest peak in Serbia. Local legend says you can see every sea of the Balkans from the top; you cannot, but on a clear morning the view runs over endless pastures and old forests, and the Knjaževac tourist board says it reaches as far as the Danube. The marked path from Hotel Babin Zub to the summit is about 8.6 kilometres long and takes around three hours.

This is Stara Planina, the Old Mountain, the range the rest of the world calls the Balkan Mountains.

The grandmother’s tooth

Babin Zub, the grandmother’s tooth, is a crest of jagged rocks at about 1,758 metres, southeast of Midžor, and a protected nature reserve. Around it snow lies for some 150 days a year, and in sheltered hollows it can last into June, which is why the first lifts were built here: the Konjarnik four-seat chairlift and the Sunčana Dolina drag lift, with their runs below the rocks.

The first gondola in Serbia

Lower down, at Jabučko Ravnište, Skijališta Srbije built the first gondola in Serbia, an eight-seat lift that carries skiers from the hotel up into the rest of the lift system. With a four-seat chairlift and a drag lift it links Jabučko Ravnište with Babin Zub, and today the resort has more than 13 kilometres of runs, with snowmaking for lean winters and a moving-carpet children’s park for first-timers. The operator calls it only the beginning, with more lifts and runs planned.

Life below the mountain

The villages on the Pirot and Knjaževac sides of the mountain still live by their crafts. Pirot is known across Serbia for its woven kilims (ćilim), its kačkavalj cheese and its pressed sausage, peglana kobasica, celebrated each winter at a fair in the town. Knjaževac, on the Timok river, calls itself the little Venice of eastern Serbia for its bridges and riverside walks, and just outside it the warm spring of Rgoška Banjica has been used since Roman times.

Our advice: come in January or February for the surest snow, and check which lifts are running on the operator’s live page before you drive, as early and late in the season only the gondola and its run may be open. In summer, Stara Planina is one of the finest walking mountains in Serbia; set out early for Midžor, carry water and a layer, and watch the weather on the high ridges.

Stara Planina in numbers

From Skijališta Srbije and the Knjaževac tourist board.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Stara Planina: the back story before you go.