AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Milivska Klisura is a leafy little gorge and picnic ground tucked behind the village of Miliva, about five kilometres from Despotovac in central Serbia. Its quiet magic is a river that simply appears from under a rock: the spring of the Milivka bubbles up between a stone wall and a short cave, crosses the path on small footbridges and slips away down through the trees. Set around a rebuilt 15th-century hilltop church and a shady clearing full of benches, it is the kind of low-key local escape where families come to eat, wander and do very little at all.↗↗↗
A gorge that is really a spring
At its heart Milivska Klisura is the source of the Milivka river, which rises right here beneath a rock face, runs a short length through the gorge, passes through the village below and eventually joins the larger Resava. Water is the thread that ties the whole visit together: you can watch it well up out of the ground, follow it as it tumbles and listen to it murmur under the footbridges that have been built to carry the path across the stream. It is not a dramatic canyon—the gorge is gentle and overgrown, far smaller than Serbia's famous river defiles—but its combination of clear water, mossy stone and dense green canopy earns it a reputation as one of the prettiest excursion spots in the area.