Vukovar was my last city in Croatia. After 40km, I crossed the Danube to enter Serbia through Backa Palanka. I still had 40 km more to Novi Sad. Halfway there, a couple joined me on their bikes and guided me to the center. Very nice people, who shared their ride and stories with me. That was a constant in Serbia; a lot of people asking me about my trip, offering help, greeting me… very warm and hospitable people during my stay there. After a morning visit to the center of Novi Sad, I stopped at a bridge to take photos of the castle when a man stopped to talked with me. He didn’t care we had no common language, but we talked 10 minutes anyway about Marie-Therese (who lived in that castle), Che Guevara, Messi, Tito, Yugoslavia… After such nice talk, I continued towards Belgrade. Somewhere in the middle of the road, a cyclist stopped me and recommended me a lot of places to visit in Serbia. A few km ahead I stopped for lunch and had another nice talk with a waiter, who was a big basketball fan (as most Serbians). He mentioned Ginobili, Delfino and a game from 98 that of course I don’t know about it. He told me some stories from the war and wished me luck with my trip. 30 km more and I was already in Belgrade, where I stayed at my good friend Marijana, who showed me her city and took me to a concert. Belgrade is very nice and I want to go back but without the bicycle. It’s more for jeans than for cycling shorts…

After a few days in the capital, I continued towards Srebrenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina), stopping at Šabac and Krupanj, where I started to climb. Again, a lot of super friendly people stopped me, invited me with food, drinks and covered me with questions and smiles. After that last mountain I crossed to Bosnia to visit the Memorial Cemetery of Potočari and then Srebrenica (which I will write about in another post). The next day I continue the road to enter Serbia again, to climb Tara National Park. My first big mountain welcomed me with a 900 meters – 13 km climb in three hours. Beautiful mountain, incredible views and a not-so-bad downhill directly to a campsite, a few km before Mokra Gora. In the morning I visited Kustendorf, which is a small tourist town made by Emir Kusturica for his movie Life is a Miracle and now holds a movie festival every winter. Twenty km after, I was entering Bosnia again, on my way to Višegrad.