History records that on the right bank of the Danube, on the Petrovaradin rock, the Celts, Romans and Hungarians all had settlements and forts at some point, and at the end of the 17th century, during the Habsburg Monarchy, the construction of the new fortress began, which was supposed to protect the southern borders of the Monarchy from the Turks. Petrovaradin Fortress – “the Gibraltar of the Danube”, was built in the period from 1692 to 1780 and it covers an area of 112 hectares. The fortress has the Upper and Lower Town (Podgrađe). The Upper Town is dominated by the Clock Tower built on the site of an older one, demolished in mid-18th century. The diameter of the watch is over two meters. The dial is placed in the direction of the four compass points, the hours are written in Roman numerals, and the hands are reversed: the big hand shows hours, the small one minutes.
A unique attraction of the Petrovaradin Fortress are the underground military galleries, a four-story communication-defense system which is 16 km long. The construction of this complicated system was completed in 1783. Part of the network of corridors, rooms of various purposes, battle lines with loopholes and mine systems about 1 km long are available to visitors under the professional guidance of the Guiding Service of the Museum of the City of Novi Sad.
At the foot of the Fortress is the Roman Catholic Church of St. Juraj with a monastery built in the Baroque style between 1701 and 1714. In the basement there is a crypt where the representatives of the high nobility were buried, killed in battles with the Turks starting in 1696 and the most famous – the Battle of Petrovaradin, which took place in August 1716.
The Baroque Lower Town is still an insufficiently known architectural gem that preserves centuries-old stories and myths within the houses of colorful facades.
On the southern outskirts of Petrovaradin there are Tekije, a site where today stands a unique Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Mary of the Snows. The modern temple, built in 1881, was built on the site where a mosque stood at one point in time. The construction of a church that has a crescent at the top of the dome below the cross is associated with the victory of the Christian army over the Turks in August 1716.