It was a day of walking through cherry orchards and vineyards with views of the Danube and the plain of Vojvodina between the trees.
First I had to get safely back to my planned route avoiding the busy road with no pavement. Relying on the Balkan Navitracks map I installed on my GPS I set off along a track signposted to a University of Belgrade site and then via a series of tracks, a footpath and roads I returned to the point at which I turned off for Vinča. A shorter, safer and certainly a more pleasant route than the one I took yesterday.
Apart from the village of Ritopek and the town of Grocka the rest of the day was a walk along tracks and small roads among orchards and vineyards. Although mainly cherry trees there were also apples being picked. Some nice views of the Danube although trees, houses, telegraph poles and electricity lines made it difficult to get a good photo. There was quite a lot of up and down hills contrasting with the flat fields of Vojvodina that I recently walked through and which were visible on the other side of the Danube.
A few issues, the path was muddy in places and near the villages there were houses strung out along the track with barking dogs at many of them. The noise gets wearing after a while. Since Belgrade I also seem to have encountered a lot more dogs wandering about, although fortunately none seemed to have been very aggressive. Whether they had owners or where just living off hand outs and what they could scavenge I do not know. I also had trouble with a fence, 5ft high with barbed wire on the top enclosing a lot of bare earth, not typical of Serbia where most fields are not enclosed. There were two possible routes, the one I picked from Google Earth and the Sultan's trail. I was afraid my route would be blocked at some point by the fence as it would not have been visible to Google's satellites so I took the Sultan's trail route. This was the wrong choice. They evidently recorded their GPS track before the fence was built and I had to retrace my steps and follow my own route.
I reached the village of Udovice as the shadows were lengthening. Elderly tractors were returning to houses in the village with trailers of apples and apple pickers. I saw one lady even sitting "side saddle" on a tractors bonnet. A more relaxed (if less safe) attitude than in the UK (where roll-over protection would be required). A final, rather tedious walk along a busy road has brought me to my lodgings for the night at Hostel Che. I was tired and worried as I was an hour later than the time I had given the owners, but I was warmly welcomed by a lady waiting for me, who offered free raki, coffee and tea. My feeling of well being was completed by a filling meal at the nearby Barik restaurant (the fish soup was very good).
I walked 43 kilometres today, from hotel to hotel. A GPS track of my route can be found at wikiloc.com, which also has the best routes between the E4 and the Hotel Radmilovac and Hostel Che. My route is also on ViewRanger.com as johnpon0024 and on Wandermap.net.
First I had to get safely back to my planned route avoiding the busy road with no pavement. Relying on the Balkan Navitracks map I installed on my GPS I set off along a track signposted to a University of Belgrade site and then via a series of tracks, a footpath and roads I returned to the point at which I turned off for Vinča. A shorter, safer and certainly a more pleasant route than the one I took yesterday.
Apart from the village of Ritopek and the town of Grocka the rest of the day was a walk along tracks and small roads among orchards and vineyards. Although mainly cherry trees there were also apples being picked. Some nice views of the Danube although trees, houses, telegraph poles and electricity lines made it difficult to get a good photo. There was quite a lot of up and down hills contrasting with the flat fields of Vojvodina that I recently walked through and which were visible on the other side of the Danube.
A few issues, the path was muddy in places and near the villages there were houses strung out along the track with barking dogs at many of them. The noise gets wearing after a while. Since Belgrade I also seem to have encountered a lot more dogs wandering about, although fortunately none seemed to have been very aggressive. Whether they had owners or where just living off hand outs and what they could scavenge I do not know. I also had trouble with a fence, 5ft high with barbed wire on the top enclosing a lot of bare earth, not typical of Serbia where most fields are not enclosed. There were two possible routes, the one I picked from Google Earth and the Sultan's trail. I was afraid my route would be blocked at some point by the fence as it would not have been visible to Google's satellites so I took the Sultan's trail route. This was the wrong choice. They evidently recorded their GPS track before the fence was built and I had to retrace my steps and follow my own route.
I reached the village of Udovice as the shadows were lengthening. Elderly tractors were returning to houses in the village with trailers of apples and apple pickers. I saw one lady even sitting "side saddle" on a tractors bonnet. A more relaxed (if less safe) attitude than in the UK (where roll-over protection would be required). A final, rather tedious walk along a busy road has brought me to my lodgings for the night at Hostel Che. I was tired and worried as I was an hour later than the time I had given the owners, but I was warmly welcomed by a lady waiting for me, who offered free raki, coffee and tea. My feeling of well being was completed by a filling meal at the nearby Barik restaurant (the fish soup was very good).
I walked 43 kilometres today, from hotel to hotel. A GPS track of my route can be found at wikiloc.com, which also has the best routes between the E4 and the Hotel Radmilovac and Hostel Che. My route is also on ViewRanger.com as johnpon0024 and on Wandermap.net.
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| View of the Danube |
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