In 2019 we travelled from Mongolia to France, mostly overland, and really enjoyed the time we spent in Belgrade. So when we started planning this trip through Eastern Europe, Serbia was an easy choice.

We left Budapest early on an 8:30 a.m. FlixBus. Once we were out of the city, the scenery quickly opened into rolling countryside and vast fields of corn and sunflowers. The sunflowers weren’t quite in bloom yet, but you could imagine what it would look like a few weeks later — kilometre after kilometre of brilliant yellow stretching across the landscape.

The border crossing was straightforward. We were stamped out of Hungary and the EU, then a short drive later stamped into Serbia. We arrived at Novi Sad Central Bus Station around 1 p.m. and took a taxi to our Airbnb on the edge of the old town.

The apartment was lovely, comfortable and in a great neighbourhood, with a supermarket nearby. Best of all, there was a fantastic café just up the road which saw us every morning, usually lingering far longer than necessary over our coffee. The old town centre was only a ten-minute walk away, centred around Liberty Square and the pedestrian streets of Zmaj Jovina and Dunavska. Novi Sad itself grew up on the left bank of the Danube opposite Petrovaradin Fortress, and in 1748 became a free royal city under Empress Maria Theresa. The centre was badly damaged during the 1848 revolution and later rebuilt, which helps explain the mix of Baroque, Secession and other architectural styles that give the old town so much character today.

The main pedestrian area was lively, lined with restaurants, bars and cafés, but we didn’t eat there very often. There was rather too much pizza and burgers for our taste. Instead, we found an excellent Thai restaurant run by a Thai woman and her Serbian husband. Proper, authentic Thai food and jolly good cocktails.

They had met while working on a cruise ship and somehow ended up here, running a Thai restaurant in a northern Serbian town. I always love hearing stories like that — how people meet, where life takes them and how on earth they end up where they do. The owner was delighted to have two Australians in her restaurant in Novi Sad, and we were equally delighted to have found genuinely good Thai food.

Every morning we started with coffee at our local café before heading out to explore. One of the highlights was Petrovaradin Fortress, sitting high above the Danube on the opposite bank. Fortifications had existed on the site for centuries, but the enormous fortress you see today was built by the Habsburgs between 1692 and 1780 as a defence against the Ottoman Empire. It became known as the “Gibraltar of the Danube” and sprawls across more than 100 hectares, with bastions, gates and an extraordinary network of underground military tunnels beneath it.

The walk up was worth it for the views alone. From the top you can look across the broad sweep of the Danube towards Novi Sad, with the city spreading out on the opposite bank. We wandered around the fortress for a while, admired the famous clock tower and then, as usual, found somewhere to sit and take it all in rather than feeling the need to inspect every corner.

We also spent plenty of time wandering the old town and relaxing in beautiful Danube Park. The weather was warm and pleasant, and Novi Sad had a relaxed, friendly feel that suited us perfectly. Mostly, though, we simply lived. We bought groceries, cooked at the apartment, went out for coffee, wandered when we felt like wandering and stopped when we didn’t.

That is one of the things we enjoy most about travelling slowly. Give us a week somewhere and, rather than racing through a list of sights, we start finding our café, our supermarket and our favourite places to sit. For a few days at least, it begins to feel less like visiting somewhere and a little more like living there.

Soon enough, though, our week in Novi Sad was over.

It was time to pack the bags again and head south to Nis.