Day 40

26/09/2011 – Day 40

Bački Monoštor to Apatin – 48km

Breakfast was supposed to be typically Serbian this morning and we had fried eggs, sliced sausage, bread and jam.

While we were packing to leave the landlady came and chatted, asking about the trip, how many days we had been on the road etc. She was very nice and wished us luck in both German and Serbian.

The road to Sombor was slightly better than yesterday’s effort, fewer potholes but the surface is very uneven. It is easier to ride standing up than using the saddle for obvious reasons. The closer we get to Sombor the more rubbish there is on the road sides, it seems the done thing to just dump anything you don’t want down a side road. As we entered the town I saw a man with a blue bin bag picking up rubbish and all I could think was ‘you need a bigger bag’.

The outskirts of the town are just as dirty and unkempt as the villages we have driven through so far, but once you get into the town centre the place suddenly smartens up and becomes quite pleasant with a pedestrian area with café and restaurant tables on the pavement. It could be any continental country.

As I waited for M to buy his internet connection for Serbia I sat and watched the people go by, it is quite a busy town centre and I noticed a lot of people passed me several times as I sat there. This must be the place to be seen during the day for busy Somborites.

Leaving the town we passed the regulation slab sided tower blocks and followed a cycle path for quite a distance before turning off the main road down another side road. This time the surface was fairly good, still uneven but a lot less potholes. Last night Miloš was telling us that a lot of the villages still have non Serb minorities in them and I wonder if this makes a difference on the maintenance the roads receive.

Once we were off the main road there was a constant stream of tractors pulling double trailers piled high with boxes of apples. We are in the middle of the picking season right now, I had seen lots of people in Sombor walking round with plastic bags full of apples and now I know why.

We stopped at the village of Kupusina as it was the next bar from Sombor and had a beer as the convoy of apples trundled past pulled by decrepit old tractors that would not look out of place in a museum.

Once we had recovered we set off through the village following the new signs, this time they are blue with the ‘Eurovelo 6’ logo and the destinations with distance on them. At the end of the village the vital sign telling you to turn right has gone! There is just the post left standing there with nothing on the top (probably stolen by Hungarian bike thieves).

Having spotted the empty pole we made the turn which took as back towards the river.  After about 5km we enter Croatia, allegedly. According to the guide book the new border runs this side of the river bank so the Danube is in Croatia, but at this point there is a piece of land about 2km long and 1km wide that belongs to the other side. There is no access to it from across the river and it is surrounded by Serbia on the other three sides, so why is it here?

Anyway, technically we have been to Croatia today.

Again, according to the map there is a restaurant on the Croatian side of the border just as the road comes back into Serbia so we stop to check if it is true, just to say we have had a beer there. When we ask the waitress she proudly tells us it is Serbia, but when we show her the map she actually has no idea where she is and points to a place about 6km from where we are physically standing at the time!

Since entering Serbia we have been drinking Jelen beer, which is made in Apatin. The next town we are stopping in is, yes you guessed it, Apatin!

The brewery is visible from a long way off and as you come into the town the smell alone tells you where the brewery is. Taking the turn between the brew plant and the distribution site (which does not have a gate strangely enough) we find a small hotel which seems quite cheap and has a restaurant.

Once again looks can be deceiving, what appears to be a clean room is full of bugs and spiders, the shower is full of mould and things are starting to fall apart, but we are in now so will stay. Plus there now seems to be some confusion over the price, M though she said 15€ now he thinks she said 50€. But dinner for two cost 20€ which included three G&Ts, so we will see in the morning.