Novi Sad is the capital of Vojvodina, the flat, fertile northern province of Serbia, and it lies on the left bank of the Danube, with a fortress on the opposite shore. The Petrovaradin Fortress, a vast eighteenth-century Habsburg bastion, rises on a rocky headland and is sometimes called the Gibraltar of the Danube. The clock tower on its wall has a curious feature: the hour hand is the long one and the minute hand the short one, so that boatmen on the river could read the time from afar. Underground there are miles of tunnels, and from the ramparts you see the whole city and the river curving through the plain.
The city has a calm, polite character, with a pedestrian centre of pastel facades, a neo-Gothic church and cafes that stay open late. It was a centre of Serbian culture in the Habsburg era, a place where writers and scholars gathered when Belgrade was still under Ottoman rule. Its bridges were destroyed in the 1999 bombing and later rebuilt. In summer the city is best known for the EXIT music festival, which began here in 2000 as a student protest and grew into one of the largest in Europe.
For riders, Novi Sad is the gateway to the Fruška Gora, a low forested ridge south of the Danube, protected as a national park. Roads wind up through woods and past vineyards, with sixteen Orthodox monasteries scattered among the hills, many founded after the Ottoman invasions, and charming small wine villages such as Sremski Karlovci. The riding is gentle, with smooth bends and good views over the plain. The wide Vojvodina flatlands elsewhere offer long straight roads and wide skies, with wind a constant.
Fuel and food are plentiful. Serbian cooking is generous, with grilled meats, stuffed peppers and thick cream. Choose between May and early October. Traffic is busy at rush hour around the bridges, and speed enforcement has become more serious, so keep your speed legal and carry your documents, including insurance.