Before there was a Lepo Mesto, Radovan came to Lisine as a boy. Today, more than half a century later, he is the man who welcomes guests to the place he chose to make his home again.
He did not arrive as a tourist the first time.
As a boy, Radovan came up into these mountains with his grandfather during the seasonal grazing. The days passed in the forest, on the old tracks and pastures of Beljanica and Kučaj. He could not have known then that one day he would come back here to stay.
But the mountain stayed with him.
The years passed. Life took him to France, where he spent almost thirty years. Lisine, though, remained a part of him.
Before he had even decided to return to Serbia, he bought a piece of land right here.
There was no plan for Lepo Mesto yet. There was only the wish to be here again one day.
In 2011 that moment came.
Returning to Serbia was not only a return to the country he had left. It was a return to a way of life he had missed.
On that land, Lepo Mesto began to take shape.
Not all at once, and not as a finished idea. It was built, changed and grown over years. What is today a guesthouse, a restaurant and a wellness area began far more simply — with one man who decided to go back to a place he had loved long before anyone came here as a guest.
The forest is still where you will find him
Radovan still goes into the forest often.
Sometimes he is after mushrooms. Sometimes shed deer antlers. And sometimes there is no particular reason beyond the walking.
He knows these tracks and the way the forest changes with the seasons. Not because he studied them on a map, but because he has crossed them many times.
Perhaps that is why the mountain is still part of his everyday life.
The host
If you arrive at Lepo Mesto, there is a good chance Radovan will be the first to greet you.
He is the host of the house. He is there when guests arrive, when they sit down at the table and when they come back from the forest in the evening. He talks with them, shows them what there is to see and, when he goes up the mountain, sometimes takes them along.
These days his son leads most of the 4×4 adventures, but Radovan remains the man who best explains why Lepo Mesto is exactly here.
Because for him, Lisine was never a destination.
It is a gateway into the world of Beljanica and Kučaj — a world of forests, mountains and hidden roads, but also of old stories and legends still passed on here.
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