A return
Belgrade to London by bus and train, 28th June to 8th July
After three months of cycling through Europe, it was time for me to take a little break and return to London before heading out on part two of my travels. I was running out of Schengen days and it was getting pretty hot in Southern Europe, so I was actually happy to be heading north towards the UK. Getting to London wouldn't be easy, though - I'd chosen to travel over land rather than flying, so the next week would involve a lot of buses and trains, carefully chosen to provide a bike-friendly transport route. The plan was this: Belgrade to Zagreb (connecting domestic trains by cycling over the border), Zagreb to Vienna (Flixbus), Vienna to Berlin (Flixbus), Berlin to Braunschweig (Flixbus), Braunschweig to the Netherlands (Flixbus), the Netherlands to London (Flixbus). Largely by coincidence, my route from Berlin onwards would be a mirror image of my last bike trip , visiting many of the same people.
I arrived in the Serbian town of Sombor by bus on the 28th, ready to make my way towards the Croatian border. Apparently the home of a famous NBA player, I didn't see much of Sombor except for the Saturday morning market and a brief ride through the pretty town centre. I was more excited to get to the Danube and to Liberland, the micronation on the disputed Danube border. I had a plan to visit the Liberland campsite on the Serbian side of the river, which seemed to be their main base of operations. Upon arriving, this proved a bit more difficult than I'd expected. I hadn't received any reply to my emails asking if I could visit, they weren't answering the phone, and the doors to the campsite were closed with signs reading 'Private event, members only', with nobody in sight. I wasn't going to let that stop me, though - when else was I going to be around to visit Liberland? I pulled out my camping chair and a snack and set myself near the front entrance, waiting.
Amazingly, the 'sit by the door' strategy worked. In about half an hour, someone showed up on a bicycle - a volunteer working at the campsite. Although he didn't seem like the most social character, he happily brought me inside and showed me around the site before bringing me to another, more chatty volunteer. Soon, the three of us were having a long conversation about Liberland, my bike trip, and general life philosophy. I was very curious to hear more about the state of the microstate, and I was really hoping to visit and spend a night on the disputed territory. This would actually be possible: there was land access via a sandbar from the Croatian side and entry was controlled by Croatian border police. I would be able to visit the same night if I rode some 40km to the Liberland house in Croatia, "Liberbase", and spoke to a particular guy. On the island itself, I'd have to wild camp (no problem for me) and the border police would probably search all the bags I brought to the island. That all sounded fine - a good story, even - until the final snag. Because I have a non-EU passport, the policy of the border police would be that I could stay on the island for up to 7 days, but I'd then have to accept a 30-day ban from Croatia. This would be a huge disruption to my plans to get back to London by land - I'd probably have to go back to Belgrade and then to Budapest instead, a route where the train line hasn't been functioning since 2019 and the buses may not accept bikes. Once again, my desire to get back to the UK won out and I resigned myself to not visiting the Liberland island itself, just meeting the people.
I was surprised by how easy it was to get along with the Liberland volunteers. I’d been expecting a group of hardcore weirdos - blockchain enthusiast libertarians with no social skills, or something like that - but these guys didn't seem like they were even on the blockchain bandwagon. Sure, they were libertarians and expected me to be on that end of the spectrum too, but didn’t seem to have any problem with me having different ideas to them. I deliberately didn’t push this too hard, though, since I wasn’t sure how deep their tolerance went. The way they talked about women was definitely a bit off, though, using the word ‘females’ and talking about relationships in a way that seemed as though they’d been watching too much Andrew Tate. They didn’t seem all the way down the ‘red pill’ rabbit hole, but somewhere on that spectrum - for example, they talked about not giving women free drinks as if it were some kind of revolutionary subversive act. On my way out, I also got treated to the revelation that David Icke was a popular figure in these circles - combined with some of their comments about Mexico during Covid, I’m guessing they didn’t really believe in the lockdowns. Still, it was an interesting interaction in a Louis Theroux kind of way. I’m a little sad that I didn’t get to go to the disputed Liberland territory itself but in a way, it was a richer experience to interact with the libertarians themselves than to see an indistinguishable piece of landscape. I got to charge my phone, cooked (and shared) some pasta, and even left them a little gift: a plastic drink bottle filled with balsamic vinegar. I hope they use it well.
I left them in the evening, since they were going to some motorcycle-themed party nearby, and considered my next move. I needed to get to Osijek, 37 kilometres into Croatia, to catch a train to Zagreb. The train only ran twice a day - 05:10 and 18:44 - and would take six hours to reach the capital. I was already too late to get anything on Saturday, so I could either try to get to Osijek for Sunday evening and arrive Zagreb at midnight (spending some time in Osijek, but probably not seeing much of Zagreb), or I could get the 5am train from Osijek and spend Sunday daytime in Zagreb before leaving on Monday morning. The second option was much more appealing - I’d rather spend time in the capital than some border town, but I didn’t want to needlessly spend one of my ten remaining Schengen days waiting for a 5am train. Instead, I had a cunning plan: I’d get close to the Croatian border, sleep on the Serbian side, then ride the 37 kilometres to Osijek in time for the 5am train. Naturally, this whole thought process took place as I was already riding towards the border crossing, affecting my decision-making in real time. Why plan ahead when you could plan on the spot? Committed, I found a field two kilometres from the border and settled in for a nap.
Setting off at midnight, I had issues before I even got to the border. My front light was out of battery, as was the backup, my rear light had fallen off (probably in the bus to Sombor), and one of my two backup little button-cell lights was out of battery too. Naturally, there were no streetlights. I muddled through by using my one working backup light as a rear light and simply held my phone torch up on the handlebars as a front light. Eventually, I was able to rotate between this and a proper front light (recharged from my powerbank), while feeling quite silly for letting things get to this stage. I really don’t do a lot of night riding normally and I wasn’t well prepared for it. It turned out well enough though, and after just a couple of excited stray dogs to bid me farewell from Serbia, I entered Croatia just before one in the morning. Here in the middle of nowhere the skies were clear and full of stars, and I took some time to just lie down next to the road and stare up.
After getting the train to Zagreb, my journey became a lot more standard - hostels, friends houses, and a lot of Flixbuses. Everything was made a bit more difficult by having to transport a bicycle, but it also came in handy when, for example, a friend in Vienna lived far away from the centre. As planned, I passed through Vienna, Berlin, Braunschweig and the Netherlands before confronting my longtime enemy, the English Channel. For some reason, the only Flixbus from anywhere in the Netherlands or Belgium to London was from Eindhoven at 9am on Tuesday, so I'd be spending all weekend in the Netherlands (oh no, how would I cope?). With a few delightfully quiet days in Amsterdam, I left for Eindhoven at dawn on Tuesday to get my final Flixbus, reaching London in the evening. In the end, I used exactly all ninety of my Schengen days. Good thing I did my silly Serbian border shenanigans.
The plan in London is to catch up with friends and family and make a few changes to my bike (as well as replace some bits I foolishly left behind in my Zagreb hostel). That'll be the remainder of July, then in August I'll head up to Scotland and in September I'll fly with my bike to India. I'm pretty nervous about what India will be like, and about flying with my bike, but it's exciting at the same time and still comfortably far away. I'll take one thing at a time, and this blog will return in August!