Belgrade, Serbia. 20th September 2025

Leaving Romania and entering Serbia took five minutes each. I was a bit surprised because Serbia isn’t in the EU, although it does have candidate status. But I didn’t complain.
Then I made a total idiot of myself again. I went up the road from the border post a short way, to what I thought was a café. I parked the bike then noticed there was a glove missing. I must have dropped it while crossing. I’d sat them just in front of the handlebars for convenience.
I rode back down to the border area and parked the bike in a little car park. I spoke to the Serbian immigration guy, explaining that I wanted to go and look for my glove. But they insisted on stamping me out of Serbia. I hiked back over to Romania but no sign of the glove.
I hiked back to Serbian immigration and got stamped back in again. I collected the bike and rode back up to the café. And there was the glove, sitting in the middle of the road right where I’d first parked! How the hell did I not see that? I put it down to border nerves. And there wasn’t a café there anyway.

I carried on into Serbia and pulled up in the first town I came to for a coffee and to sort out a SIM card. I’d been using my UK SIM since leaving home and, when outside of the EU, I’d been paying for roaming data. It didn’t tend to cost much and was much more convenient than constantly changing SIMs for the sake of a couple of weeks.
But the phone now wouldn’t connect. Not even the expected message from Lebara, my phone company, to advise about the local system. However Google did manage to tell me where an ATM was and the woman in the café told me there was a money changer just up the road.
I walked up and round the corner and got the money sorted but still no internet access. So I used maps.me to navigate to Belgrade. A pleasant ride with traffic and the roads seeming no different to Romania.
As I came into the city I did some filtering, with cars politely moving across for me. Somebody told me filtering wasn’t allowed in Romania and I wondered about Serbia too. I don’t care. I’ll do it anyway. Drivers usually react well.
Close to the city centre I found a bar where I got a coffee and the essential wi-fi. I was then able to pay Lebara for two weeks roaming in Serbia and book into a hostel.
It was a nice place. The dorm was very roomy, with big lockers. I had my own food storage bin in the kitchen and there was plenty of fridge space. I was in a lower bunk with a socket and a light. A very well organised place. The bike was on the pavement outside, covered up. So I was happy and was looking forward to exploring Belgrade.
A question for you all. Do I seem fussy sometimes, about he places I stay at and my expectations? I wonder about myself in that regard. But experience has shown me that seeking out the best accommodation is worth doing because as sure as eggs are eggs, I know I’ll end up in some hovels from time to time. At the same time I do go for economy when I can.
And talking of eggs (a wonderful food) I usually try to eat cheaply. If you’re on holiday it’s OK to splash out most of the time. But when you’re eating out every day you have to watch the budget. So I often eat what’s cheap and available. But I do eat plenty of fruit and veg and get a salad where I can. One has to watch one’s figure, don’t you know.
OK, on with the story.

I was pleased to discover a Lidl supermarket near to the hostel and it became my ‘go to’ place for food. It was also on the main road where the buses ran. Some of the places I wanted to visit were a bit spread out and I’d decided public transport would be useful. “But you’ve got a bike!”, I hear you say. Very true. But you don’t get to understand a city from the saddle of a bike or the seat of a car. Walking is always better. And if that walk is a long one, then a bus or metro helps things along.
I took a walk up to Belgrade Fortress, which overlooks the Danube River. But On the way through Republic Square I saw the National Museum of Serbia. It was very interesting. It covered the story of man’s arrival in the area and the story of the ages. The Romans occupied as far north as this. But the main history is the to and fro of different tribes, kings and empires after the Romans. The Turks came up this far too. So the history is the Central European mix that I was becoming familiar with.
There was some good art work in there, from Renaissance times. Some big pictures that I liked a lot. They’ve developed a system whereby they copy some of the ancient artifacts and allow people to touch, to get the feel of the material. A very good idea for kids like me.

Onwards, up to the fortress. A big and spread out place, up on top of a ridge above the river. A very well preserved citadel, from the early days of the city. It became a national monument immediately after WWII. There’s lots of different buildings to look at, all part of the fort complex. It dates from Roman times and was improved, destroyed, rebuilt and rebuilt again during the ebb and flow of the varying occupations this area endured. I particularly wanted to see the Ruzica Church but ended up wandering off in the wrong direction.
It didn’t matter because it meant I saw more of the fort anyway. The main entrance is actually down by the river bank, a pleasant place to walk along. I bought an ice cream and then saw some posters advertising the national parks in Serbia. Very handy for route planning. I photoed them for reference.

It was clear this path led to the main entrance so I went back along it, into the fort again. There was a drawbridge and decorative gateway there. I walked across in the general direction of the church, trying to make sense of Googls maps, and finally found it.
It had been a munitions store up until the 1920s and was then converted. This meant that all the mosaics were fresh and new. They were of a different style to the others I’d seen and I preferred them. There were plenty of people around on a sunny Saturday and I enjoyed the walk there and back again.

That evening, while I was sitting eating my tea, some people came in and gave a kind of poetry performance, all in Serbian, of course. It finished up with some clapping and chanting, then everyone followed them outside, bar a few of us. I have no idea where they went, or why. And I never saw them again The Pied Pipers of Belgrade! (Just joking.)
Next day I went up to the Tito museum and memorial. An interesting overview of Yugoslavia’s history, in particular the split between the Yugoslav leader, Marshall Tito and Russia’s Stalin, in 1948. Yugoslavia’s economy became more market orientated after that. Tito saw his system of decentralised communism as a way of preventing inter ethnic conflict. Stalin didn’t like it. But, unlike most other Soviet states, Yugoslavia was too powerful to be bullied and was able to go its own way.

Tito was generally very popular, especially for a communist leader. When he died in 1980 he was buried in the museum grounds, with a mausoleum to house him, called the House of Flowers. His rule was replaced by a system of annually rotating presidents, from the various Yugoslav states, designed to prevent the rise of an authoritarian ruler.
The museum has, according to Wikipedia, over 75,000 items relating to Yugoslavia’s 20th century history, including many of the gifts given to Tito. The museum was closed for some years after the break up of Yugoslavia but it’s open again and is very popular now.
Next day I went out, heading for the Tesla Museum. But I couldn’t go in. Booked tours only, all day, until 6pm. I was really annoyed and I told the guy there what I thought of it all and left. Very unfair of me really. It wasn’t his fault. But I really wanted to visit it.

As a country, Serbia has a long history. It was populated by Slavs in the early Middle Ages and became a Kingdom in 1217 and then an Empire in 1346. But by the mid 16th century it had been occupied by the Ottomans. But as the Hapsburg Empire expanded, and the Ottoman rule receded, Serbia regained its status as a nation state, becoming a Kingdom in the early 19th century, but still under Ottoman rule. After WW1 it joined with other south Slavic countries to form Yugoslavia. That’s a quick skim across Serbia’s history. As ever, the full story can be found on Wikipedia.

Next stop was The Church of Saint Sava. He dates back to the 12th century and is important in Serb history. He is the patron saint of Serbia, the Serbs, medicine and education. A very busy man! The building is very striking, and BIG. Biggest in the Balkans, it claims. But the inside is beautiful. It was only finally finished in 2021, although most of the work was done before that. It explains why everything looks so fresh. Following a Serbian uprising in the 19th century, where his icon was used on war flags, the Ottomans burned his remains. The church was built on that site.

The whole of the ceiling of the upper section is in mosaic, and it looks stunning. Some excellent themes are covered there. Down in the lower level – far too big to be called a crypt – are paintings and murals all over the walls and ceilings. They are works of true beauty, although I had to smile at the elvish ears that some of the people seemed to have. I was very impressed with the place.

Belgrade was done and dusted. I’d tramped the streets, ridden the buses and seen the places. So I moved on to the town of Novi Sad. This translates as New Plantation but it was mostly famous for its medical school. Reckoned to be off the beaten tourist path and therefore more laid back and authentic. It’s the county’s second largest city. My main reason for going there was just to see as many sides of Serbia as I could.
I found my way to the guesthouse I’d booked. Somebody heard me coming and opened the gate into the yard. That was good. Once I’d paid for the room I was given a glass of raki. Fiery and also good. After completing a few maintenance tasks on the bike, I went for a walk.
I went to the city centre, which wasn’t far. A pleasant pedestrianised area, which housed the church and the town hall. I took photos, also of a couple of other nice looking buildings. Then I went for a walk around. Nothing special to see apart from a large and old synagogue, but the city centre was a pleasant place to be. I stopped for coffee and strudel, which was equally pleasant.

In the morning I walked across the Danube to visit Petrovaradin fort. 223 steps up to the clock tower. I sat around there for a while. Loads of school kids came, on a day out. Did they know about the clock, I wondered? So that fishermen out on the river could see the time more easily the hour hand was longer than the minute hand. Clever.

I walked round to the museum, which was very interesting. It told the story of the area and of the fort. It was built on top of an old monastery in 17th/18th C, as a defence against the Ottoman invaders. There was a crucial battle in the area which helped to drive the Turks out of central Europe. Its defenses and gates are mostly still there. I didn’t realise there were buildings lower down, including a couple of churches. It’s a big place, the second largest in Europe.
There has been a defensive fort there for thousands of years. The Romans built a fort there. Then, in the 13th century, an order of Cistercian monks, from France, built a monastery. The modern version was built in the 17th century. It has an interesting design, with many angled walls as part of the defenses. The Austrians fought the Turks nearby, and their win was the end of the Ottoman threat to Central Europe.

Back in the city centre I found a bar that was just opening and recuperated from my long day’s walking with a nice pint of IPA. I have to tell you something here folks. I’m no lover of larger, although I will drink it as a way of rounding off a busy day. But I can literally take it or leave it and settle for a decent cup of tea instead. Point me towards a decent beer though, such as IPA, and I’m not going to even try to resist. English? Me?? You’d never have guessed.
My next destination was Subotica. No rush as I wasn’t going very far. The ride was very pleasant. Flat road, empty fields, but I stuck to 80kph and enjoyed a relaxed ride on a sunny day.
I found and accessed the apartment I’d booked. A very nice room, with the very important kettle. It had a nice garden so I went out and sat on a sun lounger for an hour or so.
I made some plans as to what to see, including the mosque. I went up there, mainly out of curiosity. I hadn’t seen one in the countries I’d been in recently so I kind of felt obliged to look. But it was very ordinary and not worth the walk.

I went back into the central area and visited the synagogue. It’s a fabulous building but it looked like a church inside. Rows of pews, a nave and a dome with paintings all over it. But no, it was designed and built for the purpose. I’m not sure that I’ve been in one before so I didn’t have a reference point anyway. Some beautiful stained glass with patterns whose significance I didn’t know.

Next was the Subotica museum. Very little of the info was in English so it didn’t hold me up for very long. The exhibits were similar to what I’d seen elsewhere anyway apart from the city information. I’d picked up a lot of that from the info screen in the synagogue anyway. That included the fact that the town had been part of Hungary at one time.
I was very curious to see what I thought was the Royal Palace. So I was puzzled when I arrived at a terraced building opposite a small park. It turned out to be the palata – large house – of Frederic Rajhl. Not at all a royal palace. But I forgave myself as it was a fabulous place to visit.

He was a successful architect from Hungary who’d built this house in a striking art nouveau style. I thought it stunning, with some attractive and interesting detailing on both the out and in sides. It was the colours as much as anything else. Purples, pinks, greens. Very dashing against the plainer surrounding  colours .

The interior includes a modern art museum and again, the rooms were attractively designed. A woman volunteer showed me around. I asked her to focus on the house rather than the art. So she told me the purpose of each room while I admired the decoration.
In the upstairs part was an exhibition by a Serbian female artist which focused on some feminist themes of female personal power relating to their sexuality and so on. Rude, so no photos, and interesting. Downstairs was an exhibition of costumes, drawings and models from the children’s theatre which is located in the town. They were very colourful and scary.

I walked around the centre taking photos of the city hall and some other buildings. The city hall is quite striking and also looks art nouveau. It may have been designed by Rajhl as well.
I’d now seen all I wanted to see in the north of Serbia. Heading south was the name of the game for the next day.
A very pleasant day. By the time I’d packed up and refueled it was 11.00. So I set off to retrace my wheel tracks back to, and past, Subotica.
Within two hours I was at the Church of St Mary Magdeline, at the start of the road through Fruska Gora National Park. It’s a beautiful building with green and gold spires that looked stunning as they reflected the sunlight. It isn’t big. Its location is a bit odd as well. There’s almost no buildings around it. It just sits at the cross roads impressing everyone that passes by.

It had been recently refurbished. The interior is modern and has similar paintings to others I’ve seen recently. But each of these places seem to focus on different biblical events and themes. This was themed on the miracles but mostly it seemed to be about saints. A remarkable building and well worth seeing.
I set off along the road through the park. I was following a slow moving car which made me relax and enjoy the ride. Lovely woodland, mostly of pines but with smaller trees and plenty of undergrowth. The weather was good, making it a very pleasant place. I stopped at a crossroads half way along the road, at the arena café. There were a few other bikers there, two from Hungary. Across the road was another café, with even more bikers. Obviously a popular place for a ride out.

I stopped off to see some sites in the woods. Firstly a memorial to fallen WW2 soldiers. A large obelisk with a sculpture at its base and some bas relief carvings along the side. Then came two small memorials. The first to partisans who fought against the Nazis. The second to a woman partisan who was killed fighting. Her name was Radinka Vitasovic, known as Lepinjica and the site was named after her.

I was soon at the end of the forest drive and headed down to the apartment I’d booked. I rang the owner up when I arrived and he sent his mother down to sort me out. Not a word of English but Google Translate sorted things out.
Continuing my theme of eating cheaply, a local supermarket provided me with a packet of spaghetti bolognaise I could cook, and a bottle of wine. Also some strudel with figs in it. All of it absolutely delicious. Who needs expensive restaurants, especially when in an apartment with cooking facilities?

I had an enjoyable riding day, heading to Kragujevac. Serbia is similar to Romania with regard to its topography, so most of my riding was very pleasant, so long as I avoided the towns. I’d booked an apartment there but as I came into the town I diverted to see one of the many Spomeniks that can be seen around these parts. “What’s one of them, then”, I hear you ask? They are a type of memorial peculiar to the former Yugoslavia. One of Marshall Tito’s ideas. He wanted to shy away from the typical Soviet style memorial and engaged sculptors to create a variety of different ones, dedicated to the partisans who fought the Nazis. There’s a lot of them but, sadly, they’ve been left to rot as nobody is interested in them any more.

Except for visitors like me. This one is called Interrupted Flight. A V shape with figures of people carved into it. It represents when the Nazis murdered 2,800 men an boys on 21st October 1941, including hundreds of high school students. It is within a memorial park where there’s cemeteries and so on. A big thing for this town.
Then I went to the apartment and met two elderly women there. They showed me round and took my money. The furniture in the apartment is seriously old fashioned. They seemed quite proud of it. All the cupboards and units are in teak.
The kitchen was a bit ropey, the bathroom even worse. The bath had a shower attachment but no shower curtain. All the crockery and cutlery were old and mismatched. It looked like it used to be occupied by an elderly aunt and they’d just left everything as they found it. There’s no wi-fi, but that was stated in the entry in Booking.com anyway. I’ve been in some really nice apartments but this wasn’t one of them.
I went out for a walk and was going to visit the town centre. But Google wasn’t showing any special places there, and it was starting to blow up a gale. So I bought some food and headed back. I wasn’t sure where to go the next day. The weather forecast was all about rain.
And the rain did, indeed, arrive, although it sneaked up on me as the day went on. But I was guilty of creating my own problems. I’d put the location of that night’s apartment into Google maps but didn’t realise the street existed in three different towns. Inevitably I chose the wrong one. So I rode north for three and a half hours and didn’t realise my mistake until I saw signs for Novi Sad, the town I’d been in four days earlier. I’d needed to go south!
Google was saying it was a five hour ride to where I needed to be. What to do? Cancel the booking? Change the date to a day later and stay somewhere local? In the end I changed the settings on Google maps to allow it to take me onto motorways and toll roads. The ETA promptly came down to a reasonable three hours. After some warming coffee and a snack, at 2pm I set off south.
The rain got heavier and I got wetter and colder. My waterproof gear wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be. Three and a half hours later I arrived at the apartment, which was very nice and, most importantly, warm. I paid the owner with my damp money then hung everything out to dry. It had been a long time sinceI’d been so glad to arrive at my destination.
I was in the town of Nis. I set off about 09.45 and went to visit the Skull Tower. An interesting place, with skulls embedded in the walls. The Turks had built it after putting down a Serbian revolution. The idea was to scare the Serbs into not rebelling again. But it had the opposite effect. It became a symbol of resistance instead.

Next was the Red Cross concentration camp,  next to the Red Cross centre. It had started out as a Serb military depot but the Nazis took it over and built extra facilities.
It housed partisan prisoners and various others. But mostly Jews. Many were executed, especially in revenge for any German soldiers killed by partisans. It was set up in late 1944 and was relieved by the Russians in 1945. There was a good display of photos and story boards, in English too. A very similar story to other places I’ve visited.

Then it was just a case of riding the good roads. Highest point was 1600 metres, where it was very cold. Up on the peak there were lots of new buildings, obviously a large ski resort. A ski lift was being built too.
I came through Novi Pazar and, apart from a mega traffic jam, I saw four mosques, two of them quite big. It isn’t far from the Kosovo border so I’m thinking that might account for the Muslim presence. But it definitely struck a note.
I’d seen A LOT of police in the various places I passed through. They were generally to be found near the school zones, with a 30kph speed limit. I wasn’t far from Sjenca, my destination, when I came into a village and got waved in. I think the school zone must have been at the very beginning of it.
The officer was very pleasant. He checked my passport and noticed my Indian visa. He pointed to it and then the bike, asking if I’d been there on it. Far too complicated to explain that it was a different bike so I just said yes. He was clearly impressed and waved me to go. Nice man.
The apartment was big and cold, but the heating did its job. I was comfortable enough.
A really lovely day of riding followed. I left at 10.15 in sunshine but freezing cold. I was wearing all my warm gear. My destination was Studenica Monastery.
It was a fabulous day. The elevation meant that the sky was clear, with none of that low level pollution that can smear the view. A sun washed and clear sky. Even the few clouds looked cheerful. The road was fabulous. It had recently been resurfaced and, judging by the blasted out rock face, had also been widened.

Loads of lovely bends and the bike and I loved it all. It was joyous. But the road deteriorated after a while so the bends became more challenging. Then it improved and the game was on again. I was just taking it steady and enjoying myself.
The monastery was from the 13th century and was very different to the newer ones I’d seen in Romania. Smaller and with rougher buildings, as you’d expect from that era. Amazingly, most of the painted frescoes were original. And their condition was quite remarkable. I got told off for taking photos but I still took a couple more.

Once I’d left there I found a place for a coffee and croissant, then headed back down. The ride down from the hills was excellent. Some tasty bends and I made myself improve the way I took RH bends. I did get better and I wanted to build on it.
When I got to Pozega I struggled to find the address. I showed it to a woman in a hairdressers and she was very unhelpful. So I went into a bar and a guy in there spoke English. He rang up my host and discovered that the apartment was already occupied. What he’d obviously done is let it out but not told Booking.com. He offered me another one, which was a bit dearer but was nearby. I had a moan at him but accepted it as there wasn’t really any choice.
He sent a friend down to meet me and he showed me where it was. I took the bike round there. Then this guy was told that there was a garage I could use for the bike. That was great and it made the extra money worth it.
I took the opportunity to do some maintenance. The chain still didn’t need adjusting. I topped up the chain oiler. Both the tyres needed 2.5 PSI of air. Was that affecting the handling? Possibly, but not all that likely.
I spent some of the evening completing an online form for my Green Card insurance. I was about to head into Bosnia where my UK insurance wouldn’t be valid. I was using a Czech based company, one of the few that would cover a bike from the UK. A Brexit benefit for his company, but not for me. But I needed to sign the form, which meant printing it, signing it then scanning it back in, to be sent to the insurers.

Next morning I headed out to get the printing done. I’d identified a print shop nearby that looked likely. As I was leaving I bumped into the guy who lived downstairs. I mentioned to him what I wanted and he suggested another place that did photographs.
I found it easily and there was a very helpful woman in there who spoke good English. She understood exactly what I needed and sorted it out for me. Luckily I spotted some missing information on one of the forms and was able to write it in before she scanned it. These online forms clearly don’t always save everything that goes on them.

I headed out of town and hit the wiggly roads. But the route had a surprise for me. It became a dirt road, despite having a road number. I was supposed to take a left turn that went down a steep hill and was quite stony. I diverted from that but ended up on another steep and stony road anyway.
The bike and I managed it with no problems. It cured me of my reluctance to use these tracks although when I tried standing up on the footrests it just wasn’t right. The riding position felt odd. Later I adjusted the handlebars forward and it improved things somewhat. The people I passed at the little homesteads didn’t seem surprised to see me at all. Nods and smiles between us.
I headed up into Tara National Park, after paying the 300 Dinar entry fee. There was a sign warning of bears but I didn’t see any.
It was a very nice ride up through there. The road was a bit rough in places but was good enough. I stopped at a viewpoint that overlooked the hydro electric plant. The sign explained about thesecond reservoir up above it, used to supply extra water at busy times.

A very nice riding day all round and I enjoyed the off road challenge. I arrived in Kremna about 3pm and was in a little apartment with all the necessities. I got on with paying for the green card. They’d given me their details for Wise, an online payment app. I opened an account with them and transferred the money across. Wise warn about it taking a couple of days but it was almost instant. Within 10 minutes I was sent the insurance document. I was supposed to print it off and sign it but I couldn’t see that getting done. There wasn’t even a village between here and the border.
With all the necessary admin now completed I was ready to venture forth into Bosnia.