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.