I’ve given myself a challenge when it comes to the distance today. I’m aiming for Bezdan in Serbia, which will take me about 158Km from Virovitica.
I have a quick breakfast, my bag is packed and I have paid for my stay. I feel good today. I am motivated for a long day on the bike, the only question is if I start to late in the morning.
It’s about 10Km before I’m back on the planned route. I have the wind against me today as well. When will this change? The terrain will be really flat all day, except a small hill just before the boarder. Basically this means that I’ll feel the wind at all times and that there will be no time for relax.
EU signs. They are all over. I’m not an expert, and I might be wrong, but I get the impression that they have assisted with economical support all over in eastern Europe. It’s my impression that one of the reasons that there are so many farms and so much cropland is because of the support from EU. The goal with the support must be to give the opportunity to work for a normal living. As mentioned 
before, I might be wrong, it’s just my impression after this trip.
Sunflowers, chili, wine grapes, onions and wheat, among others are the things that I’ve seen on the road everyday. I cycle through huge fields. You can see the tracktors maintaining their area.
At the vineyards you can see the difference between a wealthy and a poor owner just by looking at the fields. A wealthy vineyard would have an automatic water plant to provide the necessary water, but a poor owner would drive with his small rusty tracktor and water the fields and wine grapes manually.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences between the countries on my trip. It’s huge, and you might get a wrong first 
impression. When I cycled my first kilometers in Hungary, I got the impression about a clean country, a country which had money enough to keep the road standard up and to build proper bicycle paths. This might be true at some places, but it’s always in the bigger cities or in a place which is popular for tourism. You see the reality when you cycle further into the country, when you cycle through the small villages.
I’m cycling close to Valpovo, 92Km from my starting point. It’s funny to think that this was actually my crazy plan for yesterday, and now I have cycled 92Km today before I pass this area…..
The route have brought me along the river Drava all day. At this point I’m crossing the river over a bridge just after Belisce.
I’m starting to get hungry again. I’ve been eating bananas all day on the road and made sure to fill up with water. I’m cycling through Beli Manastir and stopped at a pizza restaurant. They didn’t accept visa and I don’t have more croatioan money. I don’t want to go to an atm to get a hold of more money, since I’ve only got a few kilometers left before I’m finished with Croatia.
I continue further. You can see a small mountain chain on the right side. I guess I will cross this at a later point today. When I cycle to a small place called Branjina, I am just beside the mountain. I follow the mountain and climb over to reach Batina. This is the last small place before the bridge over the Danube river to Serbia.
There is no problem to enter Serbia from here. They ask me where I’m going to and I reply Bulgaria. He stamps my passport and I 
cycle further. I can see that my garmin gps doesn’t have a map over Serbia. I will spend quite some time in this country, so I might have to buy a map.
I’ve reached Bezdan. It’s a really small place. You can see several pubs, stores and not much more. There are not many restaurants to see, but I found a couple. It’s getting darker, the sun is going down and I need to find a place for tonight.
I call a number which is on the wall of a building. Zimmer it says. The guy answering is speaking english and he tells me that he’ll call back. After about 5 minutes he arrives with his car. He tells me that he doesn’t have anything available, but that a friend of him have. I follow him to this place and finally I’ve found a place to stay. The price for this luxury was 10Euro…..Perfect! 🙂
The rest of the evening is spent at a pizza restaurant and at my room. I’m quite tired after todays ride. It was really important to refill with food and drinks now.
Picture album from todays ride:
GPS Data from todays ride:Â
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