Terrific! First it was Debs feeling unwell and this morning it was me. Obviously my man flu was far worse than anything she had been suffering from! The decision to take the shorter road route rather than the meandering Eurovelo route was sounding like a good one.
Our first stop along the road was the very pretty Sremski Karlovci, home of Serbia's oldest grammar school and an attractive main square.
Of course all this attractiveness was wasted on grumpy me. Finding out that my rear light had decided to fall apart along the way also didn't help.
Leaving the town we encountered our first hill for a long time. The 8% gradient may have not been that great but it continued steadily upwards for 6km. While taking a rest on the hill we looked back down at the traffic and spotted a fully laden cyclist coming up! This was the first cycle tourer we had seen since we left. Stopping to say hello, we met Julian from England and found out he wasn't alone. We were soon joined by Sash, also from England and travelling with Julian, and Matthias from France, who they had met along the way.
Julian and Sash are heading for Kathmandu and have a very entertaining blog which I have put a link to in the 'my blog list'
If we made a bit of a spectacle with just the two of us, heaven knows what the locals thought when there was five of us riding in convoy! The beeping of horns and waves continued, Serbia is a really friendly place.
With about 25km left to Belgrade we waved goodbye to the others and continued on our way. We will try and meet up in Belgrade for a beer, but if we don't good luck on your travels lads, we will follow your blog with interest.
The last 20 kilometres was spent in heavy traffic and the urban sprawl of Belgrade. When we finally picked up a cycle route along the river it was with some relief. All we had to do then was locate the hostel with no map! While it was great to meet some other cyclists, all of the chatting had put us a bit behind for the day. Even by 3pm the light was starting to fade so we wanted to get to the hostel as quickly as possible.
The only directions we had were from the main train station which we couldn't find. The fact that our street names were in the Roman alphabet and all the signs were in Cyrillic certainly didn't help. After asking a few people we were pointed in roughly the right direction which we followed, only to get lost again! Giving up on finding the station, we asked a woman if she knew where St Mark's church was, which we knew was close to the hostel. In a moment of kindness she explained that she knew where it was but couldn't explain how to get there, so she led us through the streets eventually coming out directly opposite 'Hostel Manga'. Without her help we would have struggled to get there so we are both very grateful.
The hostel seems really nice and the staff are very friendly and helpful. I had started to feel better during the day, but the traffic, noise and pollution had made me feel a bit rough again so it was good to have a shower and a rest. Exploring Belgrade today was off the agenda, instead we settled for dinner and an early night.
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