Novi Sad and the Danube fortress at Petrovaradin

Novi Sad is a city on the Danube, and a gentler place than Belgrade. But the thing that dominates it is on the other bank. On the heights above the river, facing the city, stands the Petrovaradin fortress, a vast spread of walls and bastions that was once counted the strongest stronghold of the Habsburg empire.

The Gibraltar on the Danube

The fortress was built between 1692 and 1780, a project of nearly ninety years, and when it was finished it was considered the strongest fortress in the Habsburg lands. Its thick walls, its size and its hundreds of guns earned it a nickname: the Gibraltar on the Danube. Nobody, it was said, could take it.

It is worth standing on the city side of the river first and looking across. From there you see the fortress as its builders meant it to be seen, a long, low, immovable line of stone along the heights, with the river in front of it as a moat no army could easily cross. Then cross over and climb up, and the view turns round: the city, the river and the plain beyond, all laid out below you, which is exactly the view the gunners had.

The view from the walls takes in the river, the bridges and the whole of Novi Sad spread out on the far bank, and in the evening it is a very good place to watch the light go.

The drunk clock

The fortress's most famous feature is a small one. On its clock tower, which dates from around the middle of the eighteenth century, the hands are the wrong way round: the hour hand is long and the minute hand short. The usual explanation is that boatmen on the Danube, looking up from the river, needed to read the hour from a distance, and the long hand made that easier. It may even be true.

The locals call it the drunk clock, partly for its reversed hands and partly because it does not keep very good time. It is still wound by hand, and it is said to run a few minutes slow in the cold and a few minutes fast in the heat, like a man who is never quite on time for anything.

The Serbian Athens

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Novi Sad was a centre of Serbian culture, so much so that it was called the capital of it. That earned it its own nickname, the Serbian Athens.

It has had harder times since. In 1999, during the Kosovo war, the city's bridges over the Danube were destroyed by NATO bombing. The city has bridges across the river again, and in 2022 the city was the first in Serbia to be a European Capital of Culture. Its programme took bridges as its theme, naming four of them Freedom, Rainbow, Hope and Love. The year shared its title with Esch in Luxembourg and Kaunas in Lithuania, and Novi Sad began its celebrations on 13 January, the Serbian New Year's Eve under the old Julian calendar, which seems a very Novi Sad way to start something: on time, by its own reckoning.

For years the fortress was also the home of EXIT, a music festival held there each July. If you are planning around it, check the latest news, because its organisers have spoken of moving on.

Tours that reach Novi Sad

Three tours in the catalogue include Novi Sad. None of them names the Petrovaradin fortress in its list of places, so if the fortress is the reason for going, check the itinerary.

Explore Worldwide's fifteen-night Grand Tour of Romania, Serbia & Bulgaria includes Bucharest, Sinaia, Bran Castle, Moieciu, Brasov and Sibiu, Corvin Castle and Orsova, then Viminacium, Belgrade, Novi Sad and Devil's Town. It has departures in every month from April to October.

Just You's twelve-night Balkan Explorer covers Romania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Serbia. Its places include Bucharest, Veliko Tarnovo, Sofia, Skopje, Niš, Belgrade and Novi Sad, then Timisoara, Sibiu, Brasov, Zarnesti and Bran.

Travelsphere's twelve-night Balkan Highlights includes Novi Sad and Belgrade, along with Split, Zadar, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Zagreb, Zlatibor, Višegrad, Sarajevo, Mostar, Medugorje and Trogir.

With a few hours in Novi Sad, cross the river to Petrovaradin, climb up to the clock, and stay for the sunset over the Danube. Then walk back across the bridge into the city for dinner.