Croatia and Serbia, especially around Vukovar (Stage 7). Later the conflict spread to Bosnia and in all these regions military action was accompanied by atrocities against minority civilian populations. Leaders in all three countries have since been arraigned for war crimes.
Most fighting ceased in 1995, but a final twist to the war came in 1998–1999 when Serb forces tried to prevent Kosovo from seceding. This resulted in reprisal bombing of Serbia by NATO air power. Altogether it is estimated that 140,000 people died during the conflict, while a further four million were displaced as refugees, many permanently. Although the war is over, with former Yugoslavia broken-up into seven independent states, tensions still exist between Croat and Serb communities, with damage much in evidence and unexploded ordinance in conflict areas. However, there is no need to be worried as far as this journey is concerned. It follows a safe route through what was the front line between Serbia and Croatia.
Vukovar war cemetery is the site of a mass grave of Croat victims of the Yugoslav Civil War, marked with 938 crosses (Stage 8)
European Union
Following the collapse of communism in 1989, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria were quick in seeking new alliances within Europe. They all joined NATO and between 2004 and 2007 became members of the European Union. Croatia joined the EU in 2013 after difficulties had been settled arising out of the Yugoslav Civil War. Serbia has an application to join the EU pending, while even Moldova and Ukraine are considering applying, but the existence of substantial Russian minorities in both countries makes entry difficult. Hungary signed the Schengen agreement in 2007 allowing barrier free trade and travel within the Schengen zone; while Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria all plan to do so. None of the countries passed through have joined the Eurozone monetary union, but euros are widely accepted and many hotel prices are quoted in the currency. Despite being a member of the EU, Hungary has a strong nationalistic movement that dreams unrealistically of returning the country to the pre-Trianon borders of Greater Hungary.
As history has shown, this is not the first time that the whole of the lower Danube region has been politically unified. The Romans, Ottoman Turks, German Nazis and Soviet Russians all forced unity upon the region. This time unity has been achieved by democratic means!
Shipping on the river
The Danube has been a major trade artery for centuries; indeed, Genoese sailors established a number of riverside settlements in Romania in medieval times. However, the existence of fast flowing narrows such as the Iron Gates gorges made navigation difficult and sometimes dangerous. Two huge dams have tamed this natural obstruction and large barges can sail all the way upstream to Germany where, by continuing on the Rhein–Main–Donau canal, they can reach the Rhine and eventually the North Sea. Navigation was severely disrupted by the Yugoslav Civil War, when a number of bridges were destroyed and blocked the river. These have now all been cleared, but freight traffic has yet to regain pre-war volumes. Tourist boats are a very popular way of seeing the river. These mostly cruise between Passau and Budapest on the middle Danube, but some go all the way from Amsterdam to the Black Sea. Navigation on the river is controlled by an international commission. Distances on the river are marked by regular kilometre boards, which show the distance upstream from a 0km marker at Sulina near to the entrance to the Black Sea in the Danube Delta (Stage 32).
Cruise boats on their way to the Black Sea pass through the Iron Gates gorges (Stage 16)
The Danube Cycleway
The 1717km lower Danube Cycleway passes through four countries. The first 243km are in Hungary, followed by 537km through the former Yugoslav states of Croatia and Serbia. The remainder of the journey, 937km, is across the south of Romania, through the regions of Wallachia and Dobruja.
This route starts in the heart of Hungary’s capital Budapest (Stage 1), before leaving the city via the 48km-long Csepel-sziget island and then following the Danube south across the Great Hungarian plain (Stages 2–5) to reach the border with Croatia. After passing through a region slowly recovering from the Yugoslav Civil War (Stages 6–8), the Danube is crossed into the Serbian region of Vojvodina to visit the cities of Novi Sad and Belgrade (Stages 9–11).
Heading east through Serbia, using cycle tracks along long stretches of Danube flood dyke (Stages 12–14), the barrier formed by the Carpathian mountains is reached at Golubac. The next 150km is the most scenic part of the route as it follows the river through the deep and winding Iron Gates gorges traversing a gap between Carpathian (to the north) and Balkan mountains (to the south) (Stages 14–16). Emerging from the gorge before Drobeta-Turnu Severin, the route enters Romania and turns south following quiet country roads through a remote corner of Wallachia (Stages 17–18) to reach Calafat.
Veliki Kazan (Great Cauldron) is the narrowest part of the Iron Gates gorges (Stage 16)
For over 430km from Calafat to Călăraşi (Stages 19–25) our route follows the Danube road (Strada Dunarii), a road built in the mid-19th century to link riverside towns and villages in newly independent Romania. By now the river is flowing through a wide valley with a flood plain up to 30km across bounded by a river terrace that typically rises 50m above the valley floor. The mostly level route passes through a seemingly endless series of villages along the side of this flood plain, climbing occasionally on and off the river terrace. A number of riverside towns are passed, all with declining populations and surrounded by the decaying hulks of abandoned Soviet era factories. The Danube road was once lined throughout by shade giving trees, but many of these have succumbed to disease and been cut-down.
The Romanian Danube road was once tree-lined along its entire length (Stages 19–25)
At Călăraşi, where the Danube divides into two channels, the river is crossed and the going becomes hillier as the route undulates through the hills of southern Dobruja (Stages 26–27) following the eastern branch of the river. This undulating going continues as the route turns north through Dobruja, eventually reaching the foothills of the Măcin mountains (Stages 28–29). The final stages (30–32) circle these mountains, crossing the river twice to visit the two large cities of Brăila and Galaţi before ending at Tulcea, the gateway to the Danube Delta. Optional excursions allow you to visit Moldova and Ukraine (from Galaţi) and the Danube Delta (from Tulcea). There is an alternative route for Stages 27–32 through Dobruja, going from Ion Corvin to Tulcea via Constanţa and the Black Sea coast. See Appendix A for a summary of the stages.
Natural environment
Physical geography
The course of the Danube below Budapest has been greatly influenced by geomorphic events approximately 30 million years ago, when the Alps, Carpathian and Balkan mountain ranges were pushed up by the collision of the African and European tectonic plates. The Carpathians rose in a large curved S-shaped formation, passing through what are nowadays Slovakia and Romania, while the Balkans continued this curve through Serbia and Bulgaria. The Danube has cut its way between these two mountain ranges by way of the Iron Gates gorges.
Small farmers in Romania still make extensive use of horse-drawn carts
Either side of this mountain barrier, the river has created two extensive basins. The Pannonian basin takes up most of central Hungary (where it is known as the Great Hungarian plain) and extends south into Slavonia (eastern Croatia) and Vojvodina (northern Serbia). East of the mountains is the Wallachian basin, taking up the southern part of Romania. In both these basins the river has over many centuries changed its meandering course as a result of frequent flooding. This has created a swampy flood plain close to the river. Bounding this flood plain and set back from the river sometimes by as much as 30km is the low rise (between 30–50m) of a