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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.