Tourist guide Drobeta-Turnu Severin

1. Crișan Promenade

I propose to start our walk in the pedestrian area of Crisan Street. Crisan Street has a North - South orientation and in its middle part, between Revolutiei Boulevard and Tudor Vladimirescu Boulevard (DN6) is Crișan Promenade. The place looks good. At the southern end (towards the Danube) in the middle of the street there is a superb tower that invites you to walk towards it to visit it. From the far end of the promenade to the castle is less than 1 km.

2. Water Castle

Address: 113 Adrian Street

Visiting hours: daily from 9 am - 7 pm

Water Castle is emblematic for this city. Situated at a roundabout intersection, but also because of its height, it is easily recognizable from afar.

It is 42 meters high. At the top are turrets with pointed conical roofs.

The Water Tower can be visited. It features a unique interactive exhibition about sailing, wildlife, communities, mechanical installations. Former island Ada Kaleh has his honorary place of remeber.

At the top, around the castle is a narrow circular balcony offering a superb 360-degree panorama.

We continued left on the curved street Doctor Saidac, then on Smardan street, left on Aurelian and right on Independentei for the next important tourist landmark. Distance from the castle 1,5 km.

3. Iron Gates Region Museum

Address: 2 Independentei Street

Visiting hours: Tuesday - Sunday 9 - 17

In 1881, Dumitrescu founded the Severin Museum, but without a long life. In 1912, Baracila opened a history museum at the Traian High School. In 1926, the museum received a suitable space and became a museum of history and ethnography. At the same time there was also the Dr. Istrati Museum, the collections of the two being later brought together. The museum kept developing. In 1972 it was inaugurated Iron Gates Region Museumwhen the city was celebrating 1850 years of documentary attestation.

The first two sections were Aquarium - Natural Sciences and History - Archaeology, then followed Folk Art and Ethnography Mehedinteana, and respectively Fine Arts, in a separate building.

In the area of this museum complex is an important archaeological park with discoveries mostly from the Roman period, but also up to the present day.

Near the museum, towards E, you will find Roman castle Drobetadating from the 2nd - 4th centuries. On the Danube bank are the ruins Traian Bridge, built by Apolodor of Damascus, incorporated in the same museum, which I invite you to see by another way later. In V are the ruins Roman terms of the ancient city of Drobeta. At SV are medieval fortification (13th century) and the ruins medieval church (14th century).

The walk continues to another major objective. We follow Carol I Boulevard, perpendicular to the street we came from, there is no other option, until we reach the corner of Dragalina Park. We don't go through the park, because it looks pathetic, but we follow a signpost on Smardan street, on the left, going downhill, which bypasses the park and leads us to the southern part of the next objective, near the railway and the Danube. Distance: 1 km

4. The medieval fortress of Severin

Address: bulevardul Dunarea

Visiting hours: daily from 9am to 8pm

The first documentary attestation of Severin is dated 1233. The fortress has two inner and two outer towers and two lateral towers. The walls are 2 meters wide, 8 meters high and made of river stone mixed with lime mortar.

Inside the fortress is a church, whose location is easily recognizable. The fortress has two rows of walls. The fortress is renovated and well maintained.

The fortress of Severin looks very good and can be visited in its entirety with a lookout point, benches, a labyrinth, a museum that shows methods of punishment used in the Middle Ages, costumes, weapons. You can visit the fountain, the ruins of the church, the labyrinth, the paths between the fortifications, or you can encircle the fortress.

From the fortress we go up the other flank of Dragalina Park in Carol I Boulevard, from where we continue to the left. After 400 m we arrive between 2 resting places.

5. Kinetic fountain

On the right side is Tudor Vladimirescu Park, much longer than wide. We are on the small side of its rectangular shape. Before entering the alleys there is a pedestrian platform with benches. In the center of this space is kinetic fountain.

I haven't seen it working in all its splendor, but they say it looks spectacular. It's also called The hour of Bălăcița. It is the creation of Constantin Lucaci, famous stainless steel sculptor. It was started in 1979.

Opposite the fountain is ...

6. "Teodor Costescu" Cultural Palace

Address: boulevard Carol I

You can visit from Monday to Friday between 8 am and 16:30.

Cultural Palace hosts TheaterCultural Center and Municipal House of Culture. Teodor Costescu was the man of culture who insisted for the erection of this edifice. It was built between 1910 - 1928 with the participation of the citizens. In 1924 it was inaugurated. The building was designed to contain on 3 levels a library, a cinema and a restaurant plus several theaters. Costescu made extreme financial efforts, even selling his own house to finish the construction.

We continue on Carol Avenue for another 200 meters and on the same side of the theater is a park. At the entrance to this park we meet ...

7. Heroes' Monument

Address: 37 Carol I Boulevard

It is in the open air, you can visit it anytime.

It can be found in the Station Park or Rose Park as it is called the park that descends from Carol Avenue towards the station and the harbor. It was built in 1930 - 1933. Heroes' Monument contains a crypt that preserves the bones of the heroes of Severin and Mehedinteni who fell in the First World War, in the battles of Alion, Cerna and Campia Severinului.

We cross the park and the Danube Boulevard on the way down, we enter the Port Street where we cross the railroad and enter the harbor area where we will stop for a while on the way back. The road follows the Danube downstream, between the railroad and the river bank, where there is also Danube Cliff. At the beginning the road is paved and passing a couple of restaurants on the boat. We also follow it through the more unfriendly area, when it becomes dirt until it gets muddy. We walked for over a mile.

8. Trajan's Bridge

I promised you we'd get to Trajan's Bridge ruins. If I didn't have the opportunity to visit it the classic way in the Iron Gates Museum ComplexI studied the harat and hoped to find a way to see it up close. And I saw it closer than you can see in a museum. At the end of the dirt road you go around the fence there and you end up on a large, undeveloped area, right on the Danube bank, right next to the 2 feet of bridge, which are fenced in for protection.

Traian Bridge was built between 103 - 105 by Apolodor of Damascus, the architect of the Column. It was intended to open the access to the Roman troops led by Trajan who came to conquer Dacia in the 2nd Dacian-Roman War against the Dacians led by Decebal.

The location of the bridge was wisely chosen where the Danube comes out of the Cazanelor Gorge, where the Danube is not so strong and the depth was shallower. A wooden superstructure was used, fixed on 20 parallelepiped pillars 56 meters apart, made of stone bonded with a type of cement known only to the Romans. The masonry was built into the masonry with oak bars to absorb shocks. At the ends of the bridge, there were triumphal arches.

Bridge length 1,13 km, height 19 m, width 12 m. The bridge thus linked the Drobeta castle to the Pontes castle, on today's Serbian side. Fabulous!

We return on the Danube bank, on Port Street, admire the Medieval Fortress on the left, where we were earlier, and especially the Danube, to arrive after more than 1 km to ...

9. Port of Drobeta-Turnu Severin

Address: 3 Port Street

We can walk along the harbor quay, see the Capitania, and the harbor itself, that is River station.