Novi Sad, Serbia

We are now well and truly back into the world of Real Travelling. Eight hours on a rickety old bus, with nobody speaking English at either end, nor anywhere inbetween. I was the only tourist and thus the only person to get hauled off the bus at the Bosnian-Serbian border. The Serbian border guard had that characteristic look of forced civility, of suppressed violence, the bearing of a man who's inclined to shoot you in the head and resents you failing to appreciate the effort it's costing him not to do so.

But he waved me through, eventually. And so off we trundled into Serbia, the bus driver continuing to smoke like a chimney through his open window.  I wonder if he was communicating with oncoming drivers via smoke signals? Either that or he was attempting telepathy, because it was a very winding road and some of his high-speed overtaking manouevres were speculative to say the least. It made for an interesting journey.

Even though Novi Sad is relatively tourist-free, most of the locals speak pretty good English. I don't think the local food quite matches what I had in Bosnia, but the burgers and pizzas are excellent, and anyway the beer more than makes up for it. Serbia is home to several first-rate breweries, most notably Kabinet, whose wares I look forward to somebody importing to the UK at the earliest opportunity.

Novi Sad's old town has several really nice bars where you can pick up these and other local beers for the equivalent of two quid or so. It also has an eclectic mix of Islamic and Eastern Orthodox architecture, as well as a fair bit of evocative Warsaw Pact-era bleakness; nowadays the latter has a certain charm of its own, and anyway I think even the dullest Soviet-style stone cube is still preferable to the ravages of 1960s town planning back in the UK.

I freely confess that I had never heard of Novi Sad until I started researching my trip. But I'm glad I came. This place is a hidden treasure, an oasis, and it can't last forever - I have no doubt that in decades to come I will look back at this and thank God I got here when I did, before everyone else found out about it. As it is, now that I've been, I don't mind if you all check it out and I heartily recommend that you do so. Fly to Belgrade and then it's just one hour on a bus. Provided you don't mind the driver having a fag along the way.

Freedom Square

The Name of Mary Church

Bishop's Palace

Petrovaradin Fortress

Edd vs Food #65
At the Banjalučki Ćevap Grill
Don't know what it's called (no English menu, just Serbian & pictures)
Several animals were harmed in the making of this dish.