Niš to Pirot

Today was supposed to be an easy day of 42 miles.   The climbing made it challenging.  Each of those two peaks were about 1200' of climbing (about 6 miles and an hour).  On the flip side, the dowhills were very nice.  So we were in the saddle for about 4 hours.  As usual, the winds were light, the sunshine was glorious and the views spectacular.  The roads were excellent and the traffic light (and the dogs friendly).

The skull tower

We saw a very interesting display on the way out of Nis.  It was a tower of skulls.  The story goes that in the early 19th century, the Ottomans were moving on Nis.  The Serbs were badly outnumbered.  Instead of surrendering (and suffering the wrath of the invading army) the commander blew up the armory killing his men and many Turks.  The Turkish commander was so incensed that he build a tower with the skulls of over 1000 of the dead Serbs.  I have never seen anything like it.

Church in the town where Nicholas Tesla was born

The type of view we were luck to experience all day