Petrovaradin Fortress

Petrovaradin Fortress (Petrovaradinska tvrđava) stands on a rock on the right bank of the Danube, in Petrovaradin, directly opposite the centre of Novi Sad. Because of its size and position it has long been called the “Gibraltar on the Danube”. From Rakovac it is 17–20 minutes by car. In 1991 it was listed as a spatial cultural-historical unit of great importance of the Republic of Serbia.

From the walls you look across the river to the whole of Novi Sad, and down onto the red roofs of the Lower Town of Petrovaradin. More photos: the album Petrovaradin Fortress in photos.

History

• Prehistory and Rome. Remains of a Palaeolithic settlement from 19,000–15,000 BC have been found on the rock. The first larger fortifications were built by the Romans in the 1st century BC: the fort of Cusum.
• Middle Ages. King Béla IV of Hungary brought Cistercian monks from France, who built the monastery of Bélakút here and walled it between 1247 and 1252.
• Ottoman period. In 1526 the fortress fell to the Ottomans after a two-week siege and stayed in their hands for 150 years.
• The Habsburg fortress. The Austrian army took Petrovaradin in 1687, during the Great Turkish War. On 18 October 1692 Charles Eugène de Croÿ laid the cornerstone of the fortress that stands today; building went on until 1780. Among its engineers were Mathias Keyserfeld, Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli and Michael Wamberg.
• Sieges and battles. In September 1694 the Ottoman army besieged the fortress for 23 days and withdrew when the autumn weather turned. On 5 August 1716 Prince Eugene of Savoy defeated the army of Grand Vizier Silahdar Damat Ali Pasha below its walls, at the Battle of Petrovaradin.
• The last fight. The fortress played its last military role in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, when Austrian troops tried to force it to surrender.
• EXIT. From 2001 the fortress hosted the EXIT music festival every summer. In June 2025 the organisers announced that the 2025 festival would be the last one in Serbia (Mixmag).

The clock tower

The best-known landmark of the fortress is its white clock tower. Its hands are the other way round: the big hand shows the hours and the small hand the minutes, so that fishermen on the Danube could read the hour from far away. The supercell storms of 19 and 21 July 2023 badly damaged the tower. Restoration began on 14 October 2024 (021.rs). The original gilded top with the apple, the compass points and the weather vane went to the City Museum of Novi Sad, and a gilded replica now stands in its place; at the end of May 2025 the works were nearly finished (021.rs).

The underground galleries

Under the fortress runs a system of underground military galleries about 16 km long on four levels, one of the largest among European fortifications. It was built between 1765 and 1783 to plans by the engineer Major Schröder. Rows of loopholes, with vents for the powder smoke, faced the ground where enemy troops would stand (City Museum of Novi Sad).

Three underground wells in the fortress still work; the best known is the Emperor’s Well, Carski bunar (Novosti). Guides tell that Emperor Joseph II, son of Maria Theresa, drank from it (Aktivni odmor).

Go into the galleries only with a guide: without one the tunnels are easy to get lost in and dangerous. The City Museum of Novi Sad, which has its premises in the fortress, can be reached on (021) 6433-145; private tours of the underground are also run by local agencies.

The Lower Town and the casemates

Below the fortress, between the rock and the Danube, lies the Lower Town, the old Podgrađe. It is protected together with the fortress: the official name of the monument is “Upper and Lower Petrovaradin Fortress with Podgrađe” (Wikipedia). Along the walls stand casemates, and vaulted passages and steps lead up through the slopes.

The railway tunnel and the lost bridge

In 1883 a railway tunnel 341 m long was cut through the rock under the fortress, for the new line from Zemun through Petrovaradin and Novi Sad to Subotica (Luftika). From the tunnel the trains ran straight onto the Franz Joseph Bridge, a steel railway bridge over the Danube opened on 11 November 1883.

The bridge did not survive the Second World War. In April 1941 the Royal Yugoslav Army blew it up to slow the German advance; the Germans rebuilt it, and on 22 October 1944, retreating, they destroyed it again. It was never rebuilt. Its piers still stand in the Danube below the fortress; for EXIT 2022 one of them was painted as a yellow submarine (Visit Distrikt, Wikipedia).

Without its bridge the tunnel lost its purpose. It has since served as a military store and for growing mushrooms; today it stands empty, and the city’s plan for Petrovaradin foresees turning it into an exhibition space about the history of the fortress (021.rs).

The road bridge below the fortress, the Varadin Bridge, is also new: the old one was destroyed in the NATO bombing on 1 April 1999, and the present bridge was built on its piers in 2000.

Clint Eastwood on the walls

In 1969 MGM shot the war comedy Kelly’s Heroes in Yugoslavia, with Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland. Some of it was filmed very close to Rakovac: at the castle in Beočin and at the old coal mine in Vrdnik (B92). Between takes the 39-year-old Eastwood visited Novi Sad and rested at Petrovaradin; the photographer Lawrence Schiller photographed him on the fortress and on the Novi Sad quay (Telegraf). Those photos belong to a photo agency, so we can only link to them.

Visiting

The fortress is in Petrovaradin; from Rakovac the drive takes 17–20 minutes. Allow at least a couple of hours: for the walls and the views, the clock tower, the museum and the streets of the Lower Town below.