Day 033 Novi Sad - Beograd

This morning I was woken up by a kitten gnawing on my toes - a nice change to the usual alarm clock awakening. While packing my stuff I was constantly regarded as a huge funny moving toy by the same kitten, so before leaving the beautiful house of my host Jelena I really had to make sure that the kitten did not accidentally end up in my panniers.
I had planned to meet up with some other couchsurfering members volunteering in Novi Sad, but somehow my Serbian mobile card did not work for calling and SMS, so due to communication problems I had to skip this plan and start riding. Moreover during the first 5 (or so) km the GPS on my mobile was confused, so todays track does not reflect the whole 100km.
After leaving Novi Sad (or exactly Petrovaradin, as the old part of town on the other bank of Danube is called) the road was busy but relatively flat at first. On the way I found a spring on the roadside, which provided for some much needed cleaning for my bike Arthur. Directly after the spring the hardest part of the day began: uphill for more than 150m (height not distance) in merciless burning sunshine. Somehow this was what I always had imagined beforehand the whole trip would be like - given that I started in July and mainly went south. But after a lot of days filled with clouds and rain, this was actually the first time the sun bothered me. Nevertheless the landscape was marvellous and after the long ascent a very relaxing descent followed, as the road led straight down to Danube again. Then a long time not much happened - just cycling through cornfields on a silent road. When I approached Beograd the road got busier until for the last 15km it got really annoying - once again a narrow road with a lot of truck and bus traffic. But finally I was struck by the splendid sight of Beograd. That is one good thing about doing this trip relatively unprepared (in terms of tourist sides, etc.) - you are always surprised by the beautiful places you end up in. The city has a very different feel than Novi Sad. I seem to have crossed some invisible border today. While Novi Sad reminded me a lot of czech or hungarian cities, Beograd reminds me of South European/ Middle Eastern/West Asian cities like Naples, Amman or Yerevan. Maybe you can still feel the different history of Vojvodina (of which Novi Sad is the capital) and the Serbian Mainland - but possibly this feeling is also greatly influenced by todays very southerly temperatures.
I plan to give me and Arthur some rest here and spend one or two days just enjoying Beograd and maybe a bit further trip planning - the way to the Iron Gate on the Serbian/Romanian/Bulgarian border triangle is relatively fixed but then I have to figure out on which way I will cross Bulgaria.