Photo by Svetislav Todorovic

We got some photos sent to us from Svetislav or “Steve” whom we met in Lepenac in Serbia. I really love the hay stack image and asked him if I could share his pictures on this blog. So we could.

Below are some of his pictures from this beautiful country different times of the day and from different parts of the year. Enjoy.

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Transfagarasan Light in Serbia

After our stop in Lepenac we approached the mountains and realized that the roads are winding on the hillsides and have pretty much the same kind of curves that on the lovely Transfagarasan in Romania! The road took us up to a skiresort – which naturally was closed for the season – and then down on the other side heading towards Montenegro. We only made it to Novi Pazar before it got dark so we found a hotel there and went out for some food. Strange place though, lots of people all over but the town still doesn’t really live. Can it be because they don’t serve alcohol here huh? I wanted a glass of wine to my dinner but had to stick to water! 😦 Well they had wine at the hotel though.

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Stacks of hay, seen all over in this area, also in Romania and Bulgaria

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Just another stop by the side of the road

On this cliff there is a cemetary, houses in the valley

On our way up

Love these curves! 🙂

My Lumix ran out of power so I had to use my iPhone camera but the pics turns out pretty well.

Almost there

At the top at the ski resort. This almost ready built hotel gave me a strange association to the Overlook Hotel in the movie The Shining. It got accentuated because there were no people here, only a few carpenters.

The picture doesn’t reveal how high up in the mountains we are but the altitude is actually 1780 meters right here according to Jan’s GPS.

Feels distant with snow right now…

Wish I hade a wider wide angle lens — this scenery stretched at least 180 degrees!!

Curvy roads

🙂

So nice

We found a nice hotel very central in town. It was probably very fancy when is was built but now it is a little worn out but the rooms are nice and clean. We asked if they had a garage for the bikes which they did, the “garage” is actually the hotels lobby!! Felt a little strange to roll in the bikes on a marble floor through fancy glass doors… oh well 🙂

Serbian dish for dinner.

Another wedding at hotels we stay at! The same thing happened in Poland too. The whole restaurant were booked for this private event and people were dancing and dancing and it seemed like they played the same song for hours…

So we ended up in the “bar” at the hotel instead! Only men, talking, smoking and watching text-tv!

Driving through the country

Today I took a lot of pictures (which is pretty normal though) but today was such a great day in many aspects so I simply can’t choose just a few. Since I’ve never been visiting to this part of the world before, every turn on the road is somewhat breathtaking, especially in the mountains in the afternoon when the sun is on it’s way to set. We didn’t get very far today (I think less than 200 km) because we stopped pretty often to – YES, to take pictures 🙂

One of all towns/villages we passed through.

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We were looking for a place in some small village to stop for a coffe and an icecream but we only found a small shop. It turned out to be a very nice stop because as normal people come up to you and want to talk and are curious.

It’s just so nice to talk to the locals.

This is Svetislav and his Hungarian wife Luiza who runs the shop and lives in the same house. They have a garden on the other side of the street were they grow all sorts of vegetables. They wanted us to have some and gave us a bunch of apples and some chilis. Steve also has a few bikes and I guess that’s why he came up and talked to us in the first place. He spoke more french than english so I got to practice a little (I’m NOT good at french but know a few words). Luiza spoke a little english though.

Their garden

Le shop au Lepenac

Steves paintings and “grandpa”.

Here it is

Ines is their daoughters name and Lepenac is the name of the village. They gave us a cup of turkish coffee too outside the shop. The Serbs we have met are all very friendly and want’s to share things with you.

They gave us all this fruit and some chilis too! We pretended it was a birthday present for me so I got in the picture as a change 🙂

I wonder if this guy has checked his front end bearings lately 😉

Time to hit the road again…

Entering another village

Towards the mountains…

Good morning Serbia!

I woke up pretty late this morning and everybody else was up already. Marina made some Turkish coffee – which I really like – and we packed our stuff. Ica had fixed my bike early in the morning, he noticed some noise from the front end last night and insisted in checking it for me. It must have been true luck that we got recommended from Doug to stay here because he happens to run an auto repair/service shop and how on earth could Doug know that I needed this help just this day! Sometimes you believe in faith or some higher power. Anyway, the bearings were worn out and needed to get replaced and so he did! Thank you Ica!!

We went to the bakery to pick up some Serbian breakfast. We got a spinach Burek each and a roll with a sausage inside and then headed back to Ica and Marinas place to eat. Nice with a walk and their son Lasos showed us the way and helped us to run our errands. The kids are really good at english, the woman in the bakery didn’t speak much english but when we tried to buy one of the pies she said No! and shock her head. “No good”. OK thanks for the information so we got the roll instead 🙂 Nice when people are honest to you.

In the bakery

Jan and their son Lasos in the neighbourhood.

Jan eating breakfast

Ica’s auto repair shop where we stayed

The bearings in my front axle was worn out so Ica fixed it for me so now the front end is much better and the bike is smoother to ride. That was a great “birthday present”.

One of their dogs loved to jump 🙂

Marina, Ica and me just before leaving their place. Thank you so much for your hospitality!

Ica pointed out some great roads on the map for us, heading towards Montenegro. It’s very beautiful down here! This is just the start.

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Heading west, to Serbia

We are on our way west, to Serbia. We stopped to get gas and a snack and I found this woman selling onions, garlic and chili and some pickled stuff or jam or whatever it was in her jars. Again these friendly people start talking to you and you don’t understand a single word! But we both laughed and I think she thought we were from “anglia”, and I just nodded my head. She was very sweet and waved to us when we took off on our bikes.

Opposite the onion woman

Serbia. After showing our passports twice, the green card once (when entering Serbia) we were here. Didn’t take much time at all. I’m glad I’m not a truck driver though – the never ending line of trucks on the Bulgarian side of the border that we passed must take days for to get in to the country.

Serbia. The roads were just fine here so far. On the Bulgarian side before getting to Sofia the highway was pretty bumpy.

An 8 km drive along this ravine was spectacular and with beautiful scenery. It was soon getting dark and we were almost in Nis when this picture was taken. Doug called his Serbian friend Ica earlier today and we were invited to his place in Nis where he lives with his family and runs an auto repair shop. We really appreciate Doug’s advice, and Ica’s hospitality! We were invited for dinner but first we were offered his own delicious plum rakia and some turkish coffee. More about that later.
We do think his name is little funny though – ICA is actually the name of one of the largest food chains in Sweden! 🙂
//T.