Serbia: Belgrade

From Novi Sad we headed east along the Danube to another monastery. By now we had learnt some Cyrillic and could slowly interpret signs like these:

"4km: Manastir Krusedol"

After following some tracks through the rolling plains and fields we arrived in a town called Inđija where we stayed with a young family who rented out rooms.

Rolling wheat fields near Indjia

A barnyard

The next day we cycled to Belgrade in the morning and wandered around in the afternoon. Belgrade is a big, happening city.

Traditional dress

There is a great riverside fortress where the whole of Belgrade seemed to be enjoying the evening, rock-climbing, doing tai-chi or just watching the sunset with beers.

Chess in the park

What a great use for a fortress - a giant bouldering wall!

Sunset at the fortress

This is a mural, not real life

But then we had our first mechanical failure! Roger's rear rack sheared where it joins to the bike at the bottom. Luckily, it broke just as we were riding out of Belgrade and we knew where the nearest bike shop was. We held it together with cable ties for the one kilometre journey and found the shop to have an even better replacement.

Bike shop guy fitting new rack

Leaving Belgrade was a bit scary and there's some real ugliness surrounding it. It's easy to see why Europe has problems with smog and acid rain.

Ugly factory near Belgrade

Eventually we found ourselves on a small road that we shared with tractors and horses, and stopping to harvest blackberries on the way, we found an isolated campsite where the friendly owners let us stay for free.

Local traffic