We started our tour by train, jumping on in Topcider station just 5 min down the road from our flat, and jumping off 45min later in Veliki Potok, an ancient military camp site, as Miller, a very friendly Serbian man who now lives adjacent to the abandoned railway building explaiened to us. Years ago he has been working in Austria, he is an assistant geometer, was fluent in German...and nowadays lives in poverty, in ripped apart shoes, living in a shack, repairing cars - another face of Serbia one easily tends to oversee. We will return with cold beer and some good food next time we either get on or off the train in Veliki Potok.
The landscape South of Belgrade is a softly hilly one, lush green over and over, with many week end houses, some abandoned, too, and farms. And every village shop, open any day of the week, has its own bench, table and umbrella where customers can enjoy the bought drink - integrated village shop cum bars. We started to like this institution!
So while we refreshed with juice and beer, a traktor stopped as well, reminding us of Great Grandfathers Bucher model, but made in Jugoslavia!
Thanks to Andrew's extensive research on Google earth we followed traffic free wonderful biking path...great, if you can cope with the occasional dead dog lying by the side, or a snake crossing!
Our destination was Zornica Kuca, recommended by Seka, our great, great cleaning lady living not far from this wonderful place. Run by two brothers, who renovated an old farm with a lot of stile and taste, the place offers excellent food (including lots of very traditional ones, like this very slow and long cooked meat in earthern pots on the fire), nice rooms with hand made linen, and a little zoo with quite a selection of domesticated animals, a fox and even two wolves (kept in way too small cages, but with great care).
ET was working hard on her art's book...
...while Mama and Papa enjoyed Turkish coffee with rose bud delights!
Setting off the next day under her own steam!
Along fantastic old little farmhouses, where Andrew and myself repeatedly get temped to buy and renovate one (but try to stick firm to our decision not to do that!)...
...before returning home from Veliki Potok again.
So, much encouraged by the first attempt to go biking South of Belgrade, leaving town by train, we gave it a second try just two weeks later! And:
Trails were blooooody dirty, sticking tons of muds to our bikes and making every meter of move extremely hard work!
After a good two hours of awfully muddy tracks, they became better again, and we reached a little holiday house settlement, where we did not refuse the invitation to juice, beer and homemade cakes, as this had really been hard work to get there! But the bravest of all was our little lady: inbetween Mama and Papa pushing their bikes (and swearing) she worked her way all alone through the mud, and faced a snake! She reacted well, and we all learned a lot that day!
After another great overnight stay in Zornika Kuca we made our way to the three old oaks, a cultural heritage site on the way to Leskovac Kolubarski, our (we thought) final destination of the day. Three fantastic old tree, with branches as long as 15m!
And here we were waiting for the train back home at Leskovac Kolubarski, well in time, with the bikes packed into their bags, enjoying a little lunch! Well, the train never came, neither did the bus we were promised by two helpful villagers, so we finally had to reassemble our bikes, head across to Bacevac, Seka's home village, have another stop in a village cum bar shop, and finally waiting for yet another bus, a pitiful soul found us a very, very old van with a great driver to return us safely, and ultimately very comfortable home to Lacarevascka 1! Great trips both of them, but we truly hope that this was the only time the Serbian railways have led us down so completely!
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