Day 6- Saturday May 3, 2025 - Golubac, Serbia

By Ellen Outten

Today was an easy day, mostly sailing on the Danube.  The weather, again, was perfect.  Sunny and cool, in the middle 70's.  We started by entering several lochs.  





We sailed into some beautiful scenery taking in the amazing views.



As we awoke, and headed for breakfast, we entered the Iron Gate lochs, a series of two lochs.   A Getting through the lochs, we sailed into the Iron Gate gorge.

It forms the boundary between Serbia and Romania. In the broad sense it's 83 miles long but really only encompasses the last barrier on this route, just beyond the Romanian city of Orșova.

On the Romanian side of the gorge is the Iron Gates Natural Park. On the Serbian side of the Danube is the Đerdap National Park declared a UNESCO global geopark in July 2020.

Into the rocks of the gorge, started in 1993, and finished in 2003 is carved the head of Decebalus.  It is the tallest stone sculpture in Europe and measures 180 ft high and 82 ft wide.  It is 26 ft higher than the Monument of Christ in Rio de Janeiro and 19.6 ft less than the Statue of Liberty. 








Decebalus was the last king of Dacia and the leader in some of the toughest confrontations of the Ancient World. He went down in history as a formidable opponent, even for the Roman Empire.

We continued our sailing throughout the day with a stop at Serbia immigration for clearance to proceed.  There were two groups who disembarked for hikes through the gorge.  The ship left the groups and we continued to sail.  The groups will meet us later today when Rick at Golubac.  

I'm scheduled for a hike to the Gulebac fortress but not until 5:00 pm.

At 3:15 pm this afternoon, the chef will be having a streudel making presentation. So I'm up on the 3rd deck, relaxing, writing this and waiting for the chef.

A stone quarry that closed in the 80's.






My tour went out at 5:15 pm when we docked in Gulebac.  The fortress was within walking distance of the ship and the guide was very good. It was built by the Serbs in the 14th century and when the Ottomans took over the country, it was added onto 



Our guide 

For real! Signs were all over.  But I didn't see any!

The catapult is a replica but the concrete canon balls are real.

Original armour wanted by the New York metropolitan museum.



Tonight will be a special dinner; a buffet, which is unusual.  It will have Balkan specialities including lamb, pork and chicken.


Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 4, 2025 at 3:06 AM

    Beautiful pictures. What did the chef prepare? Did they give you the recipe? If so, would you send it to me?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousMay 5, 2025 at 1:32 AM

      All these comments come through as anonymous. Who is this? And yes, it was a poppyseed strudel and I'll gladly send you the recipe if you let me know who this is

      Delete
  2. AnonymousMay 4, 2025 at 8:58 PM

    Recipe, nothing! Ellen will be MAKING streudel every week when she gets home. It's a given!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 5, 2025 at 1:33 AM

    And who is this that I'm making strudel for?

    ReplyDelete
  4. LeticiaMay 12, 2025 at 7:44 AM

    Head of Decebalus welcomes you 👍🏼
    Love the catapult

    ReplyDelete

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