July 31 – Cruising the Iron Gate

Today is a day of cruising.  

Early in the day we arrived at the section of the Danube that is bordered by Romania on one side and Serbia on the other.  This section of the river is pretty and serene...

with a few pretty river towns...

and an occasional bridge along the river (but not many over the river).

There was even a small shrine on a small rock in the middle of the river.

The first main attraction was passage through a series of two large locks that have a rise 35 meters or 114 feet.  The locks were huge and when we went through there was another moderate size cruise boat in the lock with us with room to spare.

The most scenic part of the cruise was through what is called the Iron Gate area.  The is a 84 mile long stretch with 3 narrow gorges.  It was so narrow in places that in the past the only way boats could go through was to be towed by locomotive.  The dam raised the water level enough to make this area navigable.  

The river separates the Carpathian and Balkan Mountains and in this stretch those mountains are very close together.  The stretch is extremely beautiful.

Along the way they pointed out a Roman Tablet that had been repositioned higher up a cliff face (as it would have been submerged by the rising waters).  The tablet was on an original Roman Bridge in the area.

Ama had a surprise today, a barbeque on the sun deck so we could stay out on deck to enjoy the scenery.  Just as serving started it started raining lightly.  The crew broke out umbrellas and held them over us as we stood in line for food.

Besides just great scenery there was the largest stone sculpture in Europe, the face of Decebalus, the last king of Dacia (what is now mainly Romania and Moldovia). It is 141 feet high and 104 feet wide.  It is a modern work that took 10 years to carve (1994 – 2004).

Just below the cave was a monastery right on the river

Near the end of the last gorge we saw a few caves...

and at the end was the very picturesque medieval fort/castle, Golubac Fortress on the Serbian side of the river.  It is considered to be one of the best preserved medieval fortresses in Europe.  It was certainly one of the most picturesque forts we have seen.

Tonight we signed up for dinner at the Chef’s Table, the only specialty restaurant on the boat.  It has a fixed tasting menu of 7 courses.  Food was awesome with very artistic presentation.  

We ate with Nancy, fast becoming our new special friend, and Anita, another woman that we have met on board.  The food was awesome.