Kladovo

Kladovo has been our last stage on the Danube, and not less interesting. A little town of 10,000 population, Kladovo has been served by a great size channel since 1896 allowing it to make a junction between Serbia and the neighbouring Romania. Being a little port in Middle Ages, Kladovo became a true town as late as 1833 when Milos Obrenovic made it the main local place and had known its age of glory in 1960s with the construction of the dam to the hydro-electrical power station.

The town has not been attractive, but it has been situated in the centre of many vary tourist monuments and constructions. The dam of Djerdap, the Turkish fortress of Fetislam and the Roman sites such as Diana and Pontes have been among the most tourist places to be seen.

After taking the medieval castle of Zanes 1524, Turks had improved and enlarged the fortified place allowing them to hold this position on the Danube for more than three centuries. They in fact had constructed two different fortresses: Mali Grad and Veliki Grad. The first one had been an artillery base with the trench walls with numerous loopholes. The round corner towers protecting the inside. Veliki Grad had been constructed rather later, in the XVIII century when the Austrian danger had got weaker. That is why it had been considered the residence of princes.

Today this site on the Danube bank used to be visited, and it has been pleasant to see the medieval Ottoman architecture. The thick trench walls have been visible from the distance. The rectangular trenches have got the towers at each corner the cylindrical tiers from XVI century.

The fortress of Diana has been situated in the place called Karatas and has been representative of these advanced posts on the limes constructed by Romans. Erected by Trayan in II century, Diana has been the greatest fortified place having made by Romans in the Upper Mesia. Its strategic position on a bend of the Danube pointed out its defensive role, more important of all Roman fortified places. To defend the limes in this region being the target of all German and Avar attacks, Trayan had a custom to disseminate the frontier by the fortified places of this kind. Diana had played the role of a barrage in the extreme East of the Balkans until VI century when it had been abandoned.

Thus the constructions of red tiles and stone may be noticed. The site makes one understand also the importance of this region for the Romans.