Cacak to Novi Sad

Cacak to Novi Sad
Saturday, August 08, 2009
1:42 AM

So Mitch and Ronnie's days were numbered and we all wanted to go to Budapest but instead of heading straight there we decided to spend a night in Novi Sad, which is about an hour or so out of Belgrade and the second most populous city in Serbia. The girls had a flight out the next day but wanted to check it out so they came with us and grabbed a really early taxi the next morning.

Once we got into the city it struck me how pretty it was. It wasn't a huge city like Barcelona, Turin, or Belgrade but it wasn't a smallish town like Cacak. The downtown area was absolutely gorgeous and after we settled in we walked up to the fortress that, like all towns on the Danube, was on a hill and overlooked the river. Once we got to the top of the fortress there was a great restaurant that looked expensive but was actually reasonably priced so we all sat down and had dinner. Although I've complained about the two hour meals in the past this one was perfect. The place was packed so the chatter was perfect, the view of the city was absolutely amazing, there was great live music and everyone agreed that the food was delicious.

Probably the strangest thing about Serbian food is what they consider a salad. While I did not discuss it when we had dinner before the second night of Guca in Cacak we were told that the café had the absolute best Greek salads in town. That salad consisted of no lettuce. When we ordered a mixed salad to start at the fortress I figured it would have lettuce, it did, a single leaf. The salads are delicious but they end up being really heavy and built much more like a potato salad than what Americans would consider a salad.

After the great dinner we wandered around and took a lot of pictures. On the way home we headed downtown and grabbed a drink at the market and spent a bit of the evening people watching on the steps of a store. All the bars were situated in one narrow alley and it was jam packed. Once we decided to venture into one (that was playing Journey no less) it got shut down as it was too late, and considering the musical taste of the bar it was surely for the best.