Deepest Romania with Mum and Dad – Part 3 (photos)

As promised, here are some pictures of my recent trip with my parents. One of the real stand-outs for me was the wildlife. Everywhere you looked you’d see an unusual bird or a snake or a lizard or an army of frogs or a beautiful butterfly or a beetle or some other weird and wonderful creepy-crawly, which I didn’t always catch on camera. The loss of these creatures in the UK – even in my short lifetime – is nothing short of scandalous, and nobody in Britain with the power to do anything about it gives a shit. Of course, Romania isn’t exactly a hotbed of environmentalism, it’s just that modern farming practices (which they’d adopt in a heartbeat if they could) haven’t got here yet.

 

Orșova (most of it doesn’t look as nice as this):

 

Monastery:

Boat trip down the Danube. You can see the Decebal sculpture carved into the rock:

 

 

The cave:

 

A stork with chicks atop a telegraph pole:

 

Any idea what this is?

 

Faded glory in Herculane:

 

The waterfall at the top of the mountain we climbed up:

 

The 45th parallel north at Baia de Aramă. I’ve passed the south one plenty of times too – it’s close to Oamaru in New Zealand.

 

Another mystery beetle:

 

Back in the day this would have been quite something:

 

I think this is a stag horn beetle:

 

Izvorul Bigăr, which just happens to sit right on the 45th parallel:

 

Serbia!