Eastern Danube, Day 8: Novi Sad

Saturday, August 1, 2026

Today Kenna and I opted to take a bus trip to Novi Sad, the second largest city in Serbia. The bus ride was a bit over an hour. We began our visit at Petrovaradin Fortress, which provided excellent views of the city and nearby Danube.

We then proceeded into Novi Sad, and were led on a short walking tour of the downtown area. Like yesterday, it was a really hot day so we all sought shade wherever available. Novi Sad is a very attractive city, with a very pleasant downtown shopping district, many restaurants, and a variety of places for people of different faiths to worship, including Orthodox Christian, Catholic, and Jewish.

After our tour, we had a couple of hours on our own so we stopped at a local Serbian restaurant where we shared a šopska salad, another of my local favorites.

After the bus ride back to the AmaVerde, we opted to stay on board due to the heat rather than explore more of Belgrade. As this was the last night on the AmaVerde, we had a special cocktail reception honoring all the members of the crew, followed by dinner.

The Captain decided to do a special cruise later in the evening. We left our berth on the Sava River, cruised to the Danube and then west to the nearby town of Zemun and back. During this time, a Viking cruise ship left its berth allowing us to take its place in a more convenient location, especially with disembarkation happening tomorrow. The cruise was quite scenic, with the lights of Belgrade around us. We and many of the other passengers enjoyed the scenery from the Sun Deck.

The rest of the evening was taken up repacking our bags for disembarkation. We will have a short night, since we have been asked to have our bags ready for collection at 6:30 am.

This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.