27 September Lepetane – Hercog Novi – Dubrovnik (C)

The ferry is free for passengers.  

It is easy to find a lift to Hercog Novi, where I can take the bus to Dubrovnik. At 9.30 we leave. The 2-hour trip takes as much time at the all border crossings as it takes for driving! From Montenegro we enter Bosnia and then than Croatia. This is today’s reality after the civil war. For me this is a long forgotten situation with the current EU borderless between the Schengen countries. 

Not to speak of all different currencies. Serbian Dinars, and Croatian Krona plus Bosnian Marks. Montenegro certainly does not accept Serbian Dinars, but uses the Euro, since it does not have it’s own currency. The EU has silently agreed. In Bosnia they are the most relaxed. They take Krona, Euro and Marks. You have to be a math magician to keep track. Thank got for credit cards this time.

In the harbor there is a swarm of yachts and day trip boats, as well as a giant driving hotel. One of those cruise-ships, which bark out thousands of tourists that get mouse-trapped in the streets of beautifully repaired Dubrovnik.

The fortress and town wall are now a world heritage site. It’s beautiful, but just not my type of tourism. I wouldn’t go for “you must have seen Dubrovnik and then you can die”!

My simple ‘sobe’ (room) is in one of the back alleys. The smell of the flowers and citrus trees lure me up the steps. 

 

The friendly and talkative lady offers me her price, but I bargain it down and we both seem content with it. She shows me her family roots that her 95 year old father has put together in a booklet Her family comes somewhere from Belgium, where her maiden name ‘Dender’ originates from. She also tells me about the siege in the winter of 1991, when Dubrovnik was encircled and shot to pieces. The people trapped without water and electricity.Then it’s time to go into the city.

Because the weather is so nice, I look for a beach and find it. Only locals and a lost tourist swim here. Life is beautiful and the Adriatic blue and with a pleasant temperature.

I dine out and retire early. Blog work to be done.

26 September Bar – Lepetane ferry

After a healthy breakfast with gluten-free bread – bought by the kind B&B Villa Jadran, I carefully plan my trip and look for the smallest roads possible. However in Montenegro along the coast there is not much of an option than follow the road that all thru traffic takes.

The weather is fine, around 25 degrees and the roads are smooth. But this is not like following the Danube! There are climbs up till 8% and more than once I have to climb more than 200 meters. After a full day this can add up to about 800 meters height gained. By now my cycle condition is good enough to do so. But the disadvantage of this route is all the traffic, some very dark tunnels and the constant diesel exhaust. At the end of the day I feel my throat and I have a headache.

But the scenery is beautiful. The dark pink and purple Bougainville is still blossoming. There are also lemon, tangerine and fig trees. The palms and other statue conifers make the scenery really Mediterranean, in contrast with the abundance of plums, walnuts and apples and peers along the Danube in Serbia.

Montenegro has certainly grasped the approach to a consistent tourism policy along the coast. The branding looks professional, with posters along the road expressing pride and beauty.

Still in many smaller towns it seems to me that the ‘pig cyclus’ of too much of the same and the vulnerability on depending on its current attraction of low prices, is already touchable. Haven’t we seen this before in Spain, Greece and other coastal areas? What is Montenegro adding that others did not have?

In 5 hours I ride the 75 km to Lepetane – Kamenary ferry crossing and check in. It overlooks the bay of Kotor and the busy ferry traffic. I take my first swim in the Adriatic and decide I will cook my own meal. Five kilometers back there is a small town, where I do the shopping. The earlier bought gluten-free package of spaghetti comes in handy. One bottle of local red wine some veggies and spicy sausage and I am all set.

On my way I passed the ‘ Montenegro port’, a gated community, where the filthy rich come to harbor their vessels. Or better to say, tie down their over-sized ‘cruise-ships’. Handsome body builder types in smart looking outfits – obviously the crew – hang around on the ships and quay. Owners are just the hosts of their guests. They do not interfere with sailing their ships, nor serving, cooking or any kind of household duties.

I am just an ordinary bicyclist and after washing some clothes and cooking, I enjoy the harbor and ferry traffic on my balcony, as one big cruise-ship leaves for open sea.

Tomorrow I will travel by bus to Dubrovnik and in the days thereafter by bus to Mostar, Sarajevo and back to Lepetane. I will leave my luggage and bicycle in the B&B.

25 September train Belgrade (Serbia) to Bar (Montenegro)

An hour early, I am waiting for the conductor of my train to show up. The bicycle appears to be no problem. After I manage to get it inside, I park it in the very front 1^st class carriage, where it’s least bothering other people. 

 

These trains are not equipped for taking bicycles. But at least it’s standing up and can’t be tossed around and crushed by other luggage under in a bus.

This train leaves in time 9.10 a.m sharp, but will I also arrive in Bar on time. That’s always the question for all travelers that have to change to other transport at the intermediate stops. Since trains and buses in the countryside are rather thin, this can slow one down for a half or full day.

The landscape further south becomes rugged. The first autumn colors show already. Summer is over!

 

 













 
the border crossing Serbia with Montenegro

23 and 24 September Contemplation and planning in Belgrade

Should everyone be allowed to make their own mistakes? Or how do we learn best? By looking at someone else’s experiences first and evaluating these or should everyone just bump his own head?

This question haunts me, since I started working in Central European countries.

Serbia is a country with beautiful flora and fauna. But why is it that – after the fall of communism and the introduction of western products – the people do not seem aware of it? If I judge it by the enormous numbers of PET-bottles, dumped trash bags, beer cans and smashed bottles etc. this is a case of carelessness. Is this the opposite side of becoming free and getting access to goods Serbs felt long deprived of? Or is it the young careless or ignorant generation, growing up in relative abundance? Is it the educational system that can’t cope with all these new responsibilities? Questions I can’t answer. I can only compare it with my previous work in Poland, where the same situation existed after1989 and only 15 years later, there started to be a more responsible reaction to all the new goodies.

I am not writing this because Dutch residents are doing so much better, because we do not. But the general awareness is bigger. If people in The Netherlands behave ecologically careless, I’d call it indifference rather than ignorance.

In fact there is another striking comparison, with the piles of waste, when it comes to private cars. In Belgrade they are just everywhere, most prominently on the sidewalk, on the scarce bicycle lanes and in the grass at the boundary of a park. It changes the city and its social atmosphere from a collective and shared space to an individual and egocentrically claimed space. Before the public transport system in many former Central European cities was widely spread and used by many. Now it’s old and run down and certainly still heavily used, but not particularly loved by its users.

Riding my bicycle in Belgrade worked rather well. It’s fast in the central part, especially during rush hour, but you do inhale lots of green house gasses and not much oxygen. Inhaling the diesel fumes from the trucks and busses is incomparable from smoking a joint! And it’s not even humid and hot like in the middle of the summer.

But not all is grim and negative, on the contrary. I still believe that the lesser people possess the easier and more grateful they share. Is this a deep human instinct, because sharing gives us a deep satisfaction? I come to think the answer is a definite ‘yes’. For what other reason I ‘d encounter so much friendliness and extreme hospitality by many.

Discussing this with companion travelers, I also think that we in Western Europe – and The Netherlands and Germany are quite extreme – have lost something that New Zealand and the New EU Member States, even Serbia still have. This can best be expressed by naming the extremes like taking a risk versus clinging to security, hope versus fear, grabbing the opportunity versus the un-ability to let go.

I remember reading a book at least twenty years ago, with the title ’24 stories making a radical professional change in life’. According to people from here and the New Worlds this isn’t an issue at all. Nobody would even ask why you did. No, taking a new approach is applauded versus in the West it’s questioned. That’s what we have lost!

I have finally figured out how I can both see Mostar and Sarajevo, without having to put my bicycle in the underneath bag compartment of a bus. Best route is via Bar on the coast, then cycling 130 kilometer North to Dubrovnik for two days, where I will park my bike. Then take the train or bus to Mostar and Sarajevo.

The train ride to Bar will cost me 28 euro and some euro’s for the bicycle. This deal should be closed with the conductor of the train. We’ll see. Henk be good!

24 September Visit of Belgrade and Muzen

In Belgrade I visit the fort, but it’s not open on Mondays. So I just inspect it from the outside. It’s an enormous complex at the mouth of the Sava and Danube, where many battles took place. The Turkish as well as the Habsburg empire tried to conquer it.

After looking at the two largest  churches, I take off for the historical fishing village of Muzen. Life is easy going and on the market square I eat my fresh fruits and vegetable lunch, bought at the market stalls.

In the main street where all public transport passes, you can see the contrast between the times of former prosperity and beauty and the grim period expressed by ugly Soviet architecture. 


The statues bark out their realism and the buildings their savage power. The photographed building – a former air-force center - was bombed by NATO in 1999, during the Kosovo conflict. It stands out as a relic of that period.
 

On the left another expression of 'Soviet architecture', the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Here you can visit the former working chamber of Tito, but not today. The uniformed guard makes this very clear after I have parked my tiny bicycle against the enormous entrance wall. Even before I ask this .. barks out, 'No Mister'! His monkey on the rock behavior is clear to me. Henk be good, this is not The Netherlands! I make my retreat with a smile.

Back in the hostel I meet a retired French policeman, who has biked through The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden to the North Cape and back through Finland and the Baltic states, Slovakia, Rumania and who is now heading back towards Paris.


He has an impressive beard that fits the area. I struggle with my French and this gives me a taste of what lies ahead of me in November, a 4 weeks intensive language course in Lyon.

We dine together and I pack because I have to leave for the train station at half past seven in the morning.

22 September Sremski Karlovski - Belgrad

Sunday is a good day for cycling without too many trucks. I wrestle me through the waste, glass, PET-bottles, sleeping drunks and new visitors for the last day of the wine festival. After asking some locals, I make it to Carlovci station over a very wet and bad dirt track. This is definitely not the Eurovelo 6. Via a very steep climb on a ‘Roman Road’ I make it to the village. 

For 6,5 kilometer, I used more than 1,5 hours! But the view down to the Danube is stunning.

 

On top, I stop under a plum tree. The last ones from this abundant summer are already fermenting a little. Not bad! In the summer anyone can survive here, because the fruits, nuts and vegetables are everywhere in the countryside. You see many people picking raspberries, rosehips, gathering walnuts and so on. I have also picked up many apples and peers from orchards or wild trees along the roads. This is something we have forgotten in The Netherlands. I remember that along a new street in Eindhoven, the municipality planted trees that gave purple plums. After many complaints from the residents – the plums were attracting wasps, were dirtying the parked cars and street - they were replaced by another kind of tree. Nobody came to the idea to harvest reap.

But then it’s just pushing the big blade and road hogging the kilometers. I eat lunch at Slankamen at the shore of the Danube after going down 12% descent hairpins. Well nourished these are a piece of cake by now. Many thumbs up I receive from car drivers and people along the road. The Serbs can really value sports, I have learned.

Scott, the New Zealander, has sent me an address of a very nice hostel, with the name ‘San Ars Hostel’. I find, 1,5 kilometer before the Sava river flows into the Dunav. It lies conveniently on a houseboat along the Eurovelo route. It’s beautiful, clean, spacey and well designed. I am going to stay here for the rest of the time in Belgrade. After a meal from fresh trout, parsley, garlic, and spinach in a cream sauce I crash.

21 September Ilok – National Park Froska Goro – Sremski Karlovci

I get up early and reset my front brake. They do not need replacement yet. The chain is oiled and the bike is ready to roll again.

Scott takes off for Novi Sad and Bert and I are going to test our legs on the route through the National Park. Eventually this will take us to the viewpoint at 539 meters. 

From this little ridge we can overlook to the north and south the plains of Serbia. Today I feel like the leader of a Tour de France team with bad legs. Bert, my main manservant, is staying with me and is making sure I don’t loose too much time. He cheers me up telling his GPS is at 450, 470 and 500 meters above sea level. Yes, it surely does make a difference 55 or 27 year old legs! 

At 16.30 we greet each other I head for Sremski Karlovci. One straight road down, head wind but descending by 10% I am easily doing 45 kilometer per hour. In 15 minutes I am at the bottom, where I dive into the yearly wine festival and a giant fair. It seems the whole region is in town. Live music, busy wine and other retailers, freshly made jams, vegetables, pepper and wines – red, rose and white – plus the local Slibovitch. Pigs and goats are hanging above the grill.

 

I stay - how original - in yet another Dunav Hotel. 

    

The Fair is next door and blasting the typical music over the terrain. I walk into town trying to score some Serbian Dinar and then eat. All money machines are totally empty or won’t service my international card, but the “Precident Hotel” is able to change Euros for Dinars. In the Danish Ambassador Club, I enjoy another wonderful meal, specially prepared with lots of fresh vegetables. My best friend Ger should have been here to go wine tasting. I wrote it earlier, all along the Danube in the Wachau (A), Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia the wines are quite distinguished and of great quality.

I head back over the Fair, enjoy some old Serbian Rockers on the main stage and reach my room.

 

The Fair stops at 2 p.m. 

The quietness is deafening. It has given me the perfect excuse to work on my blog, making up for the unpublished days.

20 September Osijek – Vukovar – Ilok

Beautiful weather and nicely paved roads, bring us to Vukovar fast. There we see some of the remains of the last civil war. The city fell to the Serbs on 18 November 1991. The monument, with 938 bodies found in a mass grave, tells part of that story. Some houses and the water tower show still the bullet holes of that war. But most of the houses have been retrofitted or built new.

After a long day Bert, Scott and I end up in the Dunav Hotel, beautifully situated at the shore of the Danube.