Belgrade
N 44°53'406'' E 020°27'561''
Day: 75
Sunrise:
06:41 am
Sunset:
6:10 pm
Total kilometers:
2142.53 Km
Temperature – Day (maximum):
22,1 °C
Temperature – day (minimum):
19 °C
Temperature – Night:
11,8 °C
Latitude:
44°53’406”
Longitude:
020°27’561”
Maximum height:
96 m above sea level
“What do you think? Should we find somewhere else to stay?” I ask Tanja after we wake up and look at our trucker’s accommodation with tired eyes. “I don’t know. It will cost us a lot of time to find a new place to stay. As the bikes are still here and we’re only staying overnight anyway, we might as well stay,” says Tanja. We think about it for a while and decide to keep the domicile and use the day to make the trip to Belgrade. We have to find out if there is a possibility to take the train from here to Bucharest and if we can take the bikes with us. If it works from Belgrade to Bucharest, it also works the other way round. The question is whether we can afford to cycle the 800 kilometers to Bucharest on our tight schedule and then return to Germany from there at the end of the month. If we get positive information at the station information desk, we will travel to Romania and then take the train back to Germany from Bucharest. Next year in April we can continue from Bucharest.
Satisfied with our plan, we sit on a bus heading towards the city center. A Serb helped us to get on the right bus. As expected, the traffic can be compared to a swarming anthill. Even the thought of having to drive through there makes our hair stand on end. “We should find a way around it,” says Tanja. “I was just thinking the same thing. When we get back, I’ll study the map carefully,” I reply as the bus is just about to cross the Danube bridge.
At the terminus, the helpful Serb accompanies us a little further along the way and then explains how to find the station. We say goodbye to Dunnaj and a little later find Belgrade’s main railway station without any problems. The nice man at the ticket counter gives us all the information we need. “As far as I know, they can take their bikes with them. But there is no general rule and the conductor may charge the bikes as excess baggage,” he explains.
We leave the station in a good mood to take a look at Belgrade’s city center. Our muscles are whimpering and screaming because of the long stretches of the last few days. We demanded everything we could from them due to the headwind. Especially when going up or down stairs, we feel we are walking on tree trunks rather than on legs that react very slowly and sluggishly.
Nevertheless, we make it to the castle square of Kalemegdan Fortress. We sit on one of the mighty walls and look out over the pointed estuary between the Sava and the Danube. Since Budapest we have finally had the opportunity to admire the Danube again, which we have been following for so long. In the meantime, it has become even wider, even more powerful, especially because this is where the waters of the Sava join it. From up here we have a fantastic view over the capital. This town, like almost all towns on the Danube, is bursting with history. The Celts settled here as early as the 4th century BC. The Romans built the legionary camp of Singidunum on this site in the 1st century BC, which was fought over by various peoples for a long time due to its strategic location. During our short stay, we only get to see a little of the city’s past, but you can really feel why the Celts, Romans, Huns, Sarmatians, Goths, Byzantines, Franks, Bulgarians, Turks, Slavs, Austrians and Germans settled here.
We leave this impressive and eternally contested town in the late afternoon. We buy a map of Romania, have a cappuccino and make our way back. Everything is fine in our accommodation. The bikes are fine and nothing is missing in our room. We can only hope that the headwind won’t be so bad tomorrow and that we can keep to our schedule to reach the capital of Romania on time.
