Vrnjačka Banja is by far the most visited SPA resort in Serbia, but also the most visited tourist destination of Serbia in general. Number of nights that visitors have spent in Vrnjacka Banja speak for the quailty of the spa itself. Reasons to visit Vrnjacka Banja are numerous but it’s probably enough to say: springs of mineral water, ancient baths & SPA facilities, fantastic sports and recreational complexes, tourist facilities, promenades, nature, numerous festivals and wellness experience like the one that hotel Kralj (King) offers. We could go on and on, but just combine all of these facts with beautiful nature surroundings and a long history, and you’ll get the essence of your next holiday destination.
Also let’s not forget amazing location of Vrnjacka Banja, but that’s only the beginning of an fairytale. Before you get here, check out all advices and useful information about Vrnjacka Banja that might be interesting to you.
Location of Vrnjacka Banja and how to get here
Vrnjacka Banja is located in Central Serbia and just a 200 km south of Belgrade. It’s surrounded by beautiful river – West Morava and Goc mountain, which makes our nature unique. Vrnjacka Banja has good transportation communication with all important cities in Serbia. You can get here by road (car or bus) or train.
Foreign tourists usually come to Vrnjacka Banja by combination of airplane and Bus/Car transportation. It’s up to you, but it’s important that you know that hotel Kralj can organise transportation from both Belgrade and Nis, if you’re flying to Serbia.
Anyway, check out our detailed tutorial how to get to Vrnjacka Banja and what is the location of hotel Kralj.
Reasons why Vrnjacka Banja is amazing SPA destination
Vrnjacka Banja is ideal destination for various types of tourists. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have unique spirit since it’s open for everyone. No, it just means that it has a lot of options. From main SPA and healing facilities, across wellness centers and sport complexes, to young tourists who are looking for fun. Many cultural and music festivals throughout the year are one of the reasons why visitors from Serbia come to Vrnjacka Banja, making it the most visited SPA in Serbia.
Boost your health in Vrnjacka Banja
From its beginnings SPA resorts were the place where ill people seeked proper treatments. Same story follows Vrnjacka Banja where many kings came for a king worthy rest and relaxation. That’s the spirit you’ll get to know if you decide to come to Vrnjacka Banja, and even better to hotel Kralj.
Beautiful nature and forests of Central Serbia make the air you’ll breathe fresh and clean even though it’s not the main advantage of this SPA resort. The main value lies in mineral springs of Vrnjacka Banja.
Mineral springs
Vrnjacka Banja lies on several thermal springs with similar but still different healing properties. Actually there are 7 different thermal/mineral springs in Vrnjacka Banja, and two of them are used as a bottled mineral water, widely sold across the Balkans. It’s called “Vrnjci”.
Those 7 mineral springs are:
- Topla Voda (Warm Water – the oldest thermal srping in Vrnjacka Banja from the prehistoric times)
- Slatina
- Sneznik
- Jezero
- Beli izvor
- Borjak
- Vrnjacko vrelo
Four of these mineral springs are used for medical purposes, and are default part of medical therapies and treatments. Average temperature of thermal waters in Vrnjacka Banja is 36,5 °C.
Diseases that can be treated in Vrnjacka Banja
Mineral thermal waters can treat this types of diseases:
- Diabetes
- Infectious jaundice
- Diseases of the digestive system (chronic inflammatory bowel disease; chronic inflammation of the stomach; duodenal ulcer; a stomach ulcer)
- Gallbladder and bile ducts
- Liver disease
- Diseases of the renal pelvis
- The disease of the bladder and urinary tract etc.
Vrnjacka Banja has a SPA sanatorium complexes that practice overall preventive, diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitation medicine.
Wellness, FItness & SPA relaxation
Besides this medical facilities, Vrnjacka Banja is simply a fairytale for all of those who are looking for deep relaxation and getaway treat, far away from any crowded city. Quality Wellness, Fitness & SPA facilities are there for them, including wellness treatment you can get at hotel Kralj. Honey massage is especially popular. Of course, there are other treatments like hydromassage bathtub, different types of workout and corrective training sessions in water or a swimming pool. All of that you can find here.
What to do in Vrnjacka Banja – list of activities
Like all we said before wasn’t enough, you can organize your time here as you wish. There are plenty events and possibilities going around, that you won’t know where to go first. Here are some suggestions.
Recreational and sport facilities
Many of younger guests in Vrnjacka Banja come here for a fun and active vacation, or even sports training before their season league starts. This is no surprise if you know that there are a lot of sports facilities around Vrnjacka Banja and its neighbourhood. Infact, one of the best sport complexes is located just beside hotel Kralj. So what do you say for a quick basketball game in the morning, and after that you can enjoy tasty breakfast and healing massage. Sounds good?
These sports facilities are created for everyone and for every weather condition and season of the year. No matter if you’re a professional athlete or a recreational sportsmen, you’ll have everything you need because there are smaller and bigger football fields, basketball pitches and many other.
The most famous sport complexes in Vrnjacka Banja are:
- Stadium of little sports Kocka (Stadion malih sportova Kocka)
- Sport-recreational center Heaven (Sportsko-rekrativni centar Raj)
- Sport hall Vlade Divac and many other…
Of course, you shouldn’t forget about open air and closed swimming pools where you can go for a swim or a simple chill out session. Of course there is beautiful swimming pool at hotel Kralj, so you won’t be needing public swimming pools such as Olympic pool or Klobuk public swimming pool.
Promenade and chilled out walks
Easy walks by the Vrnjacka Banja river are just one way to spend a peaceful afternoon here. Yet, it is one of the most popular ways to get to know our SPA resort. This river is beautiful throughout the whole year, and especially during fall months. Fallen yellow leaves around the river bank and small bridges crossing them, will remind you of some lost & forgotten medieval cities. Ambient inspires, while sipping a cup of turkish coffee alongside promenade helps you to relax and clear your mind.
Cute bridges and famous Bridge of Love will inspire couples, while everybody will most certainly enjoy nature views, unique architecture of old city library and cinema you can find alongside river bank and promenade.
Hotel Kralj is located at the very beginning of the promenade, so you can easily access every part of Vrnjacka Banja in no time. Anyway, we suggest to you to go for a relaxing walk, but take your time, step aside for a little bit. Soak up the moment. Feel the nature, experience smells and get to know people around you. That is the true value of Vrnjacka Banja.
Fun and romantic trips to the nearest attractions of Central Serbia
Like your stay in Vrnjacka Banja isn’t enough, especially if we know that you’re staying at the hotel Kralj, beware that there are plenty of tourist attraction in and around Vrnjacka Banja that you can explore and visit. Since Vrnjacka Banja is located in the Central Serbia, you shouldn’t be surprised when you find out that there are plenty of cultural monuments and historical and natural attractions to visit around SPA resort. We say that you shouldn’t be surprised, for a simple reason. Central Serbia is a cradle of Serbian history and culture. This is the place where it all started 15 centuries ago.
There are several medieval serbian monasteries, plenty of cultural-historic monuments, ruins of medieval fortifications and of course, the most beautiful nature of all.
We suggest you these attractions and trips from Vrnjacka Banja:
- Studenica Monastery from 1196.
- Zica Monastery from 1210.
- Ljubostinja Monastery from 1405.
- Medieval fortifications: Maglic, Koznik, Ras, Brevnik, Jelac etc.
- Mountain Goc;
- Fishing on the West Morava river;
- Beautiful forests, tasty vineyard from aleksandrovac and most beautiful raspberry fields…
City happenings and festivals in Vrnjacka Banja
During the last two decades, Vrnjacka Banja became famous festival center in Serbia. There are a lot of manifestations and festivals which are attracting new tourists, and some of the festivals are music festivals and concerts while the others are cultural, historical and art festivals. Here are the most famous Vrnjacka Banja festivals throughout the year.
Winter festivals:
- New year and Christmas story with Santa Clause
- FIsh soup for everybody
- Kiss me
Spring festivals:
- Gold thread – nuance and gatherings
- Easter manifestation
- Hiking to the mountain GOc for the 1st of may
- Festival of flowers, horticulture, homecraft and souvenirs…
Summer festivals:
- Music of satisfaction at Vrnjci pavilion (all summer long)
- The Great International Carnival
- Festival of flowers, horticulture, homecraft and souvenirs…
- Classic Music festival “Vrnjci” in the Belimarkovic castle;
- Love Fest music festival
- Day of Danilo Bata Stojkovic
- Screenplay festival;
Autumn festivals:
- Purple days.
Traditional homemade food – experience Serbian cuisine
Central Serbia is the very place where Serbian tradition was born. In these corners of today’s Serbia, almost 1500 years ago, there was the first Serbian country created. This speaks for Serbian tradition in general, so we don’t need to talk a lot about the fact that this is the right place to taste the Serbian cuisine.
Every bit of traditional Serbian food is part of the hotel Kralj menu, so you don’t need to search for those.
Traditional serbian barbecue, roasted pork, ajvar, kajmak, sarma, prebranac (beans) and irreplaceable rakija, and many other specialties from Serbian cuisine. As our old folks would say: “You get to know somebody only over the full stomach”. This is how our guests feel so we hope that serbian specialities and gastronomic goods will guide you through Vrnjacka Banja and its unique spirit.
Short history of Vrnjacka Banja
Like we already said, it’s tough to find out who tried to use healing effects of thermal waters in Vrnjacka Banja for the first time. Some of the sources are pointing out the fact that these thermal springs were used even during prehistoric times. They were widely used by Celtics. Even if you may not believe in this, it is true and a known fact that old Romans had knowledge of the healing power of thermal mineral waters of Vrnjacka Banja. Ancient Romans came here for medical reasons, and relaxation as well. There’s even an Roman spring in Vrnjacka Banja, which was discovered about 100 years ago.
Of course this region became very important, since it is a part of Serbia called Raska, where it all started. First Serbian country was even called Raska, according to the name of region.
All of this is fun, but when did SPA resort tourism became popular in Vrnjacka Banja? It started to develop in 19th century when knez Milos ordered geological experts of those time to make sure that these springs really possess thermal and mineral water.
In the 1868. Pavle Mutavdzic started the to build first medical centers and SPA facilities in Vrnjacka Banja. Even though today you’re coming to Vrnjacka Banja to simply relax and charge your batteries, around 150 years ago these thermal springs were used especially as a medical treatment.
From the small town with many mineral springs, Vrnjacka Banja became the most visited tourist destination of Serbia, right beside famous ski centers.
Attractions in Vrnjacka Banja and beautiful architecture
Just because you can easily go for a quick trip around Vrnjacka Banja, make sure that you don’t miss interesting attractions and spots in Vrnjacka Banja. Those are the true symbols of our town. Check out the most beautiful/important attractions in Vrnjacka Banja itself.
- Gocko Sparrow – monument, statue and city symbol with it’s funny sajkaca.
- Bridge of Love – this is famous bridge known for the legend about tragic love of two young people, and the fact that couples come here to kiss and leave their padlocks on the bridge as a symbol of long and prosperous relationship;
- Vrnjacka river;
- Belimarkovic castle – right beside Warm Water spring with its specific architecture style.
- Japanese garden;
- Vrnjacka Banja tourist train.
These are only some of the town symbols and opportunities that you can excersize if you wish to book your stay at the hotel Kralj. Come here and we’ll enjoy Vrnjacka Banja together.