Day 62 - Belgrade Bound

---

We went out for a traditional dinner last night. Jeff and I had pork stuffed with cheese and then wrapped in bacon with fried home grown potatoes and a salad. I'm not sure I believe the potatoes were home grown, but it tasted wonderful, so who cares.
Novi Sad to Belgrade is 93kms. We chose to combine two ride days into one to pick up another day for contingency. Due to the distance we have to cover we decided on a 7:30am leave time. And we did it. Second day in a row we've left on time.
Getting out of Novi Sad was busy as expected. We wound our way though the busy peak hour traffic over the Danube and into the suburbs. We had a significant climb today of 4.4kms with 280m of vertical height. Nothing too difficult but it certainly got the heart pumping and provided a change from the flatness we've become accustomed to.
Early on we had some very rough bitumen to ride on. It creates lots of vibration and makes riding very inefficient. We also got a significant amount of billiard table smooth road which made riding so easy. We even had a tail wind for a lot of the day. The temperature stay in the mid twenties so heat was not an issue for us today. The route today had us close to, but not on, the river. So our scenery was mostly fields of sunflowers and corn. We also went through a stretch where there were many orchards primarily growing apples.
The last stretch into Belgrade was not fun at all. We were on a main road with no shoulder. Neither side of the road had a footpath so we had to ride on the road. There were a number of drivers that were quite aggressive and went passed at speed.
We managed to get to Belgrade by 1:30pm, but it took over an hour to then find the accommodation and an ATM to withdraw cash to pay for it.
The afternoon was spent discussing our route options which we have narrowed down, and then we went for a short walk before grabbing a bite for dinner and heading back to the hotel.
Plan for tomorrow is a city walk and a bit more investigation around the option of catching a train.
Distance travelled today: 93kms
Distance travelled so far:

---