Sremski Karlovci
The peace of 1699, a school from 1791, and bermet from the cellars
- When to go
- October 14° · 6 rainy days
- Per day
- €price 1 of 5
- How many days
- ½days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 52 km Belgrade
- Right now
Sremski Karlovci is a half-day trip from Novi Sad, nine kilometres down the Danube in a straight line. The 1699 treaty that ended the Holy League's war with the Ottoman Empire was signed here, and the talks were the first in diplomatic history held at a round table — so that no delegation sat at its head.
The Karlovci Gymnasium has taught since 1791 and is the oldest Serbian grammar school; the First Kragujevac Gymnasium, from 1833, is the oldest south of the Sava and the Danube — Karlovci then lay in the Habsburg Monarchy, Kragujevac in the Principality of Serbia. Three years after the school, Metropolitan Stefan Stratimirović opened a seminary, which still teaches today.
Bermet is an aromatised dessert wine made with herbs and spices and tied to Fruška Gora; the name has been protected in Serbia since 2007 and in the World Intellectual Property Organization's international register since 2011. Karlovci has about fifteen wineries and cellars, and a tasting is arranged with the cellar before you turn up. The Karlovci grape harvest festival takes a weekend in September.
Guides for Sremski Karlovci
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Sremski Karlovci in 1 day
→The 1699 peace treaty takes less time to see than the journey to it — the centre is walked in a morning, and the…
Day trips from Sremski Karlovci
→Karlovci is rarely visited without Novi Sad — nine kilometres downstream, on the same bus that brought you here, with…
Where to stay in Sremski Karlovci
→Karlovci itself has no three-star hotel and no hostel — the offer is apartments, villas and one five-star hotel, so a…
What to eat in Sremski Karlovci
→Karlovci is remembered for the glass, not the plate — bermet is an aromatised wine tied specifically to this town, and…
The best time to visit Sremski Karlovci
→Sremski Karlovci can be visited year-round, but September pairs comfortable temperatures with the Karlovci grape…
What to see in Sremski Karlovci
The Karlovci Gymnasium
The present building, in Serbo-Byzantine style, went up in 1891 to designs by the Budapest architect Gyula Partos. The school library holds 18,198 books and 8,481 volumes of periodicals.
free (from outside) · booking: no (from outside)
The Cathedral of St Nicholas
A Baroque church from 1758–1762, its towers and dome designed by Zaharije Orfelin in 1760. It was the cathedral of the Metropolitanate, later the Patriarchate, of Karlovci; a cultural monument of exceptional importance.
free
The Four Lions Fountain
Red marble, 1799, built for the town's first water supply to a design by the Italian Giuseppe Aprili. The story goes that whoever drinks from it comes back to Karlovci — and marries here.
free
The Chapel of Peace
A Catholic chapel of 1817, built where the house of the 1699 talks stood. It is oval, after the round table, with four doors — one for each power, whose envoys entered at the same moment.
free
Stražilovo
A valley on Fruška Gora, four kilometres from the centre in a straight line. The poet Branko Radičević, a pupil of the Karlovci school, is buried here: he died in Vienna in 1853 and his remains were brought here in 1883. The Fruška Gora hiking transversal starts from here.
free
Two things you probably did not know
The Treaty of Karlowitz was signed in 1699 in a pavilion with four doors, so that every delegation could enter at once and none would be second. The talks were held at a round table, one of the first used for exactly that reason.
The Karlovci grammar school opened in 1791 and is the oldest Serbian gymnasium. It was founded with money from the merchant Dimitrije Anastasijevic Sabov, in a town that was then the seat of the Serbian church in the Habsburg monarchy.
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