Tuesday 8 October

 Overnight we had to put our clocks back an hour as we are to enter Serbia. Our tour director told us to delete automatic time zone, as while travelling on the Danube, we have Romania on the starboard side and Serbia on the port side and the time will switch back and forth depending on which signal is the strongest!

It is cool this morning around 8 degrees but clear and sunny. After breakfast we head up on deck for our sailing through the Iron Gates.  The Gorge is the meeting of the Balkan mountains and the Carpathian and at its deepest point it is 83 metres in the narrowest part of the gorge. Just before we enter the Iron Gates there is a large rock sculpture of King Decebalus, the last king of Dacia who reigned AD 87-106. He fought against the Roman emperors to maintain the independence of what is now Romania. The sculpture was commissioned by a Romanian businessman and took 10 years to build from 1994 to 2004. By 10 am it is 18 degrees. 

We spend the rest of the morning in the lounge enjoying the scenery.

After lunch we head off for our tour which includes a hike to a viewpoint from Djerdap National Park and then on to Golubac Fortress. It is a 30 minute bus ride with a lot of turns to the top of the Park and then another nearly 2 kilometres of hiking to the viewpoint. There were a few steep descents and rises which got the heart pumping. The track was smooth though with no steps. Once at the top we had a spectacular sight of the gorge and the Danube and our ship sailing to the next docking. The weather is clear and temperature around 20 degrees. To get back to the bus we had to retrace our steps - more good exercise.

 Now we drive back down and then on to Golubac fortress. It is a lovely drive along the Danube with some great scenery and we pass our ship on its way to the fortress. We learn that at its narrowest point it is only 134 metres wide but 6 kilometres at its widest point at Golubac. It takes about 50 minutes to reach the fortress. It is a spectacular sight. It consists of 9 towers and has a mountain at its back and sits by the river. Our guide tells us it has never been conquered. All the towers are separated from each other so an enemy would have to conquer them one at a time! One of the towers isn now 50% below the waterline as when the hydro dam was built all the area was flooded with the water height increasing quite a few metres. 

We have some free time to wander around and then our ship arrives and it is a short walk back to the dock.

Trivia was family feud and we end up with 37 out of 60 and finish third. You got 3 points for the answer most said and then 2 and 1.