Rescue Mission

July 8 - 10, 2019

Belgrade to Warsaw and back

It’s Wednesday afternoon. After having left them in Berlin more than four weeks ago, and now having traveled for over 48 hours, four bedraggled but critical bike suitcases are with us. I was convinced numerous times that the “rescue mission” wasn’t going to pan out, but in the end, success!

I left Meg and the kiddos at 3:30 on Monday afternoon for my taxi ride to the airport. Check-in and security were fine, so I spent an hour or more at the gate writing some long overdue emails. I was surprised o hear more and more people continue crowding into the small room. I hit send and looked at my watch to see it was already thirty minutes after our departure time. I was momentarily panicked, convinced I had obviously sat through the actual boarding and was now surrounded with passengers anxiously awaiting a flight to somewhere I emphatically did not want to go! Thankfully, it turned out to be an ordinary flight delay. The first leg, to Sweden, was two hours.

My unwarranted alarm turned out to be justified once we landed in Malmö, Sweden and I found myself in the passport control line now with only 20 minutes before the flight departure to Warsaw. I literally ran through baggage claim, through the Nothing-to-Declare gate, and weaved through the corrals leading to the security desk.  Malmö, fortunately, is a tiny airport, and I was the only one in the security line, which, in this case, was only somewhat comforting. My trusty Swiss Army knife (number three-hundred and ninety-seven), which had accompanied me since Berlin was declared short enough to pass through security in Belgrade, but had apparently grown a few millimeters on the flight, so was now too long to fly on. I waved it off and ran to the gate, and down the gangway happily joining the other passengers, already on board.

As I had suspected might be the case, my Serbian SIM card did not work in Poland. I cleverly swapped in my Hungarian SIM card (Hungary and Poland are both EU countries) but was surprised to see an entry code required. Arrrgh. Whatever paperwork I had gotten with the Hungarian SIM was long since gone. Note for the future….

View over Warsaw

The next morning, I simply had the concierge at the hotel place a call to my contact, Denis Petryakov, at the shipping warehouse. I confirmed the company name and address — TMM Express, 3 Maja 8, Budynek (building) A3 — and then used the hotel WiFi to order an Uber. Minor panic number three occurred after I was dropped off at the address. Twenty minutes later, I was still walking in larger and larger circles from the given address. It turned out there is more than one 3 Maja 8. The first is a small brick building, the second is an entire complex of warehouses around the corner and past a security gate. Of course, I couldn’t just call Denis without cell service, and the security guard I found to ask simply waved me on with a torrent of Polish. I eventually noticed large badges on the corners of the warehouses, A1, A2, B3… A quarter-mile down the road I happily found the TMM Express warehouse.

Not the 3 Maja 8 I needed

Entrance to the warehouse... locked, of course

Once let into the building, I was taken to Denis. He was pleasant and immediately led me to the bags sitting in a clean and absolutely cavernous warehouse. I was concerned there were going to be problems when Denis was pulled away by a colleague heatedly pointing to some paperwork. In the end, I simply signed and dated. Denis let me use his phone’s WiFi hotspot to order an Uber, a  “Van” this time, just to make sure everything would fit. I pulled the cases outside and confirmed my pickup location when Denis informed me that the Uber might not be able to pick me up on this side of the security gate. Doh! Ok, not a problem. Now, I just need to move these four cases three blocks down the road… in the next two minutes! Minor panic number five!

Our lonely lost bike suitcases
 

I manically began duct taping suitcases together in two groups. I knew I’d be able to wheel two cases at once, but never four — two cases on the ground, two piggybacked on top. I frantically ran down the sidewalk, hopping on and off curbs, and back to the security hut. Luckily, I spied the black, Renault, mini-wagon with the correct license plate just as it passed.  He heard my yell, flipped a “U”ey, and helped me pile the suitcases in back… just before it started to rain. Success!

For the rest of the day, after stashing the bags at the hotel, I headed off to the Warsaw Uprising Museum…. which is closed on Tuesdays. Change of plans, I bought a 24 hr metro pass and headed into the old town. Somehow I had never realized how devastated Warsaw was during the war. Between occupation by both Germany and Russia, Poland really suffered. One chart I saw showed the Warsaw population dropping by 85% during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, from over 1,000,000 to 160,000!  Of course, a huge number of those were exterminated Jews.

Old Town Square

A mermaid first represented Warsaw starting in the 1600s

Warsaw population over time

English is nowhere near as commonly spoken in Poland as in the other countries we’ve been to. Perhaps there is less tourism plus there are just a lot more native Polish speakers compared to smaller countries like Hungary or Czechia. This and the fact that I can’t get service on my phone made it much harder to get around and figure things out. Fortunately, GPS works no matter what, so Google maps always showed a position for me on the map. However, searching and getting directions were kaput. To get back to the hotel I just improvised taking trams and busses as long as they went in the direction I needed to go.

The Polish word for "entry"

All that was left of the rescue mission was to get all four bags onto the two buses back to Belgrade. Minor panic number five occurred when,  fifteen minutes before the scheduled 10 p.m. departure, the bus still hadn’t appeared. Never fear. A very clean, modern, FlixBus showed up a few minutes later. No one even gave me a second glance as I shoved the cases into the storage compartment and climbed aboard.

Safely stashed below

The next morning, bleary-eyed from a restless night’s sleep, I glanced at my phone an hour after our brief stop in Bratislava to see that we made it all the way to Budapest. I’d get a two-hour rest stop and a chance to eat before boarding a second bus for the final leg back to Belgrade. The bus pulled away as I shoved the cases onto the sidewalk and looked at my watch… 9:30 a.m. Ohh, no! We weren’t supposed to get to Budapest— the Nepliget station in Budapest — until 10:00! I had just gotten off at the wrong station! Argh. Panic session number six!  

Sunrise from the bus

The good news was, according to my phone, that I was definitely in Budapest, even if I was at the wrong station. And, I had over two hours to figure it out. The gods were smiling on me because the woman at the information desk simply looked at the ticket and told me to go down the street and take the metro. I still had Hungarian forints with me to ease the process. A frantic fifty minutes later, after a few staircases, two metro trains, and a bus, I, and the suitcases, were where we needed to be. Disaster adverted!

Frantic metro ride

Whew!  Budapest bus to Belgrade

Meg and the kids were waiting for me at the Belgrade bus station when I finally arrived around 7:00. It was fantastic to see their smiling faces and have a few extra hands to maneuver the luggage. To celebrate, surprise, we went out to dinner. Vietnamese food. Mission accomplished.

Belgrade or Bust

Novi Sad to Belgrade, Serbia — 46.6 mi, 13.9 mph, 1670 ft

Today was the last biking day, and we were on the road before 9:00. I thought it was cool to see the road sign to our final destination, Beograd (Belgrade), in Cyrillic letters.  It takes a little work to decipher them, but I, fortunately, remember some of my Greek letters from math and physics.

View from our window in Novi Sad

Ready for a day of biking

Novi Sad straight ahead, Beograd to the right

All in all, today was a great ride. There was a nice three-mile climb early on, so we got to work up a good sweat, but we also had a nice tailwind. I often prefer a few hills to help vary the pace and allow you to use different muscles. And, of course, you get some downhill reward afterward. Kylie and I just managed to hit 40 mph.

At the top of the hill

Road sign: Cyrillic and Latin letters

Lunch stop in Batajnica

Serbia is definitely a little rougher around the edges than we’ve seen so far. The infrastructure — roads, sidewalks, and buildings are in visible need of maintenance. This was clearly obvious as we came into the city. Many of the cement high rises were black with soot and age and the cement was literally crumbling on some of the buildings. There is also a huge graffiti problem, which really adds to the look of neglect — the entire place could use a fresh coat of paint.

We crossed the Danube one last time and made our way across the wide busy street in front of the bus station to the Belgrade City Hotel. I had specifically chosen a four-star hotel because we wanted a place with a bit higher level of service, in this case, so they would receive and store our bike suitcases before we arrived. That, of course, turned out not to be necessary.

We made it!

Meg and I locked the bikes in the courtyard parking area behind the hotel while Dex and Kylie dragged the panniers up to our third-floor suite. It was a bit dark and drab but had two AC wall units and two TV. We were quickly sucked into a women’s indoor volleyball tournament, US vs. Brazil.

For dinner, we walked a mile up the hill to what turned out to be a much nicer part of town. Suddenly the buildings were clean and maintained and the narrow graffiti-covered roadways made way to a pleasant set of wide, bricked walking streets with outdoor restaurant seating. We found the Mexican food restaurant we were looking for and concluded our Hearts tournament (I either won or lost depending since I landed exactly on 100). As we left the restaurant (for ice cream across the street), Meg was giddy with excitement. The wind and dark clouds gave way to pelting drops of rain. Thunderstorms are awesome, even more so when we’re not on the bikes!

Off the bikes!

Rehydrating

Storm ahead

Fish Soup

Selenca to Novi Sad, Serbia — 38.4 mi, 12.6 mph, 590 ft

Today’s ride was short but hot.  We were particularly looking forward to a quick ride after the long, tiring one yesterday. The roads were straight and flat, but busy, and, as usual, with no shoulder. We did have a nice chance meeting, though, this morning at breakfast. Hans, a solo rider from Austria was on the final day of his tour ending up in Novi Sad (our destination, also, for the day). He was a great guy, easy to talk to, and very interesting — he had spent many years of his life doing development work in Africa.

Hans and his rig

Leaving Selenca

Busy roads

We stopped for drinks and to cool off outside a tiny corner market in Rumenka.  Our eating is really atrocious — sugary drinks, ice cream, and “Chipsy” paprika flavored potato chips for Dex. I’m still trying to get use to the Cyrillic alphabet, which seems to be the preferred one for street signs.

Snack stop

Only the best!

An hour later we were Novi Sad, although it took us a while to find our way to the bridge over the river, over the guard rail, and then down a tight spiral ramp. Of course, there was a short steep climb from the river up to our hotel. Meg and Dex’s bike was “stupid” since it wouldn’t shift to the little chainring!

Home for the night

Our room had four single beds side by side on one wall. Meg has been pickier and pickier with the room selection lately making sure we have AC. We then strategically place her as close to the AC as possible. After a shower and “new” clothes, Meg and I happily lounged on our beds having found Wimbledon on the TV. Ah, relaxation. We rooted on Rafa until we were too hungry to watch anymore. There was a small pizza parlor just up the hill that fit the bill perfectly. We were psyched that our family-sized Hawaiian pizza came with its own bottle of pizza sauce. We like Italian food and have found it to be one of the most popular and common throughout our travels. 

Pizza and our own bottle of sauce

Go Rafa!

Our restaurant selection for dinner, a fish restaurant right next to the Danube, unfortunately, did not go over as well. Dex and Kylie were not keen on the big slab of fish in the soup bowl, the mosquitos, or the ever-present cigarette smoke. Oh well. At least the view was nice.