Whilst we waited for the usual customs formalities, we had lunch on board. After lunch, we got on the coaches waiting for us. However, the air conditioning was not working on one of the coaches and we all had to squeeze onto two coaches. Our guide was again the charming Albina.

We drove through some very picturesque countryside, full of wild flowers – poppies, alchemilla, verbena and so on.

Soon we were into a very hilly area, looking very similar to Chianti in Italy. We came to the town of Belogradshick, with its massive stone outcrop dominating the hill town. The town was very small and attractive. The coaches weaved their way through the narrow streets and we finally disembarked at the entrance to an ancient castle. It dated from 3rd Century Roman times, but what we saw was largely built by the Ottomans in the 19th Century. It was very interesting and had some splendid views.

We walked back through looking closely at the wild flowers – we saw orchids, a yellow cerinthe and wild peas. Very beautiful. On the way back to the ship it stated to thunder and we missed out on the trip to Baba Vida fortress.

Albina passed on one very interesting piece of information – Bulgarians shake their heads to indicate "yes" and nod them for "no". How confusing!

We got back to the ship which left Vidin at 19:00 to make its way to Orsova in Romania

At the usual evening briefing, Elisabeth confused us. In particular, we could not work out what time we were due to sail through the Iron Gates. After the debacle of last time, we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss it. She assured us that we would enter the Iron Gates at 06:00.

As usual we had dinner with B&G and B&D. Despite it being a "seaman’s supper" (I will not repeat Barbara’s joke here) I had the pork.

In the evening, one of the crew displayed his hidden talent and the second captain (Franz) played the flute, clarinet and recorder – quite good but very nervous.