Iron Gates

Today we sailed all day.  I woke up about 0515 by accident just as we were sailing under a huge bridge.  I tried to take a picture of it, but it was raining, and by the time I got my camera out, we were past it. I later asked a couple of crew members where the bridge was, but they seemed confused. After a little research, I decided that it was Vidin.  I saw a big crane on the bridge, and as far as I can tell this bridge is still under construction.

There are all kinds of things to see along the shore, unfortunately it's pretty murky; as I said it's raining. The Danube is pretty big, like the size of the Columbia in the gorge.  Mostly we are near the middle, but sometimes we a closer to one side or the other.

We passed some really big houses at one point and we were told that during the recent Bosnian/Serbian war, a lot of money was made on the Black Market. We have been told that some people have become really rich since the end of Communism, while others remain poor. We have been passing lots of barges along the way; aside from river cruise ships, barges are the main traffic along the Danube.

About 0830 we reached Iron Gates Dam #2. It was quite an experience going through the lock and they made a big deal out of it. The best views are from the sun deck, unfortunately - rain. 






They are very worried about fire occurring on ships in the locks for some reason, thus they have these water cannons all over the place; seriously, there's about ten or twelve on each side along the top of the walls.

Lunch was a buffet on board, then on to Iron Gates Dam #1. Something was apparently amiss as this time it took much longer than expected to pass through the locks (there were two of them this time). Altogether I think we went up about two hundred     feet in elevation through the locks. This area was a very dangerous river passage until the 1970's when the dams were built. Unfortunately a lot of collateral damage occurred.

As I said the water level rose about two hundred feet during the 1970's because of these two dams. As a result many towns and structures were flooded. 

In the first centuries after Christ the Roman emperor Trajan built a road along the shore of the river that still functioned.  A plaque was installed to commemorate this historic feat, a plaque that was raised to just above the current water level when the dams were built. The lower levels of the town of Orsorva were relocated to higher ground, and a whole island, Ada Kaleh, was drowned, the people relocated along with some of the buildings and a mosque.

Recently a huge stone sculpture was commissioned by a rich Romanian businessman to commemorate an early Dacian ruler, Decabalus, who stood up against the Romans.