The fortress of Golubac was built seven hundred years ago in a strategic point on the Danube, before the Iron Gate Gorges, an area included in Derdap National Park today. The purpose was to guard both the Danube and the coast road and to offer taxation. For this purpose there existed even a great iron chain that could be pulled to stop ships that would avoid paying, a method that was also used by the Byzantines in defense of Constantinople.
The fortress stands on the place of a Roman site, documented ans Columbria, and its Serbian name also refers to a place inhabited by doves. The fortress with strong stone walls, ten towers and a moat was used by Serbians, Hungarians and Turks, serving either as a last defense or as an avant post of the Ottomans. The fortress that seems to grow naturally from the mountain cliff had also a chapel and a small village, thus the name Stari Grad (old city), which differentiates the place from Golubac, the modern city and Danube resort, found four kilometers away.