It has felt very different. We couldn’t read the signs and there are people bustling about in all the villages we’ve been through; street sellers at corners and along the roads, people harvesting small amounts of hay on the road side and people sitting on their seats outside their homes and generally milling about.
We first headed to a larger town to get the currency sorted. That done we headed away from the Danube and up a 8-13 % rather lengthy hill to reach the top of the national park. The views were spectacular.
Cycling into Belgrade the traffic was initially rather heavy having got used to the minor roads through the countryside. It’s a different skill set and you need your wits about you. We were quite relieved when a Danube cycle way peeled off along the river bank.
Like all cities, Belgrade is very bustley but in Belgrade we’ve had to search harder for the outstanding architecture and city ‘treasures’. The bins don’t appear big enough for the rubbish so there is a lot of garbage bagged up and left on the streets. Bread rolls have been hung from bins for the people who are rummaging around for left overs and the lucky pigeons. Off the main streets, like Budapest, buildings are often in a poor state of repair.
Again like a number of the cities we’ve been through, right back to Vienna, graffiti seems to be an accepted part of the street environment and there are large murals decorating some of the bare walls.
Two Serbian Orthodox churches, and one temple, in Belgrade. One was highly decorated while the other was not but both are very beautiful in their own right.
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