Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Biking

Novi Sad to Belgrade on The Danube Bike Trail

The first job on entering a country is to get the internet fixed on the phone, especially when @threeuk want £6 per megabyte! So straight into the Vip shop where to my surprise and utter delight I walked out 5 minutes later with a nano sim already online with 300 megabytes of data for 300RSD  (£2.20). or 8000 times cheaper than 3.  Why is it that non EU countries are so efficient at getting you on the internet so quickly and cheaply.

IMG_5264Another thing that caught my eye in Novi Sad is that the central area is all in new paving blocks. However, contrary to every other place that is taking part in this mania. Here they have paved the whole lot with no kerbs etc etc and just a large central gridded drain. How much cheaper  must that be to do than all the angle grinding of concrete kerbs, fiddly drains that block up etc.

The first part out is a bit of a nightmare with the traffic and no bike lanes, I guess no EU money for Route 6 here, after going through Sremski Karlovci I did a bit of creative thinking with OSM and made my own route through the National Park, total bliss a real winner 🙂 However, my second attempt at doing this after Beska was a total disaster, with a huge amount of very steep climbs up very rough tracks, so anyone reading this doing the E6, just keep straight on in Beska 🙂

Then it was across the vast plain with it’s huge clouds of tiny winged insects making for very uncomfortable riding plus the atrocious driving with a totally new twist, slamming your car in reverse and ramming it down the road to get into a parking space you missed 5 minutes ago.

So I did get into Belgrade down, what could be, a very attractive street. Except the ancient cobbles were all loose with big holes where a cobble had disappeared . It’s interesting how all towns were cobbled (Cambridge had the luxury of wooden blocks, so as not to upset the dons with noise) only to get them modernised & covered in tarmac, now to return to cobbles.

The Vila Terazije is OK ,nice and central as the disco beat  outside last night proved. It has the most complicated shower ever with an inbuilt radio more jets & buttons than necessary and must be a nightmare to keep clean.

Today I’m off to find my hero’s museum. The inventor of the 20th century Tesla!, radio, AC power etc are all down to him. I went to see his birthplace with Emily 12 years ago and also visited where he died, a broken man, In New York. At last he is getting credit over Edison & Marconi who ruthlessly ripped of his designs & denied him credit.

The Strava for the 62 miles yesterday is below and the pictures are here. That makes it 1.674 miles since leaving Cambridge 54 days ago & yep I’m loving it 🙂 There is now a two week interlude from biking the Danube as I’m off walking in Hungary with Sally who won’t be in Norfolk!

Strava_Ride___Novi_Sad_to_Belgrade

The Serb authorities are keen to know where you entered the country, imagine the receptionists amazement when I pulled up my Strava data on her computer 🙂

Danube Bike Ride from Vukovar the brave to Novi Sad the shellsuit.

memorial at the mass burial pitToday was a ride of contrasts from the dispiriting visit  to a city still in ruins with very little hope of returning to it’s former glory and also visiting where 200 people were massacred and another bus load went totally missing  to the  prosperous second largest city in Serbia  and its beautifully paved streets, handsome buildings all  beautifully lit and groups of American tourists.  What is worse from all that I’ve heard it wasn’t a civil war it was just a pure and simple land grabbing exercise by Serbia for which Vukovar paid a terrible price and this has all taken place in the last 20 years.

Ovcara is a short detour from the E6 but well worthwhile, the place where the 200 were held has been made into a beautifully simple but deeply moving place, from the embedded bullet shells in the floor to the 200 lights in the ceiling acting as stars and images of the deceased being lit up around the walls to their physical effects in the straw around the floor edges. Totally gut wrenching stuff.

I also visited where the mass grave was, since it was on the way back to the E6, once again very moving I particularly liked the simple broken headstone sculpture created by Drinkovic with its polished engraved front and the bullet holes in the rear, just like the people who were shot.

I continued on through the 3 deep valleys to reach Ilok and its massive citadel now occupied by nuns. and then onto the bridge over The Danube and the first stamp in my passport and also a welcome text from 3 reminding me they wish to charge me £6 per MB (a warning to anyone travelling the Danube  E6 in Croatia, you are quite likely to pick up a Serbian 3G signal if your phone is sent to roaming  for their Eurodeal, you could end up with a shock)

First impressions is that Serbia is very poor & the stretch of road cycling between the bridge and Celarevo is a nightmare. However, once you turn right and get on the embankment there is no traffic but it would be a total gooey  mess if it had been raining. Today was dry and OK after a while it turns into a gorgeous smooth bikeway into Novi Sod unless a mountain bike plonker rams into you and takes out a spoke and hurts your knee 🙁 Novi Sad on the other hand seems a very prosperous city beautifully  lit up and large public squares full of tables etc.

I found The Veliki Hotel purely by chance, it seems very good & the receptionist found a bike shop for me, so within an hour the wheel was fixed and also a new tyre fitted.

In all I did over 68 miles today but probably the actual route was only 60 miles. Here is The Strava and the pictures.

Strava_Ride___Vukovar_to_Nova_Sad

 

 

Mohàcs to Vukovar on The Danube Bike Trail

No riding on dikes today the initial one was blocked off for resurfacing as in fact the road diversion was too. I guess the Hungarian tarmac manufacturers must be coining it in!

I did a little side trip to the battlefield of the so called disaster of Mohacs where Hungary fell to The Turks and got divided up in 1526 – 487 years ago & apparently they have never recovered from the defeat. It was well over 3 pints of beer in price to go in. So I declined and pedalled on..

The customs post with Croatia was a half hearted affair with only a cursory inspection, hardly surprising since they only joined the EU two months ago. Interestingly Croatia’s official name is Republika Hruatska (make a good pub quiz question).

You soon start seeing the devasation caused by the civil war 20 years ago with many ruined buildings and memorial stones outside each village.

After climbing over the vine covered hill near Batina and its interesting cave entrances I briefly met up with the French Tandem couple again. Beatrice is keeping a blog that can be found by clicking here. in French of course.

I particularly like the traditional house design. Built at right angles to the road with a veranda the full length of the house. In summer you can sit under it & in the winter store your logs.

The ciivil war ended 20 years agoThe real shock of the day was entering Vukovar which still looks war ravaged from the civil war and its 87 day siege  in 1991 where the Serbs basically flattened the city including massacring 6 bus loads of patients & staff from the hospital which they had already  heavily shelled & bombed . Truly amazing mans inhumanity to man and only 22 years ago. The situation is currently made worse by the authorities tearing up all the streets in the mania that is sweeping Europe to repave all cities, villages etc to dubious benefit, Since if you look anywhere this has been done the streets are in a terrible mess a few years later.

I’m staying at the rather inappropriately named 4 star Hotel Lav on the special biker rate of  £37 a night b&b 🙂

Well in fact today I only got to see The Danube at the start & finish both from my bedroom window :-). I did the best part of 80 miles and now not too  far from Belgrade. I’m spending today exploring the horrors of war by visiting the Place of Memory in the rebuilt hospital’s basement. I purchased the DVD containing news clips & commentary of the horrors.

Here is the Strava and pictures are here

Strava_Ride___Mohacs_to_Vukovar

Dunapataj to Mohàcs on The Danube Bike Trail

A much warmer day in fact a thermometer I saw was reading 26 degrees at noon 🙂 Although when the sun went behind a cloud it soon dropped.

pretty villagesThe first bit was through quite pretty villages all supporting a clutch of local shops & a Spar or Co-oP.  Then it was back up to the top of the flood bank with its variable surface status, although they are trying to make it all ultrasmooth so that you will be able to rollerblade all the way soon.

I’m getting a bit fed up of the dikes as when you are up there all you can see  on one side is a line of trees protecting the banks of The Danube on the other side a landscape akin to the fens.  So maybe I should start taking the longer routes through the villages. Baja had quite a pretty waterfront, once you had left the heavily graffitied housing estates, the only problem is that I chose a bar that didn’t serve food 🙁  Whilst enjoying my drink in the sun by the river I thought it would be good to Facetime the kiddies, which worked perfectly in New Zealand, now it is almost useless due to those those damn patent trolls

Three ladies of MohacsMohàcs seems a good little town lots of pensions,  hotels, restaurants, bars & shops. The sculpture of three women in front of the town hall is intriguing, if only I could read Hungarian. It’s a pity I didn’t explore the place before checking in at the Szent Jànos hotel by the ferry, It’s a nice enough place but I’m sure the others would be cheaper.

Here is the Strava for todays 63 miles making it a total of 1,674 miles since leaving Cambridge. The pics for today can be found here

Strava_Ride___Dunapataj_to_Mohacs_and_Edit_Post_‹_Geoff_Jones_—_WordPress