Avala or where Georgia meets Serbia

Only reopened in 2010 (after it was destroyed in the course of the NATO bombings in 2000) it needs definitely some courage to climb this 129m high platform overlooking Belgrade to the North, and rolling hills to the South. Legend has it that the Argonauts with their Goldern Fleece, who travelled on the Danube from Greece to Georgia, rested on Avala mountain. So no doubt that one of our first trips out of town had to be on Avala!
Views to the North are to Belgrade...
...but right under us into fantastic beech and oak forests, and rolling hills to the South!
And what did we spot there? Maybe a great restaurant to explore?
So the chief biker of H3 set off and was hardly to be stopped, following a well marked trail with an A on!

Leading us straight to the Avala Mountaineering hut Carapicebrest (www.brest.co.rs)! What a discovery! A great terrace with good (substantial) food (filet for three with all it came with for less than 15Sfr.), and in the first floor simple rooms to rent! Surrounded by lush forests, many marked trails, and many of them to bike or cross country ski in winter.
All of this only 12km out of Belgrade (take tram 9 from the railway station to the end, and then swap onto any of the Nr. 400 buses (except 402) to the foot of Avala, from where it is an easy 45min well marked hike onto the summit; from May 1st onwards there is also a bus climbing straight to the summit); From the restaurant it is an easy and again marked descent along an asphalt road to Beli Potok village, form where bus 402 returns to the final station of tram 9. See below the time table attached to the village shop! Beli Potok can also be reached by train, and thus WITH the bikes!!!

To One of the Most Attractive in Serbia!

We had not need to be told for long that Sremski Karlovski is one of the most attractive towns in Serbia to check it out ourselves! Fishermen in Belgrad stood in the rain while pulling out one or the other meager fish while we jumped onto a bus (1.20h, BAC station next to the railway station, with many daily connections, SEVERTRANSPO bus company comes recommended, as well as LASTA - tickets are issued immediately, and the place is well run - see http://www.bas.rs/basweb_eng/RedVoznje.aspx?lng=en) not to see any further drop of rain all day! So sunglasses on some 80km North of Belgrade!

And H3 found a great little place full of cachet, lions, figures and more looking down on and at us, and definitely a feel of a place where we will return back many more times! One of the specialities of the place is Guggelhopf (sold in a tiny little place), introduced by German settlers!

An amazing old Platane tree in the yard of the lower church! If it stood there already when the Austrians and Turks signed their peace agreement in the 18th century in Sremski Karlovski? And what more has it since seen?

In the little place called after the famous four lions on the central square we tried Voivodina fish soup - of course this dish too is prepared with lots of red and not so hot peppers (the place comes recommended due to its extremely friendly service)!

Lots and lots to be explored next time. Definitely the wine cellars of the town, then much more of the immensly wide Danube down at the Danube hotel (bikes for hire, directly on the Danube cycling path, the hotel itself Kitsch, but next to it a great place with wooden tables under trees right on the Danube, and the Danube itself several 100m wide!) and then for sure venturing off biking into Fruska Gora National Park! We equipped ourselves in the shops of the town with all availabe maps and now can hardly wait for warmer temperatures to come. Even more after the conductor of the train we took back home (1.45h, leaving 18.05) reassured us that bikes on board will be allowed, for about 50cents per piece!