Last night I was in Szeged having walked around a large part of Hungary on the E4 European Long Distance Walk (see johnpone4hungary.blogspot.com). The major highlight of today was entering Serbia. I started early as there was 35 kilometres to walk and a risk of delays at the border or through following a route which was my best guess at what the authors of "Rambling through Serbia" intended.
I left Szeged following the easterly embankment of the Tisza river, sharing the route with some morning joggers and a few people on bicycles. In one of my occasional views of the river I saw gravel being unloaded from a barge, but generally it was hidden by trees. Ploughed fields filled most of my view on my left. I turned off the embankment as planned and followed a route to the road leading to Serbia. The road had a little used cycle path beside it which took me to the border.
My passport was scrutinised by both Hungarian and Serbian border guards at the quiet border post. The one on the Serbian side examined the cover in particular. I don't suppose they have many British passport holders walking through.
The first Serbian village of Dala passed by quickly and then I headed off through fields to return to the embankment of the Tisza river. I was slightly thrown as at this point there were two parallel embankments. As the book describing the E4 through Serbia had the route actually just crossing the river (which is not possible at this point, a ferry is marked on the map but no longer exists) I followed the embankment closest to the river heading South (in fact the two embankments converged several kilometres later). Instead of going through the next village, Krstur, I just kept following the embankment all the way to Novi Knezhevac.
The scenery was similar to Hungary. Occasional glimpses of the river between trees on one side, and fields on the other. The areas of each field may have been smaller than in Hungary and they tended to be laid out in big rectangles parallel to each other, and as in Hungary there were no fences (on later days I found very large fields, as big as any in Hungary). Although most of the land was being used for growing crops I passed two herds of cows each with someone keeping an eye on them. There were also people plowing, cutting the grass on the embankment and collecting wood. None of them paid me much attention, which I was glad about as I was unsure about "rights of way" and private property issues.
Reaching Novi Knezhevac I found the Lovac B&B, which is in a pretty park beside the river. The hotel sent my passport to the police and I am now registered to stay here. I also found a "bankomat" and so now have Serbian dinars in my wallet (I had hoped for a currency exchange at the border but there wasn't one).
Language is inevitably an issue as I know no Serbian. Local people also seem to speak Hungarian but I am little better in that language! Fortunately another resident who spoke English helped me order some food for dinner - grilled chicken, pomfrits and a shopska salad (the shopska salad was a combination of mainly tomatoes, cucumber and white cheese)...oh and a glass of red wine.
A GPS file of my route from Szeged to the Hungarian border can be found here on wikiloc.com, and from the border to Novi Knezhevac the file can be found on here, (alternately routes johnpon0019 and johnpon0020 on ViewRanger.com, or click here and here for Wandermap.net). I covered 35.8 kilometres today.
I left Szeged following the easterly embankment of the Tisza river, sharing the route with some morning joggers and a few people on bicycles. In one of my occasional views of the river I saw gravel being unloaded from a barge, but generally it was hidden by trees. Ploughed fields filled most of my view on my left. I turned off the embankment as planned and followed a route to the road leading to Serbia. The road had a little used cycle path beside it which took me to the border.
My passport was scrutinised by both Hungarian and Serbian border guards at the quiet border post. The one on the Serbian side examined the cover in particular. I don't suppose they have many British passport holders walking through.
The first Serbian village of Dala passed by quickly and then I headed off through fields to return to the embankment of the Tisza river. I was slightly thrown as at this point there were two parallel embankments. As the book describing the E4 through Serbia had the route actually just crossing the river (which is not possible at this point, a ferry is marked on the map but no longer exists) I followed the embankment closest to the river heading South (in fact the two embankments converged several kilometres later). Instead of going through the next village, Krstur, I just kept following the embankment all the way to Novi Knezhevac.
The scenery was similar to Hungary. Occasional glimpses of the river between trees on one side, and fields on the other. The areas of each field may have been smaller than in Hungary and they tended to be laid out in big rectangles parallel to each other, and as in Hungary there were no fences (on later days I found very large fields, as big as any in Hungary). Although most of the land was being used for growing crops I passed two herds of cows each with someone keeping an eye on them. There were also people plowing, cutting the grass on the embankment and collecting wood. None of them paid me much attention, which I was glad about as I was unsure about "rights of way" and private property issues.
Reaching Novi Knezhevac I found the Lovac B&B, which is in a pretty park beside the river. The hotel sent my passport to the police and I am now registered to stay here. I also found a "bankomat" and so now have Serbian dinars in my wallet (I had hoped for a currency exchange at the border but there wasn't one).
Language is inevitably an issue as I know no Serbian. Local people also seem to speak Hungarian but I am little better in that language! Fortunately another resident who spoke English helped me order some food for dinner - grilled chicken, pomfrits and a shopska salad (the shopska salad was a combination of mainly tomatoes, cucumber and white cheese)...oh and a glass of red wine.
A GPS file of my route from Szeged to the Hungarian border can be found here on wikiloc.com, and from the border to Novi Knezhevac the file can be found on here, (alternately routes johnpon0019 and johnpon0020 on ViewRanger.com, or click here and here for Wandermap.net). I covered 35.8 kilometres today.
 |
| Bridge over Tisza river at Novi Knezhevac by B&B Lovac |
No comments:
Post a Comment