Norwich’s Serbian Twin

13/04/19 – We were directed by a local to “the main road to Belgrade”

Day 26: 14/04/19
Location: Fair and Square Hostel, Belgrade, Serbia
Miles Driven: 0

Expecting to spend the whole day revelling in the sites of Serbia’s capital, we were slightly disappointed when after just a couple of hours, we had seen all of sights within our guide book. Known for its night life, perhaps a daytime tour on an exceptionally low budget is not the best place to see this city. We headed back to the hostel and had an enjoyable afternoon chatting with other people that were staying/working there and playing cards.

The only photo we took in Belgrade: the dog ‘parking’ outside the supermarket

Day 28: 16/04/19
Location: Novi Sad (AM) Fruska Gora (PM), Serbia
Miles Driven: 30

Our final full day in Serbia and by far our best day. After being underwhelmed by all that the country had to offer us so far, we agreed to visit one more place before we drove into Romania. On arrival into Novi Sad, we pulled up on a street with other cars parked and no signs for parking charges. As soon as we switched off the engine, a little old lady came over to us from her car asking if we spoke Yugoslavian? (no), German? (ein bisschen). Listening to her speak far too quickly for my GCSE-level German, she said something along the lines of this is a scheisse place to park, your car will be stolen, do not park here. So we got back in and somewhat reluctantly pulled into a space that required payment. Strolling up and down the row of cars, we could see that all of the cars had tickets. We could see the sign with the price of the tickets. We could not see a machine or person to buy a ticket from. It took us about half an hour, help from two different people, a fair bit of confusion and lots of sign language to get a ticket for the car. After getting the parking attendant to scratch off the bits on our ticket for us as we weren’t sure how to do it, we turned the ticket around and saw the instructions written very clearly in English – oops.

Novi Sad citadel

Probably aided by the glorious sunshine that was beating down on us for the first time in what felt like months, Novi Sad was beautiful. Unlike the grey, shabby buildings of Belgrade, the city had lots of pastel coloured, European style, and fairly well kept buildings. The main square was thriving with people – walking around, sitting outside the cafes and restaurants, enjoying the sunshine. We found a free bench, and did the same, tucking into our picnic lunch.

We could have spent more time there, but our parking had run out and we needed to get to our wild camping spot before it got too late. Heading into the Fruska Gora national park, we found the perfect spot and parked up for the night, glad that our last day in Serbia had been a successful one.

I cooked the dinner…

…whilst Chris put his feet up!

Morning view from the tent