A comfy night’s sleep in Sombor set us up well for the coming ride to Novi Sad.

Saying that, I’m not sure Ludo ever gets what normal humans would call a ‘good night’s sleep’. He’s a twitcher in more ways than one.

There was one slight stain on the experience though; you could hear whenever the person in the apartment next door was going for a shit. And I mean you could hear everything, plops and all.

No bother, breakfast called.

It was already pretty hot by 10am at which point Ludo was tucking into a ‘Sombor Breakfast’ which translates roughly in English to a huge plate of meat and eggs.

Time to burn that off with another 90ish-km day to Novi Sad, the second city of Serbia.

A crossroads lay ahead of us. We could either wind along the Danube on about 130km of grassy dyke paths. Or head more direct via the roads.

Taking the Danube would have meant breaking the journey to Novi Sad in two. Plus a lot of effort expended to cycle on non-paved sections.

The other way meant spending 5 hours acquainting ourselves with a host of maniacal Serbian drivers and potholes.

After some deliberation, we decided that we just wanted to get to Novi Sad and take a rest day ASAP, so the roads had it.

It turns out that this was probably the last moment we would get the chance to cycle on cycle routes instead of roads. A chilling thought.

The roads we had to cycle on were not main highways but the equivalent of minor A-roads in England…just to save some worry from our respective mothers. Not that it made much difference with the way people drive here.

Although the roads are pretty grim, it turned out not to be our main enemy for the day. That would be the horrific head wind that blasted us in the face across open fields non-stop.

It turned the flat cycle into what felt like a constant climb up a hill. It was not fun. The worst day so far, at least for me.

Not to worry though, the Serbian drivers threw in some lovely, inch-perfect overtakes to brighten up the day. I personally love getting so close to lorries that I can see the eyes of the dead bugs splattered onto the side as they pass by.

When we stopped for lunch (a salty bit of stale bread and some crisps), we met a friendly man who bred American Pitbulls for a living.

We bonded over football of course, the only truly universal language.

He supported Chelsea and loved the scummers because Dusan Tadic (a Serbian) played for us. He also hated skates because Niko Kranjcar (a Croatian) played for them. Ludo in the mud, Pompey relegation confirmed.

Some very hard earned kilometres later and we made it to Novi Sad. We were completely done-in.

Thankfully, we had a rest day planned which we spent stumbling around the city like a pair of newborn deer until we could stumble no longer and retired to slob out in the apartment.

We saw a cockroach in the apartment but thought it had just come in through the window. Turns out there was probably an infestation as I have just found a baby roach in my clothes bag as I write this.

Novi Sad didn’t exactly feel like a second city. It was pretty low density and didn’t have a great deal going on like say Birmingham does in the UK.

There are also a terrifying amount of gambling shops too. By that I mean one on every street corner. There were so many that it felt suspicious, like a money laundering thing or something.

We did see some epic art though in the local gallery. Sava Sumanovic was our highlight.

Rest day over and it was another 90km to Belgrade. My legs felt slightly better but my poor rear-end was not a happy bunny.

The ride to Belgrade bought an infamous section with it. Many cyclists before us had warned about the hill out of Novi Sad, so much so that it loomed in my head like a climb up the slopes of Mount Doom with added traffic.

Frodo and Sam or Gimli and Gollum? You decide.

It turned out to be not too bad. The climb is about 7% average gradient for 4km which is draining but not the worst. I think we also got lucky with the traffic as it was relatively light.

Unscathed from the climb, we stopped at an impressive new Eastern Orthodox church to admire the murals inside and stopped another 25km down the road for lunch.

Rain and thunder storms threatened all day but we managed to avoid getting drenched for the most part until the final few miles into Belgrade.

The head wind had mercifully died down so the ride passed by with the main complaint being my arse. Apologies to mention it twice in one post, but it hurts ok?

We hadn’t realised this but Rammstein (a German metal band for the uninitiated) were playing on 25th May for the first time in Serbia for 13 years. That meant all the accommodation in town was either booked or double the usual price.

We therefore had to split our stay into two places. Fine when on a normal holiday but with bikes plus bags, it’s a bit of an inconvenience.

We lugged our bikes up four flights of stairs and enjoyed our well-earned showers.

The first AirBnB happened to have a dog included. His name is Bik. He is blind from cataracts, his jaw shakes when he’s nervous and he barks whenever anyone moves around the house. He was still cute though.

As our final day in Belgrade draws to a close, the prospect of more cycling looms.

I personally can’t say it’s an attractive thing to have on your mind. It’s hard, it hurts and is often monotonous so the thought of doing it again and again is a mental challenge of its own.

As for Belgrade, I love it. It feels different to most other capitals in Europe because of its blend of newish post-war buildings and a vibe that suggests people don’t care too much that it doesn’t look like a renaissance architecture museum (like Vienna does for example).

There’s also a heavily young crowd which makes it a lot easier to feel like you ‘fit in’ as ‘young people’ ourselves.

The town of Nis is our next major stop, on the way to Sofia. It’s flat-ish for a few days then some serious mountains appear later on.

Oh joy.

Send chamois cream.