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| Travnik-Marg |
From Bosnia and Herzegovina, we made the very long
drive into Serbia.
Our route took us through Travnik, a Bosnian village with a
long history.
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| Travnik Fortress-Marg |
We stopped there and walked through the Stari Grad
(old town), alongside a very fast flowing clear stream full of trout, and
around an amazingly well preserved fortress that overlooked the town.
Our drive took us through an area that had been hit
very badly by floods earlier in the year.
We were amazed at the devastation and the amount of
rubbish high up in the trees alongside the river.
We eventually reached the border with Serbia and
passed through both custom posts with ease.
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| Sremska Mitrovica campsite - Vanni |
We then found it only took a short
time driving through little villages to reach our campground in Sremska
Mitrovica north-eastern Serbia.
The camp is part of a nature reserve and we took a
walk through it viewing the unusual range of tiny donkeys, cows and very hairy
pigs.
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| Sremska Mitrovica |
Every night gave us a little giggle as we could hear the donkeys braying!
It was a very rural area and had lots of smells to
match!
Despite that it was a clean and modern camp and we enjoyed relaxing and
chilling out there after our long drive.
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| Novi Sad |
Thursday’s weather was predicting a storm so we
decided to stay another night and catch up on some internet stuff.
Unfortunately, the internet went down but we still had some good relax-time
before moving on again.
We stopped briefly at Sremska Mitrovica township
for a wee look and to exchange money, before heading northwards to Novi Sad.
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| Novi Sad |
Novi Sad is Serbia’s 2nd largest city (population
about 400,000) after Belgrade.
Consequently, inner city parking proved a
problem for our big Vanni.
However, after tentatively driving down what turned
out to be a very narrow street, a friendly parking chappie directed us to a
place on the edge of town with bigger parking spaces.
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| Belgrade, Zemun - Marg |
It was an easy walk from there to the old town
centre which had a lovely pedestrian area surrounded by grand old buildings.
There were lots of cute little side streets full of
little cafes and shops; archways through to little shops in narrow lanes;
ornate buildings of all shapes and sizes, and a huge fortress across the other
side of the river.
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| Belgrade, Danube restaurants |
We spent ages there and enjoyed exploring.
We
easily found our way back to Vanni to drive across the river and onwards
towards Belgrade.
Belgrade is the capital of Serbia and our camp was
at Zemun which is just North West of the city.
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| Belgrade Fortress-Marg |
We could either walk about a kilometre to catch a
bus to the city, or ride our bikes.
We decided to go with the bikes after
talking to an Irish cyclist from the van next to us.
So bike batteries charged
up, we headed off! We turned off the main road after about 6 kms then down a
cute back street.
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| Belgrade, bridge over the Danube |
The cycle track sign said still 14 kms to go.
Whoops!
Further than we thought!
Then we hit the cobbled part - not just little
cobbles but huge rocks that we could not ride over, so off to walk a short way.
We eventually came down a steep stretch to end up
at the Danube River.
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| Belgrade |
This was a very pretty spot on the edge of Zemun with lots
and lots of ‘floating’ restaurants all along the river bank.
There we picked up the sealed cycle track that
followed the Danube all the way into Belgrade.
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| Belgrade |
Riding alongside the river was
lovely and there were lots of people out walking, running, cycling, roller
blading etc on the wide tracks.
Lots of food and drinks stands, cafes and
restaurants and very buzzy!
As we came around the bend in the river, Belgrade
and its huge fortress came into view.
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| Danube beach Smederevo |
The fortress certainly dominated the sky line and
covered a huge area of land.
Belgrade is on the confluence of the Danube and
Sava Rivers and we used one of the many river bridges get right into the
centre.
There we found a friendly lamp post to secure the bikes to, while we
walked around to explore.
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| Golubac Fortress - Leigh |
Belgrade has a huge pedestrian area which makes it
so much easier to walk without traffic racing past. There were lots of people
everywhere and heaps of cafés and it felt very vibrant.
It seemed to be a
popular destination; although we found it a little impersonal as is often the
case with a big city.
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| Golubac Fortress gates - Marg |
It is a city of large ornate buildings (most
restored), churches and lovely parks.
We didn’t find it as attractive as Novi Sad, and
its hilly terrain and large size took a lot more energy to walk around – still
worth a visit though.
Several hot hours later, we decided we were
‘sightseed-out’ and headed back to our bikes for the 20 km ride back to camp.
As always, the return trip never seems as long, even though there were a few
hills (thank goodness for battery power).
A quick supermarket stop for some essentials then
back to camp to recover!
The next day we headed south-east. The first part
of the route took us through many rural towns and villages - some being more
prosperous than others.
The second part followed the course of the Danube
River, mostly through small villages which again, showed the varied levels of
prosperity in Serbia.
As we wound our way along the Danube we came to
Golubac Fortress, built on the site of an old Roman settlement in about the
14th century.
What an impressive sight – right on the edge of the Danube with
the road going right underneath it.
Vanni only just fitted through the first gate - we
had to tuck in our very wide rear-vision mirrors to make it!
The route continued to follow the Danube and it was
a fabulous drive – we had the river on one side and the impressive cliffs of
the Djerdap National Park on the other.
The road was a bit of a challenge as lots of rocks
and stones had fallen over our side of the road, so we drove a bit of a zigzag
course to add to the excitement of the trip.
Luckily there was hardly any
oncoming traffic!
We stopped for a wee look at Lepenski Vir which is
an archaeological site on the banks of the Danube, where 6 villages from 6400
BC to 4900 BC were uncovered.
We also stopped to view a 40 metre tall rock caving
of Dacian King Decebalus which is on the other side of the river (actually in
Romania).
It was made especially impressive by its location above the river and
nearby the cute Mraconia Monastery.
The Danube serves as the border between Serbia and
Romania and near Decebalus Rex, the river is very narrow as it flows through
the Iron Gates Gorge, one of the most dangerous passages for boats in Europe.
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| Decebalus Rex Statue |
The Gorge is bridged via the Iron Gates Dam and the
dammed water serves two huge hydroelectric plants and includes locks for
shipping and a border control station.
We drove onto the dam to get to Serbian
border control and the customs guard was quite put out at Marg’s New Zealand
passport.
Trying to interpret his English, it seems that he had been refused a
visa to enter NZ even though he was a policeman!
He did not seem to be at all happy about this fact!
We thought he was going to be
a problem but eventually he let us through - we approached the Romanian side
quite relieved!
No problems with the Romanians and we were through.
We drove into Drobeta-Turnu Severin but no camp ground was to be found!
We seemed to drive around for ages looking but were having no luck.
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| Mraconia Monastery |
We were
getting pretty tired by this stage so stopped at a hotel near the entrance to
town as they had a big car park.
No go as it was for guests only, but they
suggested we try the secure parking at the garage up the road.
Yes!
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| Iron Gates dam |
For a small
fee we got settled for the night and were on good terms with the guard.
An hour or so later an Italian van arrived (vans
tend to see other vans and congregate).
Unfortunately, they had a dog and it
seemed to attract every neighbourhood dog to bark and yap most of the night!
Not good for a peaceful sleep but at least we felt very secure there.
The next day we headed on into a new part of
Romania.