Novi Sad, Serbia

The train journey from Budapest to Novi Sad took a very unreasonable 7 hours to cover the 260km journey. Most of the time was spent at the border crossing, with thorough passport checks for all passengers. The scenery was largely flat agricultural and once I saw a few seconds of it, I’d seen it all. The best part was once we passed the border into Serbia the air conditioning in our cabin became very underwhelming.

Our accommodation was at Hotel Vojvodina. Located next to the beautiful Catholic Church in the city centre, it was well placed, though to a basic standard. John and I shared a three bedroom top floor room with only one window akin to a skylight.

We took part in a short orientation around the city centre and then prepared for dinner.

Zoran, our group coordinator walked us to a restaurant north of the hotel called Cokaye. There we took part in a three course meal consisting of local Serbian dishes. A collection of cold meats, salads and cooked meats. It was delicious and there was definitely some overeating happen.

Our third musketeer spent the evening grumbling about the lack of air conditioning in his room, so we made the effort after dinner to show him how cold our room was whilst he had appropriated three fans for his room.

The next morning we walked south to the Petrovaradin Fortress. A beautifully constructed fortress on the bend of the Danube River and were treated to a tour through the fortress tunnels. Our guide was incredibly knowledgeable. The only shame was his obsession with introducing pop culture references for some cheap laughs. I quickly lost interest. The fortress is home to about 20km worth of tunnels, of which we only walked 1km. They say though, that once you’ve walked 1km, the remaining 19km are much the same.

A walk around the fortress exterior provided some chance photography of the surrounding area, including the Danube River and the cityscape.