Belgrade to Sofia

Serbia - Where I realized I've been spoiled like crazy by the flat eurovelo 6 and the tailwind.

Belgrade - a fun city
The serbians are known for their meat loving menus, and their version of the hamburger, the pleskavitza doesn't dissapoint. You can get a 300gram burger for about $2.50 and it is very tasty.

I went to the Belgrade Fortress, which is now a public park, where they have a ton of WWII tanks, as well as a miliitary museum. It also has a great view of the Danube, with all the party boats parked along the shore:

It must be fun to play on these courts:

I like tanks (PZI, PZII, PZIV, stug III):

In Belgrade I also spent some time in the Serbian orthodox churches. So far it has been really weird to see churches without pews for people to sit. I asked the guy at the hostel, and he said they have services for about 60-90 minutes and everyone just stands. I watched countless people walk in, cross themselves, kiss a picture of Mary or some other Serbian figurehead, cross themselves again, then move on to the next picture in the church.

I also went to the Tesla Museum, where they have a number of cool things like the urn with his ashes:

After leaving Belgrade, I headed east along the Eurovelo 6 to Smederevo before heading south towards Nish. I realized how spoiled I have been by the flat land and decent tailwind along the river. While looking for a place to camp I met up with a swiss cyclist, and we spent the next two days and nights together riding south towards Nish. There was nothing particularly interesting and it was mostly farmland. It was also incredibly hot so we took a number of breaks.

Also it was incredibly humbling that he was smoking at every break that we took, yet still beating me up all the hills. 

Arriving in Nish, we were wandering around town looking for a hostel when a German cycle tourist stopped us and mentioned the hostel he was staying at. We ended up staying there, and proceeded to see the rest of the city, including the fortress (also a park like in Belgrade) and skull tower:

He was heading towards Greece, so we parted ways in the morning.

Next Day I went to the Bubanj memorial in Nish before leaving town:

While sitting outside the hostel in Nish, changing my rear break pads (for the first time) I noticed this little problem with the rear tire: 

Question: I wonder how long this will hold?

Answer: about 5 miles before giving myself a pinch flat. Long enough to be out of town to the point where it would be annoying (and embarrassing) to return. Also I would've lost a day by returning to Nish to fix the tire

One Emergency tire boot later, and it was off to Sofia. (be prepared they said)

Han Solo says: C'mon baby, hold together:

Well it held together for 100 miles, and I'm now in Sofia where I've found an acceptable new tire. The front tire is not far behind the rear in terms of wear, so I will be looking for another one in Istanbul.

The border crossing into Bulgaria was about as easy as the crossing into Croatia, so no problems there. So far Bulgaria reminds me of the midwest.

Budapest to Novi Sad to Belgrade

So I went a few days without internet or a shower. I had some long days through Hungary and Serbia, with a slightly unexpected  20ish hours through Croatia.

Budapest - known for Turkish baths which I opted to skip because I'll do that in Turkey. I also wasn't really in the mood to see more museums, so I mostly wandered around the city all day.
Like Vienna, there are tons of old buildings here, especially along the main road leading up to Heroes Square.

I went to the citadel, which is this cool statue:

With this view of Castle hill, whichis where I went next:

With this old Church:

I was following a student group in, and it wasn't until I heard an usher ask the couple behind me for tickets that I realized that looking the part just saved me whatever the entrance fee was.

Budapest - The party city. Never before have I seen so many places advertising being open 24 hours.
Not being one to really frequent clubs, I decided to head to the Trophy grill which offers an all you can eat (and drink) buffet for about $20. It was some incredible Hungarian food, mixed with a Hungarian version of a Mongolian barbecue. It's times that that I'm happy to be on a 3000+ calorie diet. The ride back over cobblestones and well, Hungarian roads was an exercise in not puking up a great dinner.

Next day, I stuck around a bit to see some of the sites I hadn't seen before, such as this cathedral (saint stephens):

The inside is pretty incredible:

They even boast a holy relic that is a ~1000 year old severed hand (really)

Of course I couldn't pass up the chance to see the Hungarian underground, which has fascinated me since seeing the film Kontroll. I paid $1.50 just to enter the metro, look around, and leave. Worth it. They really have Kontrollers like in the movie, who check your ticket:

The cleanest subway I've ever seen:

After that is was south, following the danube. At least I think I was following the Danube. My eyes were mostly plastered to the road (if you can call it that) to make sure I didn't break something:

Hmm, my spider sense is telling me I may have missed a turn:

I saw lots of deer along the trail, but couldn't get a good picture as they saw me coming from 500+ meters away. I spent the night camping along here, and setup my first campfire of the trip, not because it was cold, but because I could. It only took one match. Yeah, I've still got it.

Next day through Hungary had nothing noteworthy. Really. Budapest - Because it's the only reason you're in Hungary. Most of the day was along the Donau, looking like this:

At least Hungary is super flat, and I had a decent tailwind so I made 85+ miles that day.
Next day, I made a slightly unplanned (as in, I was looking at the eurovelo route in Budapest and noticed that, hey, that looks like Croatia) detour into a bonus country. It cost me $2 to take this ferry across the Donau:

I had no trouble crossing the border. In fact I wasn't even asked any questions, other than "passport?"
Fairly quickly I realized I may have made a huge mistake. These signs started popping up everywhere:

This is the path I was riding along. Basically, everything to the left of the road is mined:

Courtesy of the Epheseus Museum in Vienna, this was pretty much my face throughout all of Croatia:

I made it to Osijek, but I had no money and couldn't find a bank. Also after seeing this little bit, it dawned on me that my lack of research may have cost me a few days. The language used here led me doubt if the Croatia/Serbia border was open:

Riding through Osijek was the first time I actually felt like I was on an adventure. You'll have to take my word for it because I was too creeped out to take pictures, but even 20 years later, there were plenty of buildings with bullet holes, or what were clearly bullet holes that had been patched over without the building being repainted. There was also a stretch of street where every house had a front lawn, but there was not a single blade of grass to be seen, so it was all just dirt. Very creepy. I tried to beeline out of Croatia into Serbia that night to make sure I could actually cross the border, but after 90 miles I was way too tired, so I wild camped about 10 miles from the border. It was the first time I didn't bother to setup the tent, as it had been several days without rain. Camping under the stars for the first time was very liberating and certainly saved me time packing up in the morning. I made sure to check for landmine signs before camping.

Next day, and my first real border crossing into Serbia. The border guards were bored apparently so they wanted to go through all my gear. Funny that the first real inventory since I've started my trip should be at the hands of Serbian Customs. After pulling all my crap from 3/5 bags, the guard said "this is taking too long" and I thought to myself, "yes, victory, I'm finally done here." He then continued to say "you seem like an honest guy, so answer me this: you're not carrying any marijuana or other drugs are you?" Of course I told him: "I just said I'm going to Istanbul, and the penalties there are crazy so of course I don't have drugs" but I couldn't help but smile while thinking "does that question ever work? Do people ever admit to something that will get them years in prison?"

Regardless, I made it into Serbia, but I was low on food and water. It was incredibly hot, so I spent noon to 3 eating lunch, watching a movie on my laptop, and waiting out the hottest part of the day. It was a success, and it dropped from 80 degrees to 70 degrees. Soon after of course it dropped to 60 degrees and started to rain. I realized then that I'd been spoiled and it hadn't rained since Austria. Watching the dirt road you're riding on turn into mud before your eyes is no fun.

Cathedrals in Serbia:

The Danube coast in Serbia, what a fixer-upper:

I made it to Novi Sad, which was fairly boring. I did realize though that I'm now in the part of the world where a decent meal costs $1.50, but buying food to eat later costs much more than that. This, combined with the increase in temperature means my picnicking days may be over.

At least Novi Sad has a cool fortress:

Anyway, the next day it was off to Belgrade. More Farmland, but so far Belgrade looks more interesting than Novi Sad, so I will spend tomorrow here:

Vienna to Bratislava to Budapest

Vienna:
Lots of old buildings and museums. I mostly wandered around looking at the architecture, and visited the arms museum and the imperial treasury. The best meal I had in Vienna was from a Turkish fast food place where they served something called a schnitzel semmel which was basically a standard Turkish gyro except with the gyro meat replaced with schnitzel.

Pretty much the whole city looks like this:

The arms museum had, well, lots of arms and armor:

Double barreled rifle!

One day I hope to own a hat this ridiculous:

Apparently at some point they put faces on the helmets which just made them look incredibly creepy:

 I bet this helmet gets all the ladies:

The imperial treasury had some of the most amazing gold and silver crafting I have ever seen. The pictures don't really do them justice.

Forget that painting I posted earlier, the bavarian kings had a real life holy hand grenade:

Trying to leave Vienna the next day, I had been warned that they were doing the Vienna marathon, but that didn't make it any easier to get past. I saw runners with numbers up in the 8000s, and there were certainly a lot of people there.

After finally making it to Bratislava I met a host there who is apparently the biggest bike activist in the city, and we spent the evening with a bunch of his friends tinkering with really old bikes trying to fix them.
The next day I walked around the Bratislava old town. I made it to the castle, which of course was open every day of the week except Mondays, and it was a Monday.

A lot of the churches in the old town were closed as well, like this weird looking one:

I walked all the way to the top of the city to see Slavin,which is a monument to the 6000ish soviet men who died liberating the city in WWII.

Eisenstein would've been proud of the staircase leading up to the monument:

Two days in Slovakia, and it was off to Hungary. It only took about an hour in the country until I found my first Hungarian, drunk out of his mind at 10am trying to drive into town on a small country road. About 10 minutes later I found another two drunk Hungarians walking bikes home. Apparently I am now in eastern Europe.
I had a long day as I was trying to make it to the unesco site of Benedictine Abbey. I made it there, but not before they closed (of course). The abbey sits on-top a hill, and you can see it for about 12km in any direction

I already had a reservation in Budapest for the 17th and I knew it was a long way, so I continued as long as I could to make the longest day yet, for 85 miles and I camped along a set of train tracks where my earplugs came in handy.

As I was eating my pasta dinner around 9:30 I sat and watched someone driving a huge piece of farming equipment roll up and start tilling a chunk of field literally 10 feet from where I was camped. Not wanting to end up torn into tiny bits has been moved to the top of my list of reasons to not camp in someone's field.

Today I continued on the Eurovelo 6 route which brought me through Esztergom which is home to this:

I rolled into Budapest around 8, and so far it looks quite cool. That made today my longest day yet with 90 miles cycling, for a total of 175 miles in two days.

Some random thoughts:
Now that winter is behind me, at least stopping to take pictures is quicker and easier without having to remove my gloves, and waking up and breaking camp in the morning isn't slow and painful.

Someone needs to compile a list of translations for "still water" in all languages. I absolutely can't stand the taste of sparkling water and that seems to be about 99% of what stores want to sell. The grocery store crapshoot of emergency water purchasing is getting old.

It's not a camera! I wish I had a dollar for every time I was asked if this was a camera, especially from other cyclists who honestly should know better:

At least it keeps them acting friendly if they think they're being recorded.