17 Mountains - View - Reunion

Tuesday, 21.8.2018

Route: Danube Cycle Path 5 (Golubac - Tekija)

Kilometers travelled: 98

Highlight of the day: the grandiose nature, consistently, when we were at the top of the mountain, the reunion with the older German couple - 2 times

Today was a pretty cool day. We got up early again and took some food from the small shop in the town center. Golubac is really nice, at the foot of the mountains and the Danube was right beside it and is very wide here, it almost looks like a lake. Our cycle path ran directly along the Danube and was actually a main road. According to the map, it was supposed to be heavily trafficked - but it wasn't. But it was good that it was a main road because it was in very good condition, paved and without potholes.

In the morning it was still quite cold. Right after the town comes the fortress, it sits right at the beginning of the increasingly narrow and steep cliffs that constrict the Danube more and more. It looks as if the Danube flows into the cliffs. This is also where the Djerdab National Park begins. We actually rode along this road all day, which had the advantage that we couldn't get lost. And this road was always very close to the Danube, sometimes only a meter away! At first, there were rocks and mountains on both our side and the Romanian side, and we initially rode at the bottom (with small inclines), but then the Romanian side flattened out. After about 15 km we had breakfast. We stopped in a parking bay and ate all our packed stuff. There were two construction workers in the parking lot, but they were sitting in a car. What were they supposed to do there exactly? They probably should have been working, but didn't want to and just spent their time in the car with loud music. On the other side of the road was a small house and apparently honey and their own apples were sold there and so on.

At some point, we went really steep uphill on our side! The road led up in switchbacks and we ended up on the side of the mountain away from the Danube. The view down into the valley from there was already beautiful, but when we came around to the other side of the mountain, we had a gigantic view of the Danube. Then we raced down the mountain again, it was really cool. Then we arrived in Donij Milanovac. We had lunch there. We rode through the town and looked for something to eat, like a bakery or maybe something warm. We didn't find anything good quite far out in the town, so we turned back and found a small café right in front of the Danube, where there were also bikes. As loaded as ours. We went there and those were actually the two Germans we met while fixing the tire! We sat down at their table and chatted with them. And drank something. We didn't eat anything because it turned out that there was nothing to eat there. We spent about half an hour with the Germans before they wanted to continue.

We decided to take another look at the little market square to see if we could find something edible after all. The market square was a bit like a small center, there was a supermarket and several food stands and there were quite a few people there. We encountered two more cyclists, judging by the language they were Swiss. We decided to go to a food stand that also had an indoor seating area. At first, it looked like there was only doner kebab, which I wasn't really in the mood for. But as soon as we were inside, the store owner immediately approached us and spoke to us - in German! - asking what we wanted. Julius asked him what he had. And then he listed in perfect German and quite differentiated what he had: chicken fillet and chicken breast, and much more. I decided on a schnitzel sandwich, Julius a burger bread with kebab. We sat outside and were even served! Of course, we also had something to drink.

There was a very old man sitting at the next table. And he smelled. Visually, he was a bit like the typical old man type. He sat all alone at the table, just looked and had his beer in front of him, and a plastic bag next to him on the chair. He was dressed as if it were the middle of winter with baggy corduroy pants, typical old man shoes, and an undershirt and then a musty shirt over it and then a vest and then a jacket over it. At some point, he got up and shuffled away, but left his bag behind. I almost brought it to him, but he smelled so bad that I didn't want to go there and besides, he probably wouldn't have understood me anyway. Shortly afterwards, he came back with another plastic bag. And in it were: a camping stove and a gas cartridge. So he sat back down at his usual place and continued drinking his beer.

Before we continued cycling, the owner of the store asked us where we were from. We answered "Bavaria", to which he said "Bayern Munich", we agreed, and then he said "Eww, Bayern Munich", jokingly. He actually apologized for it afterwards. Then we continued, my personal highlight of the bike trip so far. Behind Donji Milanovac, an arm of the Danube goes into the hinterland, we rode along the arm for about 2 km, then there was a bridge over it. After that, we rode back to the Danube on the other side of the arm. It was very fascinating. On the left, there was always the Danube and on the right were mountains, really high mountains, partly just cliffs and everything above was covered in forest, it was really great. There were also these valley-like gaps that flowed into the Danube, and everything was overgrown. And then it went uphill. Steeply uphill and constantly uphill. And we went through tunnels, but they weren't lit at all. Luckily, my bike has a light, but Julius doesn't. It was a bit creepy because the cars didn't slow down either. As we had learned from the Germans at noon, there is sometimes a button in front of the tunnel that cyclists have to press to warn motorists that a cyclist is riding in the tunnel. But we only found this button once.

We kept going up higher and higher. It was extremely exhausting, we were sweating a lot, but the view was simply magnificent! There were many viewpoints where we stopped, enjoyed the view and took photos. Then we also came to the narrowest point. You can't see it so well because the road goes exactly through a tunnel here. But there are platforms in front of and after the tunnel from which you can see very well. Afterwards, the Danube flows into a kind of basin, which we also saw from above. Finally, it went downhill again, where we raced down and then uphill again. From here, we could also look down on the mountains on the Romanian side, so we were really at the top. There was a plaque in the rock at this point, from the Romans. Unfortunately, we couldn't see it because it is only visible from the water. This is because a dam was built a few kilometers further on, which dammed up the entire Danube up to Donji Milanovac, it became higher and then not only the town, but also the plaque would have been underwater. So they simply rebuilt both a few meters higher. Somewhere in the big Danube, there is now an abandoned town.

We stopped again in another parking bay, along with some cars. Those were probably mostly passing tourists. Many Italians, Viennese (but they are actually always Serbs, even if they have a Vienna license plate), and also French people. I asked these French people (in French) if they could take a photo of us and vice versa. Later at another viewpoint, we met them again - either they are very slow or we are actually quite fast.

Finally, at the very top, we took another break, sat on a bench, and enjoyed the windy view. From there, it was all downhill to Tekija. In between, we really had to wait for a moment because rock stabilization work was taking place on the side of the road. There were 4 construction workers and they were throwing rocks down. Here we had to wait with 5 cars behind and 3 cars in front of us for about 15 minutes, and watched them work.

So far, this is the only place where we didn't book anything in advance because we simply couldn't find anything! Right at the entrance to the town on the right was a restaurant, but we wanted to take a look inside the town. There was a sign "Rooms for rent" and a car with a Vienna license plate immediately stopped and the Serb asked us in broken German if he could help us. We said we were looking for a room and he pointed us to the restaurant at the entrance to the town. So we followed his advice. There we actually met the French people from earlier again, but we were told that there were no rooms here, but in the town. So we went back in. In Tekija in the center, there is a supermarket where we stopped. A woman was standing outside, and we asked her with sign language where we could find rooms here. She called her husband at home, sent us with an old man who was supposed to take us to their house, and said we could sleep at her place. It would cost 10€ per person. We were greeted by her husband and shown our room. It was apparently a former children's room, but cleaned up as if they had been waiting for guests. Then the man showed us the shower and toilet, after which he started repairing the lock.

After showering and resting, we wanted to take a look at Tekija's beach. It's a very pretty beach, there were many children there playing volleyball, swimming, and splashing around. There was also a small snack bar where we sat down and ordered something. At the next table: Austrians. Also our age, probably also passing through. We asked them for a menu because apparently it is not common in Eastern Europe to give people a menu. And before we knew it, the German couple came up to our table. We talked to them all evening, it was very nice. When we left around 8:30 p.m., only we, the other Germans, and the Austrians were still there. Anyway, it was an awesome day!