Tourist Agency Easy Travel provides an efficiently run tourist service with licensed guides who speak English and Serbian. Easy Travel guides have a proficient knowledge of the history of Niš and organize a range of private city tours and guided walks, as well as multi-day excursions further into the southeast Serbian countryside. All tours depart from our head office at the pedestrian zone –Obrenovićeva bb. TC “Gorča” loc M18. Our agency can also provide an interpretation service, assist in car hire and booking airline tickets as well as finding the accommodation for you. All the information about your stay in Niš may be obtained from the English-speaking staff at tel: +381 18 292 555; tel/fax: +381 18 292 552; email: info@easytravel.rs. We host an informative website at: www.easytravel.rs
What to see and do in Niš
We propose:
I Nis Fortress Tour- duration 60 min
II City Walking Tour- duration 120 min
III City Museums Tour- duration 180 min/ bus, van or car tour
Niš Fortress
The fortification that exist today date only as far back as the beginning of the 18th century, but the Turkish fortress that survives was built on the same site as earlier fortifications of Roman, Byzantine and medieval origin. The fortress extends over an area of 22ha, with 2,100m of wall 8m high that has an average thickness of 3m. Outside the walls is a moat, the northern part of which still survives. Of the original gates, the southern Istanbul Gate (Stambol kapija), the main entrance today, and the western, Belgrade Gate, are the best preserved. The hammam by the Istanbul Gate, witch is now restaurant, dates from the 15th century and is the oldest Turkish building in the city. Water would have been brought to the bath from the Nišava River by means of underground wooden pipes.
In the center of the fortress area, is the early 16th-century Mosque of Bali Beg, now an art gallery. A library once stood next to the mosque but only a ruin remains today. Close to Bali Beg’s Mosque is the Lapidarium, a small display of Roman gravestones and sculpture found within the fortress area and gathered together here. The arsenal to the right of the Istanbul Gate, which dates from 1857, is now an art pavilion while the adjoining guards’ room has found new usage as a souvenir shop. On the northern side of the fortress are remains of Roman building with some mosaics.
In the back part of the fortress there are studios of the painters and sculptors of Niš, some of them open to the public.
Ćele Kula - The Skull Tower
The Turks erected this grotesque memorial as an example to others of the folly of opposition to their rule. Its construction followed the Battle of Čegar in 1809 at the time of The First Serbian Uprising when the Serbian General Stevan Sinđelić- “The Falcon of Čegar”- fearing an ignominious defeat, famously blew up himself and his outnumbered troops, along with a large number of Turks, by igniting a gunpowder store. It is estimated that about 3,000 Serbian soldiers were killed in the explosion, along with at least double the number of their Turkish counterparts.
The tower was the Turkish response to this defiant yet suicidal act. On the order of the Turkish Pasha Hurshid, the Turkish commander at the time, Serbian skulls were gathered from the battlefield and skinned before being mounted in rows on a specially built tower 3m high.
Originally there were 952 skulls embedded in the tower and past visitors to the monument have written of its eerie quality.
Now only 58 skulls remain, the rest taken for a proper burial or presumably prized out by souvenir hunters in the interim period. In 1892, a chapel was built around the depleted column and, rather than fulfilling its original purpose as a totem of deterrence, it was reinvented as a monument to the spirit of Serbian courage.
Another tower exists on Čegar Hill outside the city at the site where the battle took place. It was erected on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Niš from the Turks on June 1st 1927. In 1938, this was supplemented by a bronze bust of the Serbian hero Stevan Sinđelić.
Pobedina (Obrenovićeva Street)
This is main cafe-lined Pedestrian Street, recently changed to Obrenovićeva Street that runs from Trg Kralja Mihaila south past the Kalča shopping center to Cara Dušana Street. There are several wealthy merchants’ houses along its course, like Adon Andonović at number 41 built in 1930.
National Museum of Niš
This was built in 1894 as a bank and used for this purpose for 70 years until it became a museum in 1963. It houses an archaeological exhibition with a range of sculpture from Roman times. In museum collections there are around 40,000 items from the realms of archeology, history, ethnology, art history and cultural history. In The Niš National Museum there is a fixed display (a commemorative room) of the writer Stevan Sremac. In addition, there is also a commemorative room of poet Branko Miljković.
Mediana
Mediana was a royal property with luxurious residence and highly organized economy, placed in the suburb of the antique Niš - Naissus.
Constantine the Great (280 - 337 AD) was born and raised in Naissus. His mother Helena was of humble origin, but his father Flavius Valerius Constantinus Hlorus, the founder of the dynasty, descended from Ilyricus. Constantine the Great ruled the Roman Empire from 306 to 337. He consolidated the frontiers of the Empire and imposed a firm organization on the Army and the civil administration. In the year 313, he issued the Milan Edict, thereby introducing Christianity as the official religion of the Empire. He moved his royal seat to the East, to Constantinople, in 330, thus laying the foundation for the new Byzantine Empire. As a powerful emperor, Constantine did not forget his birthplace. He erected a majestic residence in one of the luxurious suburbs of ancient Niš - Mediana, where he often resided and attended to state affairs. Historical records testify it was in Naissus that he passed several laws - in 315,319, 324, and 334. Constantine had two sons, Constantius and Constance, who followed in their father’s footsteps.
What remains today are the foundations of several buildings spread over an area of 40ha: a villa, a baptistery, baths, lesser villas and a granary. There are also some well-preserved floor mosaics that have been roofed to protect them from the elements.
There is evidence of a street that ran in an east-west direction, connecting the various buildings. The central area was taken up by the place, nymphaeum and baths, while to the west was the granary and to the north, a building with octagonal and circular rooms. Domestic buildings lay to the south of the complex.
The museum has mosaics and an exhibition of various Roman artifacts on the site.
Crveni krst (Red Cross) - Camp Museum
The camp was first built as an arms depot in 1939 but was adopted by the Germans during The World War II as transit camp for Romas, Jews, Partisans and Communists who were thrown in here prior to torture and/or execution or their deportation to death camps. It is grey, sombre place that seems full of ghosts, as well it might. Despite hopeless odds, a desperate escape bid was made on February 12, 1942 when a breakout was attempted by scaling the walls. At least 50 prisoners were machine-gunned down immediately, while another 100 managed to escape.
The Bubanj Monument stands southwest of the city, on top of Bubanj Hill. This monument, which resembles three giant clenched fists, commemorates the death of over 10,000 Niš inhabitants who were shot up here on the hill during World War II. The monument, the work of sculptor Ivan Sabolić, was erected in 1963 and symbolises the popular resistance to Nazi oppression.
Commemorative Chapel built in 2000, was constructed in memory of the civilians killed during the NATO bombardment in 1999.
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