Day 22--Novi Sad to Belgrade, Serbia

LA PETIT PIAF

Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Novi Sad to Belgrade, Serbia
Distance: 55 km (34 miles)

X+--A short ride today takes us to Belgrade, capital of Serbia and formerly the capital of Yugoslavia. You'll have the afternoon to relax and explore this capital city, with its Kalemegdan Fortress overlooking the confluence of the Sava with the Danube, with its relaxed cafes and delicious pastry.

What the Guidebook says:

The Danube (Dunav) runs for 500 km (310 miles) through Serbia, with Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, situated at mile 727 of its total 1771-mile length.

       Belgrade is one of the oldest European cities and certainly one with a most tempestuous past. A striking feature is its extraordinary geographic location at the mouth of the Sava River into the Danube, on the main roads connecting Central Europe with the Middle East.    
      On the shores of Belgrade there are numerous natural, and several man-made beaches, pleasant picnic areas and an uncountable number of private barges and boat-restaurants. Above the confluence of the two rivers rises the Belgrade fortress around which many nations and armies fought bloody battles. It dates back to the days when the Celts lived here and its history reflects the whole history of this part of Europe.

Today we rode from Novi Sad to Belgrade, Serbia. I am writing this from our hotel, La Petit Piaf, after a hair raising ride in spots. I started with Judy today, or she with me. First we had a 5-km (3-mile) climb with lots of trucks and traffic. On the steep hill with no shoulder, I was pushed off the road by three trucks following each other, each pulling another open truck of gravel. They came so close that it was adrenalin sapping.

Top of a hill where Carolyn and Harold briefly joined us; my little camera just cannot capture the view

I waited for Judy at the top, and then we rode through the country on bumpy, lumpy roads—through vast areas of corn and wheat and through apple, peach, and cherry orchards—one olive grove. At first I thought the wheat fields that climbed up over a hill in the distance was a huge dam. I took photos also of the elderberry bushes. Much of our route has been lined with elderberry bushes (above) from the start, and they are now heavy with ripe elderberries.

Plowed and planted fields rising ovver a distant hill--at first I thought it was a dam

About 25 km (15 miles) outside of Belgrade, we were arrowed to a very busy road that was full of buses, trucks, and the little, tinny cars that most drive over here. They all come MUCH too close, but the buses and trucks are the worst because they pull in too soon and I have to brake or they will hit me with their rear ends.

Peasant cart and watermelon sales in outlying village

At one point, I found myself riding very carefully beside a double truck on about 5 inches of humped asphalt before the ditch. As I said, it is adrenalin sapping. I was pushed off the road on this section of road, too . . . by an oncoming car that was passing a bus. The car was coming straight at me and not budging an inch. Fortunately there was a bit of concrete apron that I managed to pull off on.

A family paints their house to match their car or buys a car to match their house color?

Belgrade in background and the steep cobbled hill that Judy and I decided to walk down

Not your usual city street

Watermelon mania is rampant; photo on left taken at an intersection; right at the bottom of the cobblestone hill

These two beautiful pictures are from the Internet and look like paintings, but they depict wonderfully the people and the melon mania that was going on in July

When we got to Belgrade, we rode steep cobblestone back streets for a bit. Detouring off these streets, we could navigate river-stone paths to cliffs that looked down upon the river. We could see Belgrade in the hazy distance.

One of our river stone paved detours to cliffs that looked down on the river; that is Belgrade in the distance

After riding these steep back streets, we found ourselves in a park. We stopped for a rest on a park bench and a drink, and then we rode a bike path by the river, and then on a bike lane over a city bridge that had a bike elevator on it. Believe it. With an elevator operator. Wonders never cease.

The glass bike elevator at the end of the bridge over the Danube; I'm fumbling around in my rack pack, while the elevator operator waits and Judy takes a photo

When we got to the other side of the bridge, a guy was actually operating the elevator for cyclists. He pushed the right buttons and took us to river leve, and then we biked a path again and finally through very busy city streets to this hotel, La Petit Piaf.

La Petit is lovely, but we are squeezed into the Eiffel Tower Room which is under the eaves in the attic. We have been asked for our passports and Jovan tells us that when we get to the border we will need to show evidence of what hotel we’ve stayed in every night. Very different from the EU countries. We got into our room this evening by tapping in five code numbers and then by pressing our index finger on a glass plate when a red light came on. The receptionist took us up and ran us through this procedure . . . several times for me. It wasn’t until I’d dried the sweat from my finger that I was finally admitted to the inner sanctum—about the size of a large berth, and we have two bags each.

La Petit Piaf--Rod on the steps

The peek-a-boo corner of our floor; the flower-bedecked restaurant we ate in

After the shower and clothes washing ritual, I had a cold beer and bought Judy a Sprite to go with our Bureks (mushrooms and layers of flake pastry) that Stefania had bought for each of us for a different packed lunch. We also had an apple strudel in our snack pack.

Despite the short day, it had taken us a long time to reach the hotel, so we really had little afternoon in which to stroll the city. When we went downstairs we found that Stefania had bought the watermelon we’d asked her to stop and buy. Rod and Bob were on the terrace trying to cut it with a table knife, so I went back to the room and brought my camping knife down. We ate watermelon and spit watermelon seeds into the shrubbery until we’d polished off about half the melon. Then Judy and I took a brief walk around this section of the city.

Dinner this evening was on our own. Judy and I ate at one of the many flower bedecked restaurants in this area: soup and salad since we’d had our snack pack so late and were not hungry enough for a big dinner.

Every restaurant in this touristy cobblestoned square had men playing mandolins and bass and singing to the customers. The restaurants were so close together that it was a festival of sound.

Inset of the bread we were served; it was very good