Why this ride
A natural corridor of river bends, cliffs and historic settlements. It also links naturally to Djerdap National Park and Gamzigrad nearby.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Djerdap Iron Gates Route
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 118 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 2 h 16
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Access context
Verify surface and current local traffic conditions. Specific flag: traffic; tunnels.
Seasonal context
Apr-Oct
Scenic road chapters
Serbia Danube Iron Gates Route
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 46 km this is Serbia Danube Iron Gates Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 46 km
- Named road
- Serbia Danube Iron Gates Route
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Golubac
Golubac fortress looks like something drawn by a child who loved castles: nine towers of different heights, tumbling down a rock to the water's edge, with a harbour wall and a great arched gate in front. It stands where the Danube, having crossed the wide Pannonian plain, narrows suddenly into the gorges of the Iron Gates, and for centuries whoever held it controlled river traffic. Hungarians, Serbs and Ottomans fought over it repeatedly in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it changed hands more than once. After a long restoration it reopened to visitors in the 2010s, and you can now walk the ramparts and climb the towers.
Read the complete Golubac write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Golubac sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Donji Milanovac.
2. Donji Milanovac
Donji Milanovac is a young town in an ancient place. The old village of the same name, along with several others, was drowned in 1972 when the Iron Gates dam raised the Danube by many metres, and a new town was built on the high ground a few years earlier to take the displaced people. It is a tidy, planned place of about two and a half thousand, laid out around a wide bay, with a promenade, a small port and a clutch of cafes where fishermen and tourists sit side by side. Majdanpek, the nearest larger town, is up in the hills, and across the river lie the Romanian villages of the Banat.
Read the complete Donji Milanovac write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Donji Milanovac comes up 43 km in. Next is Kladovo.
3. Kladovo
The Danube here is squeezed through a gorge between the Carpathians and the Balkans, and the result is one of the great river landscapes of Europe. The Iron Gates, called Porțile de Fier in Romanian and Đerdap in Serbian, run for about a hundred kilometres, with cliffs rising steeply on both sides and the water flowing wide and slow.
Read the complete Kladovo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
118 km in you reach Kladovo.