A nice suntan and toasty feet,
But 40+ for any fool
Is wholly unacceptable!
Veliko Gradiste - Negotin (Serbia)
And so we begin possibly the most amazing part of the whole trip so far - The Iron Gates. A series of gorges that extends for about 120kms (from Golubac to Kladovo on the Serbian side), where the Danube goes from 5kms wide to just about 100m. Cliffs reach 500m high, and both sides of the river are national park - Derdap National Park on the Serbian side, and Iron Gates Natural Park on the Romanian side.
Two hydroelectrical dams with two power stations, Iron Gate 1 and 2 mark the end of this amazing stretch.
A lot of bee keeping goes on in this area due to the biodiversity of the region, and it is an ingenious method that they use. Old trucks are converted into bee-hives, which the owners park up near the fragrant Tilia trees, then drive on to fresh pastures when the flowers have been exhausted. The owner of this truck was very happy to show us around, and even scooped out some honeycomb for us to chew on and taste the deliciously sweet, new honey. Sometimes he sleeps in his bed above the cab with his bees, other times he goes home - there are no rules, he told us.
It was a long, hot climb to the highest point of the road, and where the sides are too steep to make a road, tunnels have been gouged through the rock, some more than 400 meters long, and these make the already exhilarating ride even more exciting, if you make it through alive... For inside the longer tunnels it is pitch black, you cannot see where you are going, and our measly cycle lights don't shine much light on anything in there. My heart started racing more than during the hill climb when I heard the thunder of wheels coming round the bend behind me. My little back-light was frantically flashing its feeble red glow, and Steve's head torch in front was the only thing I could see to follow. Trying to get to the side without crashing was no mean feat, as we stopped and breathed in, trying to flatten ourselves against the rock face. Luckily the car saw us, and luckily this road isn't very busy, as there are 16 such tunnels to contend with. Not all are so long and dark, but I'm just saying, it's not for the faint hearted!
I won't begin to try and describe the spectacular beauty of this place, just bear in mind the photos don't do it justice...
After two days of amazing biking the landscape flattens off again, and it's back to roads and regular scenery. We rented a 2 bed apartment in Kladovo for about €12 from a lovely woman, who included beer and cake upon the handshake of the deal, and we thoroughly enjoyed chilling out for the rest of the day and parted like old friends at 6am the next morning.
Now we are in Negotin, in possibly the nicest guest house we've ever stayed, with hospitality you could only dream of. No wonder Guesthouse Stanisavljevic was awarded 9.6 from Booking.com last year, and it's only been open a year!
Bojan, the lovely owner, is very keen on tennis and built the first tennis court in Negotin so he could coach his son and train himself. It's at the back of the guesthouse which is 100 years old and once belonged to his grandfather. The whole family are all equally lovely, and they fed us extremely well too! It will be hard to leave tomorrow...
If you are ever in the area make sure to book a room:
bojanstanisavljevic67@gmail.com
Now we are contemplating the next part of our journey without much enthusiasm, as temperatures appear to be soaring here, reaching a whopping 45° at the weekend!
We have also discovered (thanks to Information Dave) that it's nigh on impossible to fly out of Constanta, so we may have to divert our finish on the Black Sea to Varna, Bulgaria, instead.
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