Trips

Sun., 6/3/12 - Donji Milanovac, Serbia and cruising the Danube through the Iron Gates to Vidin, Bulgaria

Last night we docked at a small village, Donji Milanovac, in Serbia. This morning we had time to wander through the town before continuing our sail. Local ladies were selling handmade - embroidery or lace - tablecloths and women's blouses, dockside. They were pretty but not for us. We poked our heads into the local Orthodox Church (with no seats and an elaborate iconostasis) and into the vegetable market. It was foggy but pleasant outside.

Old steam engine

Mammoth monument

At least they included a translation!

Street scene

St. Nicola's Church

St. Nicola's Church - interior

The market

Selling lace, etc.

We entered the Djerdap Gorge or the Iron Gates of the Danube. The Danube becomes narrow and deep (90 meters) with limestone rock crags, which form some caves. In 100 CE, Trajian's army had built a road on the Serbian side (on our right gowing down stream) and a marvel of a bridge across the gorge. It was destroyed by the Turks and the dam down river flooded the remaining pillars. There only remains a plaque that was repositioned above the new water level.

We also passed the stone carved face of the Dacian King Decebalus on the Romanian side of the river.
The Danube is the second longest river in Europe. It flows through 10 nations from the Black Forest in Germany to the Black Sea. It is 1800 miles long and is fed by 300 tributaries. The Iron Gates section, which we sailed through is a series of gorges and flows separating Serbia from Romania. Romania and Yugoslavia completed the Iron Gate Dam, which opened in 1972. The project created two hydro-power plants and two locks. To help reestablish flora and fauna, Serbia created the Derjdap National Park and Romania, the Portile de Fier (or Iron Gates) National Park along the banks.

Farms and haystacks along the river

Entering the Iron Gates

Boaters on the river

Boaters approaching a cave in the Djerdap Gorge

Road and tunnel on the Serbian side

Mraconia Monastery on the Romanian side of the river - now a restaurant

Statue of the Dacian king Decebalus carved into the rock near the city of Orsova, Romania

Tabula Trajana - Trajan's tablet
Laid by the Roman emperor Trajan almost 2000 years ago to commemorate the construction of the road to Dacia

Highway along the Danube on the Romanian side of the river

Highway and bridge along the Danube on the Romanian side of the river

The first lock we encountered on the river is a unique double lock. We entered from upstream while other boats entered from downstream. Our lock dropped us and raised the bottom lock. We both passed in the middle section, the gates closed and we dropped again and the others rose. We were late arriving and the process took us 3 1/2 hours.

At Iron Gate 2, it was a single lock and we entered it with about nine river barges. It took less than an hour.