Serbia

---

Hello all,

We are using the excellent internet connection here in Croatia to get up to date with the blog.

Serbia was certainly the heat we were looking for, all 45 degrees, no breeze and dry open plains of it!!! We spent the most crucifyingly hot night in BFG yet in Novi Sad, up on a fortress! No sign of a breeze and no fan in the van made us decide to change our route a bit. After we'd seen Sarajevo, Bosnia, instead of heading South West towards the tip of Western Greece over a lot of landlocked flat terrain, we thought we'd go West straight to the nearest coast - Croatia to get some coastal breeze and cool ocean.

Despite the unbearable heat, we found the fortress really impressive and learnt about the NATO airstrike which destroyed all 3 of the cities bridges during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. From reading the literature we were not really sure what went on in Novi Sad exactly, i.e reason behind bombing the bridges, but the Serbian lady in the fortress museum certainly felt it was unnecessary!

By the time we got to Belgrade we were so drenched in sweat we headed straight for their makeshift beach, made from damming off half of the Sava river to make an enclosed sea. We found a spot in a secured carpark and stayed the night, wallowing inthe water in the daytime, watching the jetskiiers and shamefully not seeing any culture. We were both a bit towned out by then and needed to keep ur core temperature below 40 degrees so the thought of an 8km cycle on dual carriageways to the city centre didn't really appeal!

Last stop in Serbia near the Bosnian border was a random riverside resort we chanced upon whilst in the middle of loosing track of the road signs! It was a beautiful spot with the river on one side and mountains on the other! We had great fun in the morning riding the river currents downstream before we headed onto the Bosnian border.

Bye for now

Lorze and Andy xxx

---