I got up at 06:00 to see the famous Iron Gates, but alas we had sailed much further and had already arrived at the lock which marked the very end of the passage. There was some mutinous muttering by others who also wanted to see the site: suggestions of keelhauling Elisabeth seemed just a little excessive, however.The Iron Gates locks are the two largest locks on the Danube and two of the largest in the world. The dam across the river was massive.

We are the first passenger ship to pass through the locks - even the captain takes photos!

The co-pilot, Captain Franz steers the ship through the locks via a tiny control panel at the side of the ship. Note the rear view mirror!

We glide under the coffer gates

We were very good at lunch and only had a salad. If we go on eating we are going to have to be rolled off the ship like barrels! We were joined by Pat and her sister from Chicago. They are very different: one is, tall with black hair in tight curls and is loud and very funny; her sister is shorter with long blond hair and is quiet with a dry sense of humour. They were great fun! In the afternoon, Bruce had a nap, but I went to watch the ship’s pastry chef demonstrating how to make apfelstrudel. He made it look very easy, but I know if I tried stretching the pastry like that, I would end up with it looking like the lace being sold at the castle yesterday. There were samples and it was very, very good. I brought Bruce a slice with a cup of tea. The things I do for that man…We then went up to the sundeck and chatted to Barbara and Doug from Goudhurst. They are both great company with a dry sense of humour: Doug keeps such a deadpan face, you can’t tell if he’s joking or not – I’d hate to play poker with him!There was another port talk by Elizabeth, but I did not have the strength to sit through another 20 minutes to gain three bits of information, so Bruce was delegated. He told me that lots of other couples are doing the same and only one went! This time, Elisabeth over-ran her time telling everyone about the "wonderful excursion" to Transylvania, the "wonderful hotel" we would be staying at and the "wonderful castle" of Vlad the Impaler. Elisabeth is enthusiastic... So great was her enthusiasm for the trip, the Maitre d’ was tapping at the door to let her know that dinner was being served!We had dinner with Barbara and Doug who kept us in stitches. They also showed us pictures they had taken with their digital camera and printed out – the images were very high quality. We must look into that. Their garden looks wonderful. After dinner, we spoke to Hannelore, the hotel manager. She asked us if we enjoyed our "wonderful meal" and if we were looking forward to our "wonderful excursion". Now her English is good – what could she mean? There was another quiz night on aspects of the ship and its crew. We were not going to take part, but Sheri insisted that we join her and repeat the success of yesterday. It was quite fun as we tried to find out such facts as the height of the Chef (2m!) and how many potatoes have we eaten to date (2,000kgs!!)