Explore South Bačka: Fruška Gora Wine & Novi Sad's Beach

Fruška Gora has grown grapes since Roman times, but the hills' most distinctive product is Bermet, a spiced, fortified dessert wine made in Sremski Karlovci to family recipes guarded for generations — historically prestigious enough to have reportedly reached European royal courts, and today genuinely rare, since almost nowhere else in the world still makes it. Modern family-run wineries across the same Fruška Gora slopes that hold sixteen Orthodox monasteries offer tastings of Bermet alongside more conventional reds and whites, wine and monastic heritage sharing the same hillsides rather than competing attractions.

Štrand is Novi Sad's city beach on the Danube, a short walk from the pedestrian centre — a long stretch of sand and grass that fills with locals through the summer rather than functioning as a tourist sight to photograph from a distance. Cafés line the back of the beach, a designated swimming area covers the river frontage, and the whole space functions as a genuine part of Novi Sad's daily rhythm in warm weather, a real counterpoint to the fortress and old-town sightseeing on the opposite bank.

In 2022, Novi Sad became the first non-European Union city ever to hold the title of European Capital of Culture — a genuine institutional milestone that brought a full year of exhibitions, performances and festivals to the city, along with new and renovated cultural venues that remain in regular use well beyond the headline year itself. The designation reflected Novi Sad's existing cultural weight (the Exit Festival, the Matica Srpska gallery, the city's historic multicultural character) as much as it created something new, and the legacy infrastructure gives visitors more year-round cultural programming than the city carried before.