Belgrade & Vojvodina

Belgrade stands where the Sava meets the Danube, a site so defensible that it has been fought over for two thousand years. The Celtic Scordisci settled there before Rome made it Singidunum, a legionary fortress on the Danube frontier; Slavs gave it its name, "white city", and Byzantines, Bulgarians, Hungarians and Serbs held it in turn. The Ottomans took it in 1521, and Austrians and Turks traded it several times in the 18th century. It became the capital of the revived Serbian state, and the last Ottoman garrison left the fortress in 1867.

North of the rivers the story was different. After the Ottoman retreat of the 1680s the plain passed to the Habsburgs, who ran it as the Military Frontier and resettled it. Serbs fleeing the Ottomans arrived in the Great Migration of 1690, followed by Hungarians, Germans, Slovaks, Romanians and Rusyns, creating the patchwork that still defines Vojvodina. Prince Eugene of Savoy defeated the Ottomans at Senta in 1697, and the Treaty of Karlowitz was signed at Sremski Karlovci two years later. Karlovci became the seat of the Serbian church in the Habsburg lands, and in 1848 an assembly there proclaimed a Serbian Vojvodina, which gave the region its name.

In 1918 Vojvodina joined Serbia and the new Yugoslav kingdom. During the Second World War Hungary occupied Bačka and carried out the Novi Sad raid of January 1942, and in 1944–45 most of the German-speaking population fled with the retreating German army or was interned in camps. Vojvodina became an autonomous province, lost much of its autonomy under Milošević at the start of the 1990s, and regained part of it after 2000. On 1 November 2024 the collapse of a canopy at Novi Sad railway station killed sixteen people and set off a nationwide protest movement.

Vojvodina calls itself Serbia's most tolerant corner. The province has six official languages — Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian and Rusyn — and Hungarians have lived since the 18th century in towns along the Tisa such as Kanjiža and Senta and in Subotica, where the Catholic Bunjevci also live. Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Greek Catholic churches stand in the same villages. Kovačica, a Slovak village in the Banat, is known for its naive painting, bright scenes of village life by self-taught local painters.

The plain has its own manners: slower speech, a reputation for calm and hospitality, tamburica string bands and the Hungarian csárdás in the countryside, and a strong wine and harvest culture in Srem and around Vršac. Novi Sad's EXIT, a summer music festival that grew out of the 2000 student movement for democracy, was held at Petrovaradin until its last edition in 2025.

Belgrade is a different animal: loud, sociable and proud of its nightlife, from the river barges known as splavovi to the kafanas where old-town bands play starogradska songs. Red Star and Partizan split the city in football and basketball. As everywhere in Serbia, families celebrate their slava, a patron saint's day, and Orthodox Christmas and Easter set the calendar.

Belgrade has about 1.7 million people, a quarter of Serbia's population, and is the country's political, financial and media centre, with a growing IT and outsourcing sector and a construction boom symbolised by the Belgrade Waterfront towers on the Sava. Zemun, once a separate Habsburg town, is now part of the city. Novi Sad, with about 370,000 people, has a large university and a strong tech scene; Subotica, Zrenjanin, Pančevo and Sombor are the other main towns.

Vojvodina's black soil makes it the country's granary: maize, wheat, sunflowers, sugar beet and soya fill the plain, and food processing, oil refining in Pančevo and car and tyre plants add industry. Villages are shrinking and ageing, and many young people from the Hungarian minority have moved to Hungary or further into the EU.

The day runs on coffee — Turkish-style domaća kafa or espresso on a café terrace — with a late lunch as the main meal and evenings on the promenades of Knez Mihailova in Belgrade and the old centre of Novi Sad. Traffic and air pollution are constant complaints in the capital, and since late 2024 student-led protests and road blockades have been part of city life.

The plain cooks Central European as much as Balkan. Paprikaš, a paprika stew of chicken or pork, and perkelt, its thicker Hungarian cousin, come from the Hungarian kitchen; riblja čorba or fish paprikaš, carp, catfish and pike simmered in a cauldron over an open fire, is the dish of the Danube and Tisa riverbanks. Srem is known for its smoked sremska kobasica sausage, and Bački Petrovac for kulen, a spicy paprika-cured pork sausage made by the local Slovak community. Pork crackling, smoked ham and fresh sausages mark the winter pig slaughter, the svinjokolj.

Sweets show the Habsburg legacy: štrudla s makom, a poppy-seed strudel, and štrudla s orasima with walnuts, knedle, plum dumplings rolled in breadcrumbs, and šnenokle, meringue islands floating in vanilla custard.

Belgrade adds the national grill — ćevapi, pljeskavica patties, with kajmak, a salty clotted cream — along with burek at dawn and karađorđeva šnicla, a rolled breaded veal cutlet stuffed with kajmak that was created in the city. Drink is rakija, especially plum šljivovica and pear viljamovka, and wine from Fruška Gora and Vršac; Sremski Karlovci's bermet, a sweet aromatised wine, is the local speciality.

In Belgrade, Kalemegdan is the place to begin: the Belgrade Fortress, its walls, gates and military museum set in a park on the ridge above the Sava–Danube confluence, with the Victor monument looking out over Zemun and the plain. Skadarlija, a short walk away, is the cobbled bohemian street of kafanas and musicians. Knez Mihailova leads between the two, and further afield are the Church of Saint Sava, the Nikola Tesla Museum, the Museum of Yugoslavia with Tito's tomb, the riverfront of Zemun and the island lake of Ada Ciganlija.

Novi Sad's centre is a compact Habsburg town of squares, the town hall and Dunavska street. Across the Danube, the Petrovaradin fortress, built by the Habsburgs through the 18th century, has underground galleries and a clock tower whose hands are reversed, the large one marking the hours so boatmen could read it from the river. Sremski Karlovci, a few kilometres downstream, has the Patriarchate palace, the cathedral, the Four Lions fountain, the Chapel of Peace and wine cellars.

Behind it rise the Fruška Gora hills, a national park of linden and oak woods holding more than a dozen Orthodox monasteries, among them Krušedol, Novo Hopovo, Grgeteg and Vrdnik. In the far north, Subotica has an Art Nouveau town hall, a Secession-style synagogue and the Raichle palace, and Lake Palić, a short ride away, has a lakeside park, villas and a zoo. Further sights include Vršac's hilltop tower, the Deliblato Sands and the wetlands of Carska Bara and Obedska Bara.