1st European GREEN Conference – EGC 2023

23-26 May 2023 | Vodice, CROATIA

Sustainable mobility linking Danube Travel Stories

MATEJ MARUŠIĆ1, VLATKO ROŽAC2, GEORG FRANK3
1DANUBEPARKS Network of Protected Areas, Orth Schloss, Orth an der Donau, Austria
2Public institution „Nature park Kopački rit“, Mali Sakadaš 1, Kopačevo, Croatia
3Donau Auen National Park, Schloss Orth, 2304 Orth an der Donau

(E-mail: m.marusic@danubeparks.org)
Recognizing the vast cultural and natural heritage of the Danube region, within the Interreg DTP Transdanube
Travel Stories project (July 2020 to December 2022) 6 new narratives and stories were created to support the
development of innovative promotion concepts, and different sustainable mobility management tools.

New narratives are representing the holistic approach of letting visitors experience the heritage of a region as
one entity transporting values and emotions. They are meant to link the stories of single destinations and
thematically focused routes with each other, like pieces of a big puzzle, providing the visitor with a bigger
picture under the umbrella of the Danube.

DANUBEPARKS worked on the development of Trail #2, which is focused on the story of the relationship between nature and mankind.
The trail is passing through 8 protected areas in 5 Danube countries in the Lower Danube section.

Trail destinations:
A) THE HEART OF THE DANUBE
1. Kopački rit Nature Park
2. Danube-Dráva National Park
3. Gornje Podunavlje Special Nature Reserve
B) CLASH OF FORCES
1. Đerdap National Park
2. Iron Gates Natural Park
C) A TRUE NATURE SHOW
1. Persina Nature Park
2. Rusenski Lom Nature Park
3. Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve

„The Danube is a thousand-faced, eternal, continuously renewing entity, a sovereign, inevitable,

uncontrollable self that has brutal power to transform rocks, earth and sand to its own shape. Much more
than just a water body, it encompasses mountain rapids, lowland river stretches with floodlands, hundreds of
islands and thousands of plant and animal species.”