Beograd thats their translation

the road into Belgrade was a bit on the wild side. even though the donau was near to me their was no cycle path with it. The night before id studied the map and found a 'b' road that would take me in avoiding all the new road and all its traffic. certainly not the case, i think everyone was hitting my road to avoid the toll costs and probably by the looks of their vehicles would not have coped with the fast roads, i wonder if they have mot's here some off the vehicles seemed to be held together with string let alone could they go much faster than me, which when they do manage to overtake the black smoke from them fills the oxygen starved lungs. The last village i entered before belgrade i stoped for lunchin  a park i found a bench and tucked in to the soft cheese tomatoe and bread and a lemonade riddler basicly its a shandy. Soon i must have caught the intrest of a group of  young lads who cautiously ventured towards me,soon they sent the smallest up to me and he spoke serbian, i had a bit of fun cruel i know but replied i  welsh, very puzzled he returned to his friends scratching his head, after a bit of debate the biggest came forward and spoke to me in very good english , hello do you speak english, a little i grunted, where are you from,'wales,'yes i know wales you play good rugby, at this point he had broken me and  so i did my best to speak much better english soon the other group gathered round and as boys have that look of hunger i offered them some of my loaf which they demolished with gusto, we talked and i found out that i was having my lunch in their school grounds. As i was doing my best to save some of the bread for myself one of the boys brought this man over to me who introduced himself as the school boss and would i like to have a look in their school which i accepted and spent the next hour looking in the classrooms and most importantly their english books. children i serbia start school much in line with the other countries ive visited at the age of 7, finish school at15 either do military service or go to college but it can be both, they can drink and smoke at 16, no car till their 18.

After lunch break i headed into Belgrade and the last 10 miles were on the river path which was very pretty and soon into a very concrete worn out city, i didnt expect their to be so much of the old city standing after the nato bombing in the 90s but a lot is just about standing and thats not because of the bombing. The language and signage is all greek alphabet and so you really feel as if your away from home. The people are'all friendly and ive had so many bravos and honk on the horns in welcome i think i have not seen any othertourers since bratislavia and so i guess im an odity every time i stop for a map read or water break im aproached. So this is what i can say'of serbia poor ruggid but rich and beautiful in its character and energy. I go tomorrow to my last country before greece, macedonia a day and a half cycling and i will be in greece and boy im going to hit the hills then but im so looki g forward to seeing the sea, love to all of you x