Höllviken-Belgrade, 12 August

Arrived in Belgrade at 1 pm, 32 degrees and humid. LelleBelle is doing fine, waiting for us. Met a neighbour, Mikki, who lives half the year in Johannesburg, some time in Greece, where he has his boat, and sometimes in Belgrade, where he has a restaurant. Of course we were invited to dinner, but had to decline because we will soon go to the airport to fetch the new crew member, Konstantin.

Lots of activity in the marina tonight with people coming down to their boats for the evening.

Ordered 30 Liters of diesel in a cannister. Now Carl has to find place for it!

Bojan's sidekick came with the geranium that we left with Katarina the Greenline owner. They were away but asked Bojan to give it to us on our return. The flower was in excellent condition. 

Leslie gave me the last Bismark herring from Stralsund so we could use the herring box for the surviving flower. 

While waiting for Konsrantin to arrive we walked over to our favorite restaurant Marinada for a glas of wine at the Sava terrace. 

Höllviken 6 - 11 August

Home for a wedding. Returning to Belgrade tomorrow 

The kids.

The Wedding 

At home with the family.

Belgrade-Höllviken, 5 August

We are off for a 7 day visit to Sweden. 

LelleBelle lies safely in the Yachting Marina in Belgrade.

For reasons unknown to us we were given business class tickets. It must be our good looks. 

Champagne breakfast

Back to normal. Erlanda Håkan with the kidsen Rebecka nd Elizabeth and Denise and Anders came for a braai and very enjoyable evening. 

Belgrade, 3-4 August

Woke up to a lovely warm day and decided to take it easy, have a breakfast of all food left in the fridge and spend the rest of the day swimming and relaxing on an island where there is an artificial lake. But you can never make your own plans in Belgrade! A gentleman on a neighbouring boat came over for a chat and told us that we would have coffee with him and his wife while they waited for the grandson to wake up. After that we were to go with them to have lunch. No discussion.

Dushko, Ceca, Nikola and Leslie on the way to lunch.

We had an excellent lunch, fish soup and fish, at this restaurant. It is a canoe club sponsored by Rotary. Dushko and Ceca's daughter Maria works there.

Dushko, Carl and Nikola leaving the restaurant.

We met another neighbour, Katarina and her family. Katarina and her husband have their own bussiness and spend a lot of time on their boat, a GreenLine 33, in the marina where they have access to internet. (Everywhere in Serbia we have had very good, free and fast connection to internet). Katarinas son, Milan, 4 years old, loves lions and we were able to show him all our photos of lions and other animals from our trip to South Africa last year.

Booked into the Majestic hotel for the night because of a very early flight to Copenhagen. Enjoyed a light lunch in one of the many street cafés. Great for people watching. 

We went to the Skadarska street and the Dva Jelena (two deer) restaurant. Skadarska Ulitsa is a cobble stone street in old town Belgrade. Music, people and restaurants. A very lively and vibrant atmosphere. In the yellow restaurant behind Carl was a wedding party, dancing music and lots of fun. When we later in the evening met with Alexander and Natalia they sad they had celebrated their wedding at the Dva Jelena restaurant. Quite a coincidence. 

We forget to order only one main dish. The portions are so generous so a whole family could eat one dish. No wonder Carl is getting fat. 

Belgrade, 2 August

Saturday and Belgrade. We have heard that it is going to be very hot today and our friends are very happy about that. They say that they have had a very bad summer so far. 

Woke up in the marina to a beautiful day. Visited Delta City, a relatively new, enormous shopping mall with all the shops you can think of, including H&M, Marks and Spencers, C&A, Beneton etc etc and even Costa coffee. Of Course many, many more coffee shops because here is really a coffee shop culture.

Alexander and his family, wife, Natalia and son Milan gave us an interesting tour around Belgrade. Here we are at what is locally known as " the horse" this is a statue of the son, Michail, of a ruler who had a dream for a United Serbia. (Will check the name of the ruler and his son)

During our walk through the park on the way to the fortress, Milan lost a baby tooth. Great excitement and great expectations for the tooth fairy. Imagine, the tooth fairy is so international!

View from the Fortess 

A view of the Sava joining the Danube river.

Alexander told that over history Belgrade had been conquered, burnt and destroyed about 41 times. The Fortress was under Turkish siege for 81 years before they finally succeeded in the 1560. 

The latest attack on Belgrade was the NATO bombings in 1999. The ministries that were targeted are still standing as sore reminders of mans stupidity.

The happy family and the traveller.

First Alexander took us to have a beer at his very, very favourite place, the Red Stars football stadium. After that we had dinner/lunch (5 pm) at one of his favourite local restaurants. And we had a meal to compare with the best we have ever had.

Milan with his fifth or was it seventh ice cream for the day. 

Novi Sad - Belgrade, 1 August

Today is the last leg of our journey before taking a break for a wedding in Sweden. We have 90 km to cover which should take just under 6 hours. 

The marina in Novi Sad with carl returning from the "en suite" bathroom, which was in the restaurant!

View from the bathroom.

Marina Liman seen from the restaurant 

Early morning start in cloudy weather, not sure if it will rain today, but it is still hot.

Remains of one of the bridges bombed by NATO.

Building a new bridge. Wonder who got the contract?

Today the river is just getting wider and wider. During the whole trip we met only 2 barges and 2 or 3 small boats. We also passed a man paddling a canoe which, judging by the packing, is probably making his way to the Black Sea. We passed this beach with tents and families and canoes.

The Danube Hotel welcoming visitors.

Another hotel and apparently a very good fish restaurant.

Approaching Belgrade a new bridge still under construction. Was a bit confusing because it did not show up on the charts.

Alexander and Nenad meet us in Nenad's beautiful boat and guided us to the marina on the Sava river where we will park LelleBelle until 13 August. Alexander and Nenad have been incredibly helpful. This marina is very safe and secure.

We all went off the a fantastic fish restaurant a couple of hundred metres from the Marina. It was impossible to decide what to eat so we let Alexander order for us. Great food, beautiful presentation and great service. 

Alexander, Nenad and Carl having polished off a whole fish. Thank you Alexander and Nenad for a wonderful introduction to your city.

Apatin-Novi Sad, 31 July

In Apatin we made use of the Bamberg bicycle for the first time. Carl hired a bike from the marina and Leslie peddled the bambi. 60 km outside Apatin was the Jankovich wellness centre.  Several swimming pools, tennis courts and spa activities. We spent a few hours in the Olympic size swimming pool before peddling back to Apatin.

The fishing boats in Apatin Marina. As we went down the river we spotted these small fishing boats everywhere. And they are really small. Have never seen so many fishermen out so early in the morning. 

As we go downstream we have Croatia on the right side and Serbia on our left for the first 50 km on our way to Novi Sad. We pass villages where the scars from the 1990 war are still visible. 

During the war the Serbs shot heavy artillery on Aljmas and the well known pilgrim church was completely destroyed.  A new modern church in the shape of a swan was built in 2003. 

The small town draws 100 000 pilgrims and tourists each year. 

I went a bit too fast past the Swan church so Carl could not get a proper photo. That is the neck of the swan we see sticking up. It is actually quite a weird building.

In Vukovar the memories of the war are still more visible. We have heard that even though townspeople are making an effort to heal old wounds, there are still hard feelings amongst the people. One thing we have become so aware on this trip is the absolute futility of war throughout history.

The memorial for the victims of the Croatian wars in Vukovar. 

A Csarda on the river bank. This building is on stilts, like many of the buildings along the river.

We arrived in Novi Sad after 5 hours along a calm, enormous and even very beautiful river. We walked along a new promenad, 3,5 km to the town centre. The promenad had a jogging track on the side. Lots of activities like football, volleyball, outdoor gym all along the promonad. 

The Novi Sad castle on the other side of Duna. Every summer 50 000 people come to the Exit rock festival at the Castle. 

In the 1999 Kosovo war NATO bombed and destroyed all the 4 bridges in Novi Sad. On the river bank was the graffiti "NATO volim te"  was not sure if that meant, love you or hate you, but googled it and found out that it means love you.

We stayed at the Liman marina in Novi Sad. There was this restaurant sort of attached to the marina. Seemed like quite a popular place. This is the kitchen area where the meat was grilled on an open fire. Too much food and too tasty! It was very hot in Novi Sad and exactly the same as the last couple of nights, the heat builds up to a downpour at night. But it is quite pleasant to sleep on a boat when it rains. Tomorrow we have 90 km to Belgrade. Cannot believe that we have made it this far! Carl has a friend/previous bussiness contact who has arranged a safe harbour for LelleBelle while we are in Sweden for a week.