Golubac - Serbia

 After a full day of only seeing river banks, the ship docked at Golubac so we could get off and partially explore the fortress. I thought it would be a couple of hours of intense stairs but it turns out that only 4 of the 10 towers are open. This is due to the construction of the fortress to prevent breaching by outsiders. Not all the towers are connected and the upper ones each have a different entrance. You can only explore as part of a private guide since some of the areas are on steep rock and require use of the hand rail to climb. Oh, and there are venomous snakes at the top where the fort meets the cliffs!

Our guide told us he'd only ever seen two of the vipers at ground level, they prefer to be in the hilly area. I didn't have a snake sighting but I looked.

Looking out from one of the smaller towers at the front. There were four cannons pointed in all directions on the river.

It doesn't show well in this picture but it's nearly straight up to the top levels. The tower in the back right doesn't even have an entrance from the main area and has to be accessed from the other side of the wall. This is all original from the 14th century. Guards were posted around to keep people from trying to get to the other towers.