I slept well on a bouncy bed of grass, and when I rose with the sun I could hear a harvester already at work. There had been a shower or two most days since I entered Serbia, and indeed I heard rain falling on my tent overnight, but by the time I was packing my tent, both the tent and grass around it were dry. The harvesters were busy today bringing in the maize while the weather stayed fine, the distant buzz of their engines in earshot much of the day. In Hungary all the machines were lime green Claas units, which looked new, here they seemed older and of various colours including a red Massey-Ferguson unit I spotted.
I walked through Uzdin early in the day, taking a particular look at the church, reputed to be one of the most beautiful in the area, although the door was locked so I could not see inside. By walking around the main street I found a retro looking place serving coffee and enjoyed a duplo expresso with men reading their papers over coffee of one sort or another and three schoolchildren drinking milk. After camping, a morning coffee is a real pleasure and I drank it while watching a Serbian black and white film on TV. Did not know what they were saying but they had some very expressive faces.
Padina, my destination for the night, is a pretty village with a strip of green through the middle, as well as a church, an old well, a pekara, where I bought a very nice cheese and dill roll for lunch and various other shops. The accommodation that the Zrenjanin Tourist office booked for me also has a farming side with a traditional barn built off the ground with sides of wooden slats, that was being filled with cobs of maize. Zuzana Masarikova, the lady of the house, had a phrasebook, excellent in many ways, although designed for the host or hostess, so it gave the questions for them to ask, but not what my replies might be, which made the conversation a bit stilted, so she kindly sent for a student who could speak excellent English and who gave me lots of useful information while Zuzana prepared a large diner for me of sausage and roast potatoes, with salad and bread. In addition to some background on Serbia the student also told me I was not the first to pass through on the E4, a French person had come before me...
A GPS file of my route today can be obtained from wikiloc.com, it can also be found on ViewRanger.com as route johnpon0022, and on Wandermap.net. I walked 24.2 kilometres including finding Zuzana's private accommodation.
I walked through Uzdin early in the day, taking a particular look at the church, reputed to be one of the most beautiful in the area, although the door was locked so I could not see inside. By walking around the main street I found a retro looking place serving coffee and enjoyed a duplo expresso with men reading their papers over coffee of one sort or another and three schoolchildren drinking milk. After camping, a morning coffee is a real pleasure and I drank it while watching a Serbian black and white film on TV. Did not know what they were saying but they had some very expressive faces.
Padina, my destination for the night, is a pretty village with a strip of green through the middle, as well as a church, an old well, a pekara, where I bought a very nice cheese and dill roll for lunch and various other shops. The accommodation that the Zrenjanin Tourist office booked for me also has a farming side with a traditional barn built off the ground with sides of wooden slats, that was being filled with cobs of maize. Zuzana Masarikova, the lady of the house, had a phrasebook, excellent in many ways, although designed for the host or hostess, so it gave the questions for them to ask, but not what my replies might be, which made the conversation a bit stilted, so she kindly sent for a student who could speak excellent English and who gave me lots of useful information while Zuzana prepared a large diner for me of sausage and roast potatoes, with salad and bread. In addition to some background on Serbia the student also told me I was not the first to pass through on the E4, a French person had come before me...
A GPS file of my route today can be obtained from wikiloc.com, it can also be found on ViewRanger.com as route johnpon0022, and on Wandermap.net. I walked 24.2 kilometres including finding Zuzana's private accommodation.
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| Uzdin Church |
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| Pigeon on Uzdin Church |
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| Typical barn with cobs of maize |
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