Serbian border

Thursday, July the 16th

Thursday morning we are waked by the Mercur 205 crew. We are at Veliko Gradiste, a small town on Serbian side of the river, ca 15 km before we shall enter Serbia on both sides. Mercur will anchor the barges and we will go together to the border police.

We moor and the skipper leaves with all the papers. It is ca 8:00 AM, but already hot. Olga wakes the kids to play in the playground which lies just 30 m from the boat. She herself goes through nearby streets in hope to find an ATM and get some local cash to buy ice-cream for the crew, but there are none and the café would not accept a credit card.

An hour later two female police arrive with our passports. They compare us to the photos in the passports and tell us to stay inside the boat until we get our passports back, some ten or fifteen minutes later.

Magnus comes back and tells how many papers he had to fill in. Now he should wait until he gets a paper that we paid the tax for passing through Serbian part of Donau, ca 60 EUR. A guy comes with the paper an hour later, but still no pass-polices. Olga and the kids want to go ashore (so they do), and Magnus goes and asks for their passports. He gets them back, just the three of them. Then Olga decides to go into the town to get some local cash and ice-cream.

We wait and wait, but the control – they call it “revision” here – is not ready. It goes even worse for Mercur, during the revision the border police finds some flies in the cargo on barges. So they will have to stay until Monday, threaten the police.

Girls take a bath in the river whil waiting.

Magnus decides that we shall not wait for Mercur, he finishes our revision. We want to have a dinner inland and then leave for Beograd. A police comes by (we bet we were watched all the time) and informs us that it is ok to go inland, but first we have to go through the passport control again since we are checked-out at the moment. To go into the town at the moment is a “big offence”. Magnus cannot hear of more paperwork and we leave at once.

no restaurant's dinner this time, but nevertheless very tasty


and a good view.