Day 230 – EU – Serbia [Kovin to Belgrade]

09/10/20

51.6km

  From Kovin (Serbia) to Belgrade (Serbia)

Europe

Glorious morning, rush to the ferry across the Danube and a slow beautiful sunny arrival in Belgrade

I was in high spirits this morning as I woke up and looked up at the sky to see it absolutely clear. I don’t take anything for granted as regards the weather and consider myself really lucky so far in the journey. The only conditions that would really affect me is when I cannot get to enjoy my surroundings, the places I run through. Anyway, today was clear and happy!

As I set out I had one concern on my mind: I was supposed to cross the Danube about 30km into my run via ferry boat. But I had not been able to find a schedule online. I was even wondering if the ferry existed at all. At km20 Serbian friends of Panagiotis (my Greek friend who ran with me in Athens) contacted me to give me the ferry schedule. Great news! There was one at 10am! I looked at my GPS… holy mackerel, I would have to run sub 6:00 per km for the next 10km if I was to catch that ferry!

I made it with 1 minute to spare to the little ferry terminal (in fact a muddy trail with no infrastructure at all). As I reached the other side of the Danube, I had another 21km of running to reach my apartment in Belgrade centre. I went through about 8km where, similarly to yesterday, the road did not have a shoulder and I was wading through the muddy grassy patch on the side. It held me back a little and I was quite pleased when I got off it and could again run, down the wide and spacious boulevards of central Belgrade.

I am very happy to be in Belgrade and look forward to re-visiting many parts of this city, where I once stayed about 2 months for work back in 2006. More about the touristy side of it tomorrow on my day-off!

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: