Saturday, August 16, 2025
Yes, I am in Serbia, but I am still super excited about the Brewers 13 game winning streak. The brothers and sisters got together to watch the game last night. Text chat today thought Donna might be on her way to Cincinnati for tonight’s game 🙂
Today was primarily a sailing day. We entered the Iron Gates area of the Danube about 9am. The weather was perfect – almost cool with a little breeze.
We sat and watched the mountains (Balkans v Carpathias) go by.
We saw the Tabula Traiana – a Roman inscription plaque placed to celebrate the completion of a military road. It was made in about 100AD. The original inscription was about Yay us! We built an awesome road with wooden beams after excavating mountain rocks! There was also a stone arch bridge as part of it, and it was the first and best and longest and longest-lived bridge of ever (or so) and showed just how great the Roman’s were.
I was very excited to see the big head sculpture. When I saw it originally (picture), I thought it was an amazing long-ago carving guarding the river. It was done in 1994. Tee hee. Still I really looked forward to seeing it because it looked so cool. It did not disappoint. It is King Decebalus (r AD 87-106) of Dacia (where?). It is 180′ by 82′. I like it.
There were beautiful views around every bend in the river.
We met a couple in their 20s (approximately 50 years younger than the average age of the Viking cruiser) at lunch. The man is in law school and I think he will be somebody some day. His name is Liam from Oklahoma and you heard it here first.
We went to play “Trivis with a twist” this afternoon. A woman who had complimented my necklace this morning called us over to compliment it again and invited us to join she and the man sitting there. We did, because why not? Mmm. Maybe because they had started drinking quite a number of hours ago? Yes. That would have been a good reason. It was fine chatting with them, and then we were stuck playing trivia with them. They were definitely drunk, and maybe have been dumb. The things they said for answers or just about random thoughts they were having were hilarious. The lady got one answer right, then said she had never heard the question when the answers were read. It was really quite funny.
At 4:30 we docked in Golubac and walked over for a tour of Golubac Castle or Fortress or something. It was interestng. Somebody gave it to somebody else in 1425ish and said you have to give it back when you die. When he died, the survivors said Nah. The giver guy said well then I will take it back. Gimme a minute to build a fortress across the river and amass an army. Okay. Golubac was really a good fortress and it did not fall. the general action of the area kinda waned and the fortress wasn’t doing much after a while, so everyone moved on. I -think the second I’m-gonna-fight-you fortress was one of those Move-that-bus-Makeover kinda constructions because it is just rubble-y on the other side of the river. It was so lame i didn’t even take a picture of it. (wow)
Dinner was Balkan specialties. Meat v fish. Parts of the meal were so good (that light orange paste stuff on the appetizer platter was so good) and other parts were lamb. We ate with two couples we are friendly with, so it was lots of fun.
