Novi Knezhevac to Senta on E4: Day 2

Not a long walk today and all along the west embankment of the Tisza river.
I did not start very well by spilling yoghurt on the hotel room floor over breakfast (fortunately the waitress was very nice and said "no problem" while mopping it up, later echoed by the cleaning lady as I walked over her newly mopped hallway). Next I bought some apples at a supermarket, apparently I should have found someone to weigh them, instead the checkout lady had to take them to the back of the store to do it while the queue of ladies behind me waited patiently (or so I hoped). In the bakery where I bought a pizza slice and pastry for lunch I tried a "good day" in Serbian only to realise they were all taking Hungarian. The people at Tourist Information at Senta confirmed that Hungarian is the main language in this part of Serbia, and I noticed this is reflected in many of the street names, a remnant of the time when Hungary extended almost as far as Belgrade.
It had been raining heavily yesterday evening and the TV news over breakfast was showing pictures of damaged shop fronts and buildings. The weather forecast was predicting rain today but although the skies were grey it was dry until I reached Senta. The walk was along the embankment of the Tisza river, hidden by trees, although I did find a way through them to eat my lunch on the bank of the river at a spot where a fisherman had moored his boat. This was a flat bottomed affair typical of the area, a bit like a punt but propelled with paddles or an outboard motor. On the other side of the embankment there were fields, many with maize, a warm straw colour and ready to be harvested when the sun next shone. A couple of flocks of sheep with their shepherds were busy keeping the grass on the embankment short.
I passed through one village on route, Adorjan. As I left I passed some men loading bales of straw from a trailer into a barn. One indicated by his gestures that I could help throw the bales up. I declined. They were the old rectangular straw bales which you do not see much these days, having been replaced by larger circular bales.
On reaching Senta I looked around the main square at some of the Hungarian Art Nouveau buildings and a display on the important battle of Senta, where the Turks were defeated decisively. The people in the Tourist Information office were really helpful, they booked my next night's accommodation and gave me some leaflets on the town in English. I went to the café next door to digest them.
Now I am at Anna's guesthouse which is very pleasant as is the English speaking lady looking after it.

A GPS file of my route can be found on wikiloc.com, or it is route johnpon0020 on ViewRanger.com, and also on Wandermap.com. I covered 23.6 kilometres today.

Hotel Royal in Senta 

Senta City Hall

Szeged to Novi Knezhevac on E4: Day 1

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.

Bridge over Tisza river at Novi Knezhevac by B&B Lovac

E4 European Long Distance Trail in Serbia

The E4 European Long Distance Walk has a proposed route through Serbia described in a booklet entitled "Rambling through Serbia at a Slow Pace" published by the Mountaineering Association of Serbia (Planinarski Savez Srbije or PSS). I have walked the E4 from its start in the town of Tarifa, through Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Hungary (described here). I wrote a blog starting in Budapest to describe the latter part of my trip through Hungary, to continue an earlier blog from Tarifa to Budapest on the E4 by John Hayes. This blog continues with my walk through Serbia.
The original plan for the E4 was that it would pass through Romania, but no route was developed, instead Serbia took the leadership taking the E4 through their country. The subsequent posts in this blog share my experiences in trying to follow the intended path through this little visited country from Hungary to Bulgaria.
In doing so I confess to some concerns. The language, with its Cyrillic letters certainly looks off putting. I have also met very few people who have visited the country, and those people were all just transiting Serbia on the way to Greece. Indeed this is how I first crossed Serbia in 1981, travelling from Hungary to Greece as a student with a friend, my sister and her boyfriend in an old and overloaded Hillman Hunter car. We saw little but the road, and the rare forays to change money and get some food, were met with people with unsmiling faces. I am hoping it will have changed!
"Rambling through Serbia at a Slow Pace" only gives a general idea of the route, using Google Earth and the rather inadequate maps I was able to acquire, I created a detailed "track" for my GPS which I intend to follow. This was not too difficult in the northern part of Serbia  (in southern Serbia trees often make it difficult to see the paths on Google Earth), however my route may well differ somewhat from that intended and I also expect to have to make diversions from the "track" I created when unforeseen obstacles arise. When I have finished I will put the gpx files of my route on the Internet should anyone wish to follow in my footsteps. At least by reading my blog you will have some idea of what you might encounter.