Just a few kilometres to walk then a bus to Beograd ready for a flight home the next day.
I woke early to the sound of the men in the room next door getting up, which meant that I was on the road before 7:00 am. Although the map in "Rambling through Serbia" implied a route a little distance from the Danube, the cycle path to Veliko Gradište was too good an opportunity to miss. It took me past where boats were moored, then some expensive looking houses before following the edge of the river. The promenade continued around the town of Veliko Gradiste but I turned off towards where the buses stopped according to the map in my GPS. As I approached there was a bus with a sign saying it went to Beograd loading up. I bought a ticket and climbed on taking the last seat with my rucksack on my lap.
We were immediately off and stopping at various places picking up even more people so the aisle was soon full of standing passengers lacking seats. The driver was having a good laugh with the girl next to me while also answering his mobile phone as we passed places where I had walked along the same road for short distances.
On reaching Belgrade bus station and pushing passed men offering taxis, I had a late breakfast at the Aviator coffee house, visited the Orthodox cathedral, had lunch at the Manufaktura and booked into the Belgrade City Hotel. This left me some free hours and after looking and failing to find a present for my wife decided to visit the National Museum. I discovered this had been closed for renovation for the last 14 years so seeing a man with a yellow umbrella I joined a tour of underground Belgrade. This included a Roman well (that was not Roman and was not a well), a bunker from the cold war, an underground area dug out as a gunpowder store which now had Roman artifacts from the (closed) National museum and a wine cellar where I had a glass or two of wine from the Smederevo area. Not wanting to wander around Belgrade alone at night in a slightly inebriated state I settled for dinner at the hotel restaurant.
Next day I was on the A1 bus to the aerodrome and soon through the formalities at the refreshingly small (and clean and modern) Nikola Tesla airport. After a bit of a scrum with passengers from a delayed Tel Aviv flight it was on the Air Serbia flight to London Heathrow. Unlike recent EasyJet flights there was a free coffee and roll on board, luxury! Now it's time to plan the rest of my walk through Serbia which I hope to cover April next year all going well.
I woke early to the sound of the men in the room next door getting up, which meant that I was on the road before 7:00 am. Although the map in "Rambling through Serbia" implied a route a little distance from the Danube, the cycle path to Veliko Gradište was too good an opportunity to miss. It took me past where boats were moored, then some expensive looking houses before following the edge of the river. The promenade continued around the town of Veliko Gradiste but I turned off towards where the buses stopped according to the map in my GPS. As I approached there was a bus with a sign saying it went to Beograd loading up. I bought a ticket and climbed on taking the last seat with my rucksack on my lap.
We were immediately off and stopping at various places picking up even more people so the aisle was soon full of standing passengers lacking seats. The driver was having a good laugh with the girl next to me while also answering his mobile phone as we passed places where I had walked along the same road for short distances.
On reaching Belgrade bus station and pushing passed men offering taxis, I had a late breakfast at the Aviator coffee house, visited the Orthodox cathedral, had lunch at the Manufaktura and booked into the Belgrade City Hotel. This left me some free hours and after looking and failing to find a present for my wife decided to visit the National Museum. I discovered this had been closed for renovation for the last 14 years so seeing a man with a yellow umbrella I joined a tour of underground Belgrade. This included a Roman well (that was not Roman and was not a well), a bunker from the cold war, an underground area dug out as a gunpowder store which now had Roman artifacts from the (closed) National museum and a wine cellar where I had a glass or two of wine from the Smederevo area. Not wanting to wander around Belgrade alone at night in a slightly inebriated state I settled for dinner at the hotel restaurant.
Next day I was on the A1 bus to the aerodrome and soon through the formalities at the refreshingly small (and clean and modern) Nikola Tesla airport. After a bit of a scrum with passengers from a delayed Tel Aviv flight it was on the Air Serbia flight to London Heathrow. Unlike recent EasyJet flights there was a free coffee and roll on board, luxury! Now it's time to plan the rest of my walk through Serbia which I hope to cover April next year all going well.
A mere 3.7 kilometres walked today to reach Veliko Gradiste. The GPS of my final section of walk can be found on Wikiloc.com, on ViewRanger.com as johnpon0025 and on Wandermap.net.
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| Early morning walk into Veliko Gradiste |
Hi John, just read through your account of your walk through Serbia. Currently thinking about doing something similar at the moment. Any hairy moments whilst camping in Serbia? Looks like tremendous fun..! Safe walking.
ReplyDeleteAlex
Hi Alex, I had no problems on the nights I spent wild camping in Serbia, a few animal noises that's all. I tried to camp out of sight, or where this was not possible, I set up tent as it was getting dark. Nobody can be upset if they cannot see you. In theory you are meant to register with police but I did not find this practical when wild camping. In hotels etc. they register you automatically and sometimes give you a card that you can in theory be asked for when you leave the country, but they did not ask me anything as I went through passport control at Belgrade's airport.
ReplyDeleteI hope you get to Serbia, outside Belgrade and Danube river cruises they get few visitors from other countries.
John