Day 67 - We Should Have Known Better

---

Our Fairy Godmother brought over a dish with a dozen fries eggs and an ice cream container full of long syrupy sweet donut type things right on 7pm. We combined that with the home grown vegies and left over sausages from lunch and we had quite a feast for dinner. I can't say I've ever had fried eggs as the main component of dinner but it seemed to work. We used the cold meats and cheese in the fridge with the extra bread and made up rolls for lunch. We had effectively gotten 4 meals provided free of charge so we decided to leave a very sizeable tip for our host thanking her for her generosity.
Due to our short distance today we slept with no alarm. A lazy riding morning is a luxury we haven't had before. Our destination today is Nis, third largest city in Serbia, just on 40kms away with a moderate amount of climbing. We decided to check the route via Google Maps and it provided a different route, also of 40kms, but with no climbing in it. We ditched our original course and swapped to Google giving it a chance to redeem itself from previous "bad" routes.
The ride was along minor roads but there were a number of towns which meant a fair amount of local traffic. Not too bad, but not ideal either. The ride is mostly along the river valley (hence no climbing) but we can see the mountains starting to close in on us.
With about 12kms to go we ended up on a dirt track and were then directed to an underpass under the toll way - and we stopped dead. The dirt track under pass was flooded. It would have been about 40cms deep and about 30 meter long, no way we were riding or walking through that. Google Maps had led us a bum steer again, we really should know better by now.
We back tracked about a kilometer and found an alternate route which ironically put us back on our original course and include one of the significant climbs we were trying to avoid.
From there it was a simple downhill run into Nis and we had completed the days ride before midday - again. Our apartment is almost new, spread over two floors with living downstairs and the luxury of three separate bedrooms upstairs. Having our own space certainly helps.
In the afternoon we did a bit of a walk. Nis has ruins of a medieval fort that was a Byzantine Roman fort before that. We looked around the fort and then wandered into the town centre and along the lanes before stopping for a drink and watching the rest of the afternoon go by. Tomorrow we have a rest day here to explore some more before we continue on into the south of Serbia.
Distance travelled today: 41kms
Distance travelled so far: 3,660kms

---

Photos

Srompol Gate
Or Constantinopol Gate, as it faces Istanbul