Driving through Serbia
This was the longest and least pleasant of all the days on our trip. We knew it was going to be a long drive from Kotor, Montenegro to Belgrade, Serbia, but weren’t prepared for actually how long. However, we did get some pretty pictures of the fall leaves changing colors. There were also some sheep right beside the road! It reminded me a little of Switzerland where the cows were right beside or even on the road. We also saw this cool smokestack with the flag on it.
We were doing pretty well on time until we got about 30 minutes from the Serbian border. We were driving along and got to a nice newly paved large two-lane road, and even commented on how nice the road was compared to a lot we had been traveling. Well, famous last words. We went around a bend and slowly came to a stop. After about 20 minutes at a standstill, JonPaul got out of the car and started walking up to see what was going on. When he came back 10 minutes later, he said that they were paving the road and it would be another 2 hours before the asphalt was dry. Note that they didn’t pave one side and let the traffic alternate on the other side of the road. Oh no, they paved the entire road and everyone just had to wait until it was dry! I did not have google maps because my phone’s sim card doesn’t work in non-Schengen countries, but luckily had downloaded the maps.me for the area.
I tried to find a way around the blocked road and there was one line on my map that attached the two areas by going around the big road. It was time for an adventure. As you can see from the pictures below, we started and ended on dirt roads through the woods. These turned into a partially mowed grassy ‘road’, which then turned into just a big field. We got to the field where our car is parked in the first picture and we were really nervous that we would not be able to find our way back since our view was what we saw in that last picture and we had no idea how we would get back down to the road. JonPaul once again got out of the car and walked up a little way to see if the road restarted, and lo and behold saw another car trying to do the exact same thing we were doing, only in the opposite directions. By using hand gestures and very rudimentary English, we were able to find the path the other car took to get up to this field, and we showed them how we had gone. After a 45 minute detour, we finally got back on the road on the other side of the standstill. It was so stressful, but definitely an adventure!
We got into Serbia much later than we expected. This castle we drove by, and I at least got to get a picture. We were hoping to get to Belgrade in time to go to the large church tonight, but just didn’t make it in time. Instead, we checked into our apartment for the one night and then walked to an awesome burger joint. It was take out only, and we brought it back to the apartment.
For the most part the places I find to stay work really well for our family, and we are usually pleasantly surprised. The place in Belgrade we stayed at was cute, but didn’t have enough beds! There was a big bed where we usually put me, JonPaul, and Willow between us, and there was a sofa bed. Usually I think a sofa bed means a pull out bed, but this one just meant you could sleep on the sofa, so we were one bed short! No worries, we put the pillows from the back of the couch on the floor and Willow slept on top of them, JonPaul slept on the couch, and I slept on the bed with the other two kids. The apartment did let us keep our car in their parking spot most of the next day though, which was nice so we could spend the morning exploring Belgrade.
