Lepenski Vir-

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Our ship docked at Golubac in Serbia and we drove down the coast to an archaeological site called Lepenski Vir. This was discovered during the 60s in a farmers field in an area which was subsequently going to be flooded by the building of a dam. The archaeologists had 5 years to excavate and move the village they discovered stone by stone. The buildings were built 9000 years ago and are one of the earliest examples of human beings forming a community rather than moving and hunter gathering. All the buildings were facing a stone mountain which was clearly revered by these people. The floor was made of the clay found locally and had a central fireplace with a hole in the roof. The skeletons which were found showed the people to be short but very healthy with good teeth. There were also numerous carved artefacts so they were quite advanced for such a long time ago. The whole site is now housed under a huge glass museum which is like a massive green house and can get very hot in the summer. It is very interesting to see however with a lovely walk through the woods along the river to get to it. There is a restaurant at the beginning of the walk so a good place to sit and have a beer after. Fortunately they take euros.

The afternoon was spent sitting on the sundeck and enjoying the scenery as we passed through narrow gorges called the Iron Gates and also by the face of Decelabus, a Romanian king, carved into the rock face. Our cruise director gave us a talk on Life behind the Iron Curtain. The clocks went forward an hour but we still danced the night away.

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