Serbia · Central Serbia
Where to Stay in Užice, Central Serbia
Užice is a city of western Serbia in a deep river gorge, an old mountain town crowned by a medieval fortress, near the wooded heights of Zlatibor.
Find your area →
Where to stay in Užice
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Where you stay in Užice turns on the town or the mountains. The streets around the centre keep the museum, the churches, and the riverside within a walk, and staying downtown suits anyone here for the town. Its fortress looms over the gorge.
The Đetinja runs green below. Out toward Zlatibor and the hills, the town gives way to the mountain resorts, the pine forests, and the road to Mokra Gora. A room in the hills trades the streets for the wooded slopes, the clean mountain air, and the high plateau of Zlatibor.
The peaks rise all around the gorge. Stay downtown for the fortress, or up for the mountains. The gorge cuts right through the town.
About Užice
Užice is the fortress town of the Serbian mountains.
What is Užice known for?
In a steep gorge on the Đetinja river in the west of Serbia, it grew below an old castle on the cliffs, and it keeps the medieval fortress high on its crag, the deep green gorge of the Đetinja below, the old power plant that first lit the town, and the mountain roads to Zlatibor and Mokra Gora nearby. The river cuts deep through the rock. Wooded hills climb all around.
What are the main landmarks in Užice?
The old fortress is the pride of Užice. The medieval castle on its cliff above the Đetinja gorge, its towers and walls hung over the river, looks down on the town, the emblem of the city, downtown. A power plant hums by the river.
The historic plant that first lit the town still stands in the gorge, while the National Museum, the old churches, and the road to Zlatibor mark the country around Užice.
What is the history of Užice?
Užice grew below its fortress. Since the middle ages a castle stood on the crag above the Đetinja gorge, guarding the mountain road, and a town gathered under its walls. The Turks held it long.
For centuries the fortress town lay under Ottoman rule at the edge of the empire, an outpost in the western mountains, until Serbia won it back in the risings for freedom. The town lit itself early with the river. On the Đetinja the people built one of the first power plants of its kind in the world, and the river's force lit the streets of Užice before most of Europe.
War made the town famous. In the last great war Užice held out as a free republic against the occupiers, the first patch of liberated Europe, and the town paid dearly for it, but it rose again as an industrial city in the mountains, keeping its fortress, its gorge, and its river. The Đetinja still turns the old works.
Užice keeps its castle and its gorge in the Serbian hills.
Where is Užice?
Užice lies in the west of Serbia, in a narrow gorge where the Đetinja cuts through the mountains. The city sits on the valley floor and the slopes above the river, hemmed in by steep wooded hills, with the fortress crag rising over the water and the high plateau of Zlatibor spreading beyond the ridges. The gorge runs deep and green.
Mountains wall the town about.
What is the climate of Užice?
Užice has a cool, damp mountain climate. Mild summers and cold snowy winters cross the highlands, with fresh green summers in the gorge and deep snow on the hills in winter. The summer stays cool and green.
Snow buries the winter hills.
How do you get to Užice?
Užice lies in western Serbia, on the road and rail between Belgrade and the coast. The line and the highway wind to it through the mountains from Belgrade, and roads climb to Zlatibor and the Bosnian border. Trains cross the gorges.
Belgrade lies north over the hills.
Good for
More cities in Central Serbia
Updated August 2026