His poem, By the Danube, won him a place next to it for eternity.
From here, the green hills slope away, down to the small suburb of Kahlenbergerdorf beside the Danube.
The Romans based a garrison here because the Danube flowing right by made transport easy.
Countries bordering the Danube have reinforced water quality controls and are monitoring the concentration of heavy metals.
But disaster management officials have told the BBC they are cautiously optimistic that the Danube can be saved.
"It's the single harbor which is connected with Danube, with the Rhine-Main-Danube canal and with Rotterdam, " he added.
It's estimated the red cloud of heavy metals is now affecting a 30km (19-mile) stretch of the River Danube.
Mr Strel's swim also covers parts of the Danube that were affected by a major pollution spill last winter.
All life in the Marcal river, which feeds the Danube, has been "extinguished".
The swiftness of the waters and their imagined depth reminds me of the Danube where it flows through Bratislava.
The River Danube - already swollen to record levels - burst its banks in the capital Vienna on Tuesday.
The final stop is Margaret Island, in the middle of the Danube.
Strel, the Slovenian who has also swum the Yangtze, Mississippi and Danube, says the Nile is on his to-do list.
The bombing of bridges across the Danube has hurt shippers in Romania and Bulgaria, as well as others farther north.
During Nato's air bombardment of Yugoslavia last year, three bridges over the Danube at Novi Sad in northern Yugoslavia were destroyed.
Hotel Skala is a good-value stay in the town of Zemun, a five-minute walk from the banks of the Danube river.
The areas along the course of both the Danube and the Drava form a continuous stretch of habitats extending across the state border.
The station quoted Serbian police co-minister Stevan Nikcevic as saying the body was found near the junction of the Sava and Danube rivers in Belgrade.
Both properties offer a complimentary in-room mini bar and wi-fi, provide iPads upon request, and are centrally located between the Danube Canal and St Stephens Cathedral.
Tonnes of cyanide residue poured from a Romanian gold mine into the Tisza river in Romania, and were then washed into the Danube and finally the Black Sea.
An alert has been declared for the Marcal and Torna rivers, and Mr Illes said workers were "desperately" trying to stop contamination of the Raba and Danube rivers.
The company also does an Alaskan version of the trip, which left July 28, and is planning a European trip on the Danube River for May 2, 2013.
We've had our share of adventures over the years including one (outstandingly crazy) spooky night on the Danube in Budapest that involved a rave, a mild concussion and butchered chicken.
The government froze plans to finish the plant at Belene last year, when work at the site on the southern bank of the River Danube was already well under way.
The Romanian section of the Danube canal catered for 31 million tons of goods in 2012, a steady increase on previous years but still only a third of its full capacity.
There are "real concerns" about the impact on the Danube, he says, as "it will increase the heavy metal content of the water and it might have adverse effects on fish".
Successes in privatisation, such as the recent sale of Sidex, a failing steel plant in the grimy Danube delta town of Galati, to an Anglo-Indian company, have been offset by failures.
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