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Serbia

Things to do in Novi Sad

Why you should go

Ninety seconds on Novi Sad

Serbia's second city lies on the Danube in the Vojvodina plain, a Habsburg foundation of pastel squares under a bastioned fortress. It is the base for the Fruška Gora monasteries, the Karlovci vineyards and the river itself. Fast trains from Belgrade take about half an hour, and the centre is small enough to cross in ten minutes. July brings the EXIT festival and beds vanish; late spring and September are calmer for the same weather.

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Things to do

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  1. Dunavska Street

    Landmark · 1 hr

    Pastel shopfronts and cafe awnings line the short pedestrian run from the main square towards the Danube Park, the oldest street in the city and the one that survived the bombardments. Booksellers, a gallery and ice cream counters fill it through the afternoon. Tables spill out from April. At its far end the park offers shade and a pond for the walk back.

  2. Fruška Gora National Park

    Park · 5 hr

    South of the city a low wooded ridge rises from the Pannonian plain, its slopes holding vineyards and some sixteen Orthodox monasteries founded when the Ottomans held the land beyond. Marked walking routes link several of them and a road crosses the crest. Buses serve the main villages, while reaching the quieter monasteries needs a car. Autumn adds grape harvest and mushroom season.

  3. Name of Mary Church

    Church · 30 min

    Green and yellow Zsolnay tiles pattern the steep roof of the neo-Gothic Catholic church that closes the main square, finished in 1895 for a Hungarian congregation. Stained glass from Budapest workshops fills the nave and the tower carries the loudest bells in town. Opening hours are short outside services. Most visitors photograph it from the square, where the whole silhouette fits the frame.

  4. Petrovaradin Fortress

    Fortress · 2 hr

    Austrian engineers spent most of the eighteenth century turning a Danube bluff into a bastioned fortress, with sixteen kilometres of galleries tunnelled through the rock below. A clock tower on the terrace reverses its hands so boatmen could read the hour from the river. Studios and a museum occupy the upper town, and the EXIT festival takes the whole site over in July.

  5. Štrand

    Beach · 2 hr

    One of the better organised river beaches in Europe runs along the Danube below the fortress, a sandy strip with showers, cabins, courts and kiosks that opens from May to September. Entry is ticketed in high season and free outside it. Families take the upstream end. Current in the main channel is strong, so swimming stays inside the marked area.

Basemap Meridian · data © OpenStreetMap

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