Two days ago we woke up in our tents at 7.30 am, packed everything including the tent, had breakfast and got ready for the ride. We left at 9.30, so a two hour estimate between waking up and leaving is a good one for now, hopefully we will get used to putting everything away and improve our time to an hour and a half or even only an hour.

The ride from wildcamping on the other side of the river from smederevo to where we stayed that night was 75 km long. The road went right next to the Danube most of the way, we are following the European cycle track system, and some of it was easy riding but most of it was unpaved and therefore bumpy, sandy, gravelly and therefore mainly extremely exhausting.

The Serbians are exceptionally friendly, especially as they are most likely to offer help with directions. The fact that they speak neither English nor German, and we don’t speak Serbian or any or the S/C/B languages does not matter in the slightest – we still chatter away as if we all spoke the same language. It is surprising how much speaking your hands do for you.

We spent the night in a small town called The White Church, or Bela Crkva, in a small hotel right at the entry to the town that was recommended to us by yet another helpful Serbian who had spent twenty years in Vienna and therefore spoke fluent German. Mike was paranoid about leaving the bikes locked up outside until he decided to carry everything – two bikes and a trailer- upstairs, and leave them on the balcony.

Today we set off after a massive breakfast of omelette and bread and an amazing lunch of fried local river fish cooked by a very friendly old Serbian man who used 50/50 german and english. We reached the small city of golubac at 5 pm.

Today’s ride was unbelievable. We got the ferry at 1 pm from stara palanka across the Danube to ram and then went on the cycle track towards veliko gradiste. The road between there and zatonje is just incredible. I have never felt so much like I deserved a view – swallows were cruising around us while sheep were grazing on one side of the road with the Danube on the other side. As we progressed there were little islands that seemed like moors but without mosquitos and as we rode past, white birds would rise elegantly from the water and sail above our heads. Poppy flowers were strayed across fields of white and blue flowers, the kind of wild flowers you would expect in the hands of a gentleman in a tuxedo ringing your doorbell to pick you up for a date. I have said that I felt like I had entered another world before – I never felt it the way I did today. Maybe because, as I said, I had earned this view, maybe because this stretch of land was actually that special, but I was tempted to go back and do it again.

The cycle track today was paved entirely, inclines were mostly only slight inclines with very rewarding declines on the other side. I realised that if I turned my feet so my toes pointed to the floor while going slightly downhill and pedalling as hard as I could, I could make myself feel like I was actually running at 40 km/h, it was really fun.

Tonight will be an early night in the best hotel we have stayed at so far with a balcony on a promenade overlooking the Donau and the mountains in Romania, at a cost of only 25 euros. The hotel was pointed out by yet another extremely friendly German-speaking Serbian pub owner, who not only recommended this place but also called to reserve a room for us ask if they had internet and arrange for us to lock our bikes in an own bike-room, and then took us there personally! I could not be happier. Mike says the trade-off for staying here is that we will be camping the next three nights. Fine by me, this hotel is definitely worth it.

A far way into unfamiliar territory and now we fee like we’re finally on the road. Until Serbia everything was so familiar it became all about the destination and never about the journey. Now every day is a new and unique challenge and we don’t know where we will eat or even sleep next. The road goes on. We already know whenever we finally get to Sofia we’ll know we truly deserve a break. Kathi was the star of the show yesterday motoring on the final 15km when my legs were getting tired.

Belgrade was voted the best party city in Europe last year but we were there too early in the year and while we had fun we were pleased to finally be in unfamiliar territory and concentrate on other things. The first night however we went to a jazz club on the 10th floor of an old Soviet era abandoned building that we wouldn’t even have gone close to if a guide from the hostel hadn’t taken a group of us there. We spent the next day wandering around Belgrade. The city is quite nice, very hilly (the lovely guy at our hostel told us to use this as an orientation tool, to not walk downhill from the main road) and quite similar to western European cities. The area around main train station is extremely uninviting and grey, don’t let that fool you. The centre is pedestrianised and nearly tourist attractions are aligned along one big road down the centre. The end of that long road is marked by the fortress which was once the surrounding of the old city of Belgrade. The fortress is an impressive size and it looks out over the crossing of two major rivers, one of them being the Danube – pretty much our companion until we get to Bulgaria and through the iron gates.

The bombed out building near our hostel

Belgrade fortress

Cycling down the Duna/Donau/Danube was really nice but thoroughly exhausting at times due to gravel roads and a small stretch of sand we labelled The Great Serbian Desert. It was only 500m long but any sand is impossible on a fully loaded touring bike.

Finally was our most covert wild camping to date where we flattened some weeds in the middle of a forest. Even we forgot we were there at times. Putting the bikes slightly in the tent was a major bonus as we didn’t have to worry about them at all.

Did you know there is a national park just for mosquitos? Well there is, they take their holidays there and it’s situated in a place no sane person would ever try and get to, just between Novi Sad and Belgrade. We left novi sad this morning around half past 12 after having spent a fantastic night in the hostel “sova” and started cycling towards Belgrade. The first mistake we made was thinking it was a good idea to deviate from the cycle track, which was the road (cars really start to annoy you after a while, especially when they beep for no reason, or just to scare you), and to go next to the Danube. This track ended about 1 km later and we had to take our bikes across a little wooden bridge which turned out to be quite a bit of a balancing act. The next mistake came right after that – again we thought we should deviate from the cycling track (actually, I think this time we thought it was the cycling track) but the road turned into an off-road track that ended up in a little Serbian commune where the buildings were painted yellow and pink with messages like peace not war, but they didn’t seem to like cycle tourists and we were sent to go back the up-and-down-track, to fight our way through afore mentioned mosquito clouds. Finally, we made it back to the road, which again was also the cycle track, and we made it to a down past a town called bershka, where we had lunch (a face-sized slice of beef meat dripping in oil, topped with thick slices of white bread and onion bits) with a lovely 35-year-old Serbian grandpa, whose grandson is currently 9; I kid you not. The last mistake we made was to follow his advice of going back to bershka instead of following the Danube down into Belgrade. We cycled back to bershka, and the  followed signs for indija (Yes, Indija, Stuart we got there before you) where we got the train into Belgrade. Again, you may think that was cheating, but considering that the first 10 or so km we did were up and down a not-even-beaten-track which set us back about 30 normal km, we would have made into Belgrade without getting the train.

Upon arrival, mike found a guy’s cash card in the cash machine and ran after him to give it back, all the while , losing his city map, which another guy had to give us back. It was chaos. But we’re here now. In the manga hostel. For two nights. I think I will sleep well.