On the contrary, the city has the charm & elegance that Belgrade doesn’t. Still, of course we need variety in our cities otherwise they’d all be the same – which would be sad.
I have a concern though – I’m in Novi Sad for four nights. That’s a long time in a city that people say you could do in a day, two if you’re taking your time and I see what they mean. My allocation of four nights wasn’t an error as such, rather it is timed in accordance with my next destination, pricing etc… It was either stay in bombed Belgrade for a further four more nights or hope Novi Sad could bring something new. The choice wasn’t a hard one. The thing is already I know I could have a real nice time here as I’m getting a good vibe to it already so early on. It would be great to have some beers, food and generally hang out but there are a noticeable lack of tourists around. What about in my hostel I hear you ask…
This hostel was recommended by Igor – the Croatian chap from the Belgrade hostel. He personally vouched for this place so I need not have looked any further and so I didn’t. Lesson learnt here though – stick to my own proven methods in future!
In short, it’s pretty awful. No English speaking guests, scanky rooms, scanky kitchen and a strange communal area which is blatantly just their lounge. As in, do they live here!? Certainly the dog looks very content. Yes, dog. Worst of all it has the most inconsistent WIFI connection I’ve ever used to-date. Needless to say I’ll be booking elsewhere as soon as I can – even if it’s for just a night or two. All that displeasure from a recommendation, hey.
Thankfully I was observant to the fact that the main central square offers free WIFI so I’ve had to leave the hostel for a couple of hours each day with my laptop just to get a good Internet connection to look up where and what to do around here as the ‘reception’ people are clearly more reactive than proactive in terms of dishing out assistance for tourist information. In fact, I am finishing this blog post off from McDonalds!
I’ve discovered that once a year Novi Sad hosts a big festival called EXIT. Get this, it was officially proclaimed as the ‘Best Major European festival’ at the EU Festival Awards in January 2014. Unsurprisingly then the location of this festival would need to be somewhere special; how about in the gardens of a fortress close to the Danube River – The Petrovaradin Fortress.
The photos also finally compliment the Danube better reflecting this mighty river and its associated scenery – unlike the dull image I posted the other day from Belgrade.
The fortress is located in a different province to where I am staying and so I took the above photos from the all-important bridge responsible for connecting the two communes. It was also a nice surprise for entry to the fortress to be free and so I ascended…
I only spent a small amount of time up here once I’d taken some photos but if you were with a significant other, you could easily pass away a few hours up there in relative peace and serenity. There are naturally some touristy spots for a coffee overlooking the Danube.
I did a heck of a lot of walking today so I filled a lot of the day just by getting to and from the fortress.
I’ll hope to post up at least a second time from Novi Sad in the next day or two but after that, the next time you hear from me I *should* be in a different country and it will involve a relatively short plane journey.
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