Advertisement
Published: August 29th 2023
Edit Blog Post
In ruin
A sign of how badly run down the town is We spent yesterday afternoon confirming our route to Belgrade. We'll take 4 riding days to get there including a big day of 85kms. Unless we change our minds - again.
We asked the lady at our accommodation for some dinner recommendations. She mentioned Bongo Bongo and Romana's and then said she preferred Romana's. So we ambled the 1.3kms to Romana's in the still very hot evening air. When we got there it was closed. There was red tape across the doors which looked a bit weird. I got the translator out, took a picture and read the translation. "Tax Administration". They had been closed down for not paying tax. We were in hysterics (and still hungry). We walked the 1.3kms back to Bongo Bongo and it was closed (because it was Monday). The best we could do was pizza and with no local currency we paid in euros and got change in local currency, Serbian Dinar. And, as we're only in Serbia for a day, it meant then going to the local mini-mart and buying ice-cream and biscuits.
It's a short riding day today and the predicted morning thunderstorms had us in no hurry to leave. Breakfast wasn't available until
8am which was fine by us. It's a short riding day today and the predicted morning thunderstorms had us in no hurry to leave. Breakfast wasn't available until 8am which was fine by us.
When Jeff came down his hand had blown up even more. He went off to a pharmacy and got it checked out and came back with some cream and tablets, best guess is it's an allergic reaction.
We didn't leave until almost 9am. We followed the route out of town and was met by a path of Rocky Road that was simply awful. We were on it for about 5kms and felt like we had every bone in our body shaken and stirred. The road ended just before the bridge over the Danube which also happened to be the border between Serbia and Croatia.
Border guards notoriously have no sense of humour and we weren't about to test the theory. Despite that the lady at the Serbian border check was just in a nasty mood. She managed to have a go at all of us, even if it was just telling us to take our glasses off in a gruff tone. After I
went thru I waited for Jeff and Tom to come through. As we were about to take off over the river, Jeff said he wanted to take a photo of the border station. I warned him strongly against it and took off.
I got to the other side of the Danube and the Croation border crossing and looking back could not see Jeff or Tom coming. I had my own issues here. Where did you come from? Where are you going? Do you have accommodation booked? Is it paid for? Can I see proof of that? Are you coming back into the country? I said I don't know to that one which he wasn't happy about. I got through eventually and by this time Jeff had made it over too. The cranking Serbia border officer took exception to Jeff photographing it and ordered him to stop. The called him over and made him delete all of the photos in front of her before sending him on his way. Well, I did warn him!
The country side in Croatia was very open and flat. There was plenty of corn being grown but nothing else we could see. The rain
The Serbian Border Crossing
Well, at least I took my photo inconspiculously! had not eventuated and the clouds remained which lowered the temperature considerably from previous days - such a relief! We did however, have a reasonable head wind for most of the day. We arrived at Osijek around 1:30am and did some shopping before settling in to our routine of showering, washing clothes, eating, catching a nap or even blogging. Tomorrow we are going to do a long day of 90kms going to Backa Palanka to pick a day we can use as a rest day later. Whether that's a good idea or not time will tell.
Distance travelled today: 55kms
Distance travelled so far: 3,141kms
Advertisement
Tot: 0.073s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 10; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0387s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb