Miles on trip: 11322 miles
Countries: 23 (+ Serbia)
Days on trip: 110
We spent a good while worrying about going to Serbia, since there was a lot of confusion on the internet regarding the validity of UK car insurance, and the cost of green card insurance. Fortunately, it was simples. In fact, getting into Serbia was extremely quick, the officer spoke great English, and was very friendly. His recommendation for Serbia: “You have to try Raki!”
Our first stop was in the Uvac nature reserve, at a campsite 1100m above sea level. The campsite was in the middle of nowhere, at the end of a winding unsealed road, and with beautiful views over the rolling hills of the reserve. As we got there, we tried to talk to the owners. “English?”, we asked. “No”, came his reply… Then, unexpectedly, “Espanol?” he inquired. At this point, Andi became very excited as she has been learning Spanish for a while now and could say “Un poco.” Incredibly, Andi sailed through the rest of the introduction in Spanish.
That evening we enjoyed a locally farmed dinner, and booked a boat tour for the next day – which is the best way to see the reserve. The boat meandered along the river until we alighted to take a walk up to a stunning view point. We also stopped in a cave which was impressive but bone-chillingly cold, and saw some vultures. The captain spoke a lot on the tour, but all in Serbian. Fortunately, one of our campsite friends translated for us.
Back at the campsite we enjoyed dinner and spent time with some of the other people there (1 German and 3 Serbs). We had a great evening talking about flowers and apps to determine the type of a specific flower (one of the guys was a florist), Martin got into some political / historical discussions [ed. Did I?] and we learned more about Cyrillic writing and that in school in Serbia around 50% of essays have to be in Latin writing and the other 50% in Cyrillic. It was a lovely evening and then it was Raki time. Hmmm, since we are not the keenest on spirits we smelt more than we tasted. Anyway, bed time … oh wait no, the sky was super clear, there were no other lights anywhere nearby and so it was the perfect opportunity to admire the stars. … and then bed.
The next day was our last chance to submit our programming assignment for our machine learning course, so the plan was to find a place with wifi for lunch, quickly do the assignment and then continue on our way. Unfortunately, we hadn’t yet done any of the exercise, nor used the submission system before, and worse still, we couldn’t find a place that had wifi. Predictably, the wifi we eventually found was rubbish and we pretty much spent all afternoon getting the assignment done. By the time we had finished, we had spent way longer than expected and weren’t going to make it to our next stop before dusk.
Serbia doesn’t have many campsites, especially in the south, and since we were there out of season, very few sites were open. We also weren’t sure whether wild camping was allowed, so we adopted a new strategy. We found restaurants slightly out of town with parking and asked “If we eat in your restaurant, can we sleep in your car park?” … followed by smiles in case that makes the difference. It failed once, but all other places agreed to it, even those that had a hotel or motel as part of the restaurant. … or at least we think they agreed. Communication was often via pictures, sign language and a few hopefully pretty international words. So we found a restaurant in Novi Pazar and had some food (which is really quite cheap, and deliciously meaty, in Serbia).
Our next stop was devil’s town, one of Serbia’s wonders. It’s a group of 200 narrow thin rising rocks with black caps. After some strong volcanic activity millions of years ago the formations were created by erosion of the soil. However, the popular legend is that the rocks are an incestuous wedding party which was prettified by the devil. The red spring near the rocks, consisting of very acidic water with high mineral content, also adds to the feeling that something devilish went on here.
Whilst devil’s town is in the middle of nowhere and far away from everywhere in Serbia, it was still a great visit (hmm) and/but Andi was very excited to see it.
From now on the rest of Serbia would be far more peaceful, continuing with a scenic drive along the Danube. While the size of the river and the grey thundery clouds did make it look slightly threatening, it added some mood / charm to the scenery. Also on this pretty drive we passed the Iron Gate, a large hydroelectric power plant (no photos allowed) and Fort Gallubac, which is in desperate need of renovation.
Final stop in Serbia: Belgrade. Happy birthday, Martin! We opened one of the last bottles of wedding champagne, went to a bar where one of the Serbs we met in Uvac had done the interior design, and then a nice restaurant where we had waaay too much delicious Serbian BBQ.
For our Belgrade sightseeing we joined the excellent free walking tour. We walked past the old palace, republic square, the bohemian quarter, the student quarter all the way to Kalemegdan, the Belgrade fortress and finishing at Saint Michael’s cathedral. The guide was friendly and it was much better to have a bit more information on some of the places rather than just walk past them. Dinner was at another nice restaurant with a performing choir – booked especially for Martin’s birthday weekend of course.
During the walking tour we missed out Saint Sava temple. So for our last day in Belgrade we had lunch at McDonalds – to use their wifi to submit our coding assignment and then went on the see the orthodox church. It was very large and impressive but under construction / renovation still inside. A nice way to finish our time in Belgrade and in Serbia.
Road Monkeys 