The beautiful Danube

Revisiting the Iron Gate gorge - where the Danube forms a natural border between Serbia and Romania - British author Patrick Leigh Fermor wrote a tersely worded appendix to his previously published travelogue, Between the Woods and the Water.

More than just a travelogue, the second volume on his expedition from Holland to Turkey on foot described the mysterious areas surrounding the Lower Danube, where it rushes off to end its own epic journey by spilling into the Black Sea.

Leigh Fermor was only nineteen when he first encountered this region. He was enthralled by a wild waterway which surged between narrowing mountain walls, crashing from flank to flank with such force that waves were sent shuddering back upstream to Belgrade and beyond.

These days, however, all is calm. A massive dam completed in 1972 tamed the Lower Danube, removed the hazards for river craft and, to Leigh Fermor's great annoyance, turned more than 200km of river into a vast pond that drowned the great canyons and uprooted the old Serbian, Romanian and Turkish riparian communities.

The dam and post-Soviet developments delivered tourism and river cruising to the rustic regions Leigh Fermor knew. But for those accustomed to cruising on the Danube much further upstream, life hereabouts moves at a far slower pace.

We began our adventure at the edge of the Black Sea and, with Romania on the north riverbank and Bulgaria on the south, we sailed towards the old Roman port of Russe. It is now the biggest Bulgarian port on the Danube.

From here, we took a daytrip to the old royal city of Veliko Tarnovo, a medieval capital set in wooded hills.

Fourteenth century Bulgaria had two separate kingdoms and, lacking cohesion, was easily occupied by Ottoman Turks who stayed 500 years and were only uprooted after losing a war with Russia in the late 19th century.

Thereafter viewed as liberators, the Russians returned to Bulgaria unopposed in the Soviet era then melted away without major upheavals when their influence finally diminished. Aside from their factories, there is little visual destruction to be seen and medieval Veliko Tarnovo retains great appeal.

The same goes for Bulgaria's other former capital, a town now called Vidim near the Serbian border. It has occupied this position on a bend of the river for at least 2000 years.

Roman soldiers retired to Vidim and subsequent groups left their mark with a mosque, an Orthodox church and other fine monuments. Most impressive is Baba Vida, a Bulgarian fortress built between the 10th and 13th centuries and still intact. Most poignant is the ruined shell of a big Jewish synagogue, circa 1894.

We took a daytrip from Vidim to see the tourist site of Belograshick which sits on the western section of the Balkan Mountain range. There are big sweeping views plus a fort that began as a Roman defensive system and was last used in a Bulgarian-Serbian war.

We then sailed towards the Iron Gate gorge. Smoothly gliding by wooded banks, it was hard to imagine how this stretch of the Danube was once known for fierce currents and riverbed rocks which made the upstream voyage treacherous and slow.

Romania's Carpathian Mountains are on the north riverbank. The foothills of the Balkans roll out on the Serbian side where a marble plaque erected by the Roman Emperor Trajan reinforced the fact we were journeying through fallen empires.

The 2000-year-old plaque commemorates the completion of a great Roman road which crossed mountains and rivers and carried the invading Roman legions north to besiege Decebalus, ruler of the Kingdom of Dacia (now Transylvania).

His rock-cut image - 40m high and 25m wide - looms down from the Romanian side (and, since the Romans were the victors, scenes of Roman soldiers attacking Dacian warriors are depicted on Trajan's Column in Rome).

An ancient monastery took form in the middle distance. Cruising closer, we almost touched it; such is the change in the depth of the Danube since the dam. Then we glided by Golubac, a defensive castle built by the Hungarians in the early 14th century.

The waters lap at Golubac's walls but its location at the head of the Iron Gate gorge once made it the final line of defence between Hungary and the ever-advancing Ottoman Turks.

Ultimately, the Turks won control and held Golubac until it was reclaimed by the Serbian State in 1867.

Before cruising to Serbia's capital, we took another shore excursion to the Roman town and military encampment, Viminacium. This was eventually destroyed by Huns and, more recently, defaced by modern power plants.

And so it is that old empires and the rustic riparian communities disappeared.

Belgrade, capital of the former Yugoslavia under Tito and Milosevic and capital of Serbia today, is a city with all the pathos and drama of Greek tragedies.

It's been destroyed twenty times and yet it presents as a stylish city with splendid monuments and engaging citizens.

We left Serbia behind and the Great Hungarian Plain drifted into rolling hills as the Danube sliced through Budapest, separating the Buda Hills and the Old City from the boulevards of modern Pest. We moored beside the Chain Bridge linking the two halves.

Leigh Fermor visited Budapest. He climbed the steps of Buda, gazed down at the Danube's bridges and ruminated on the powers of empire. Who were the most influential? The Romans, I imagine.

Their cultural exchanges have crossed time and boundaries. On his monument trek, Leigh Fermor had carried The Odes of Horace in Latin. Years later, in World War II Crete, he captured a German officer, who astonished Leigh Fermor by sprouting lines from Horace. He answered back, in Latin. That exploit became a book, then a movie, Ill Met by Moonlight in which Dirk Bogarde played Patrick Leigh Fermor.

>> Margaret Turton was a guest of Scandinavian Airlines and Viking River Cruises.

FACT FILE

>> Viking River Cruises sails both ways between Bucharest (Romania) and Budapest (Hungary). Contact your travel agent or see www.vikingrivercruises.com.au and 1800 829 138.