Novi Sad to Belgrade

September 11, 2015

The weather forecast for today was for overcast skies, but no rain. It was wrong. As I left Novi Sad, it was pouring.

The fortress in Novi Sad in the morning, in the rain.

I spotted a pair of touring cyclists as I was leaving town. We leap leap-frogged each other a few times, and then I asked if we could ride together for a bit. They were a young couple from Austria. Together we decided to take the "alternate" EV6 route, which avoids some traffic and hills, but which the guidebook suggests avoiding in bad weather. I thought perhaps the guidebook was outdated, as maps.me shows the road in white lines and usually uses brown for unpaved roads. We were anxious enough to avoid the traffic and hill in the rain that we were willing to risk it being unpaved. The first 50 meters or so was nice.

This nice, freshly paved road didn't last long before, just around the corner, the pavement degraded, then turned to gravel, then turned to mud.

Then there was some old broken up pavement, and then there was no pavement at all. The road turned into a muddy dirt track for several kilometers, and although it didn't have the really big hill of the main route, it did have some smaller steep hills that were difficult with the mud. The best thing on that part of the route was that it stopped raining, although the sun didn't come out. When we finally made it back to pavement, we stopped for a celebratory snack. The bikes were filthy!

We continued on, and it became clear that they were quite a bit faster than I am. At a rest stop, I told them that I wasn't going to try to keep up, thanked them for their company on the rough section which I would not have wanted to do on my own, and wished them a good journey. We rolled on, and they disappeared into the distance.

Shortly after that, two German cyclists came up behind me. They were quite chatty, and slowed to my pace until the next town, where we stopped and ate our packed lunches at a bench in front of a shop, in the company of several local men who seemed to be just hanging out. The gregarious Germans had conversation with them about where they are from, where they are going, how long it takes, and do on, in a polyglot of German, Serbian and Russian. We bought some fruit from a stand on the corner, and shared it all around. When we left, we wished each other good journeys, and they disappeared into the distance.

There were 2 other pairs of cyclists I saw several times during the day today, but I didn't spend time with them.

I'm not sure why I saw so many cyclists today when I hadn't the previous days on EV6, but I think there is, as expected, a small train of cyclists making their way along EV6 to the Black Sea.

It was a long way to Belgrade for me, especially after the extra effort needed on the unpaved road this morning. Traffic got bad around Batajnika, a suburb of Belgrade. I made a brief stop there, noted I'd been negligent and not taken many pictures today, so snapped one in the main square.

Impressive statue in Batajnika, in the Belgrade suburbs. It is a WW2 memorial.

Then I continued on the road to Belgrade, and the traffic got worse until it was at a standstill. I worked my way forward on the bike, and found the source of the traffic backup.

A truck was jack-knifed on the road. Traffic was backed up in both directions.

A truck was jackknifed off the side of the road. The oncoming lane was open, but not wide enough for a bus to get through, so there were problems in both directions. People shouted questions at me as I emerged on the other side, and I shrugged "no Serbian" and went on.

I was happy when I reached the outskirts of Belgrade and a path along the river.

The Danube, approaching Belgrade. The green color looked like some kind of algae bloom.

I wound my way along the river, over the bridge to the city, and to a hostel that was supposed to be nice, but where I did not have a reservation. The hostel was up 2 flights of stairs, and with the help of the staff, I brought my bike and luggage up the stairs. I talked with the woman there, who seemed sort of nervous about not having a good place for the bike, who said there were a bunch of young guys there who would be partying, and suggested another hostel. She even called to confirm that space was available for me and my bike. She gave me a cup of tea also, before we carried everything back down the stairs.

At the new hostel, named "In my old shoes", I again had to carry everything up 2 flights of stairs. The bike is on a balcony, so no one will trip over it and it is safe. This place is busy, too, almost full, but is a smaller place owned by an Australian guy who spent 18 months backpacking around the world. Hence the name. The owner is careful about making sure it is clean and quiet. Knowing that there was a crowd, he slept on the sofa rather than going home, to make sure that the late partiers didn't make too much noise when they came back. He has offered good advice about restaurants and such. I think it's a good place.

Today's ride: 93 km (58 miles)
Total: 2,352 km (1,461 miles)

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