Eastern European Travelogue

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Prologue (written March 26) warm camaraderie of like-minded American travelers, and feeling comfortable, safe, and well-cared for every step of the way. It’s not simply a destination you’ll find, but a profound awareness of the life-changing joy of cultural con- nections, and we’ve been creating those connections for more than 50 years.” We traveled with this company twice before—a cruise on the Rhine to see Christmas Markets and a cruise on a large ship to Vancouver and Alaska. I’d recommend the first one to any- one anytime and I’d not recom- mend the second through GCT (see previous travelogues to un- derstand why.) Because the first experience on a European river cruise was so good I have high hopes for this one. We are traveling with Ed’s brother, Paul, and Paul’s wife, Cindy, as we did for the Rhine cruise. Cindy and I have been the main instigators for these trips with the guys kind of just com- ing along for the ride. Not really true but it sounds good. I know that Ed is almost as excited about some of the things we’ll get to see and experience. ere will be an- other 160 passengers on the ship From Bucharest to Budapest March 28: Arrive in Bucharest, Romania March 29: Bucharest to Ruse, Bulgaria March 30: Varna, Bulgaria on the Black Sea March 31: Vidin, Bulgaria including two fortresses April 1: Cruising the Iron Gates April 2: Belgrade, Serbia April 3: Vukovar and Osijek, Croatia including a home-hosted lunch April 4: Kalocsa, Hungary April 5: Budapest, Hungary April 6: Esztergom, Visegrád, and Budapest, Hungary April 7: Szentendre and Budapest, Hungary I love travel and I love adventure with a small “a”. I say with a small “a” because I am a little chicken about the adventures with a big “A” that might be dangerous or stressful. Having some kind of travel in the offing helps give me reasons to get through a regular day/week/month and it really gives me a way to get through the tougher days. Whether the travel is a short trip to Milwaukee to see a friend or a 5,000 mile flight across the pond as the Brits would say, I love it and I look forward to it. Tomorrow begins a new adventure with a small “a”. To keep it a small “a”, we are working through a tour company that we have traveled with before. is relieves much of the stress and helps keep the possible dangers to a minimum. e company is Grand Circle Tours which states as a mission statement: “Traveling with Grand Circle is about more than sightseeing. It’s about immersing you in other cultures, sharing the

description

Cruise from Bucharest, Romania to Budapest, Hungary, March 2011.

Transcript of Eastern European Travelogue

Page 1: Eastern European Travelogue

Prologue (written March 26)

warm camaraderie of like-minded American travelers, and feeling comfortable, safe, and well-cared for every step of the way. It’s not simply a destination you’ll find, but a profound awareness of the life-changing joy of cultural con-nections, and we’ve been creating those connections for more than 50 years.” We traveled with this company twice before—a cruise on the Rhine to see Christmas Markets and a cruise on a large ship to Vancouver and Alaska. I’d recommend the first one to any-one anytime and I’d not recom-mend the second through GCT (see previous travelogues to un-derstand why.) Because the first experience on a European river cruise was so good I have high hopes for this one.

We are traveling with Ed’s brother, Paul, and Paul’s wife, Cindy, as we did for the Rhine cruise. Cindy and I have been the main instigators for these trips with the guys kind of just com-ing along for the ride. Not really true but it sounds good. I know that Ed is almost as excited about some of the things we’ll get to see and experience. There will be an-other 160 passengers on the ship

From Bucharest to Budapest

March 28: Arrive in Bucharest, Romania March 29: Bucharest to Ruse, BulgariaMarch 30: Varna, Bulgaria on the Black SeaMarch 31: Vidin, Bulgaria including two fortressesApril 1: Cruising the Iron GatesApril 2: Belgrade, SerbiaApril 3: Vukovar and Osijek, Croatia including a home-hosted lunchApril 4: Kalocsa, HungaryApril 5: Budapest, HungaryApril 6: Esztergom, Visegrád, and Budapest, HungaryApril 7: Szentendre and Budapest, Hungary

Eastern Europe and the Black SeaMarch 27-April 8, 2011

Cruising the Danube(not necessarily the Blue one)

I love travel and I love adventure with a small “a”. I say with a small “a” because I am a little chicken about the adventures with a big “A” that might be dangerous or stressful. Having some kind of travel in the offing helps give me reasons to get through a regular day/week/month and it really gives me a way to get through the tougher days. Whether the travel is a short trip to Milwaukee to see a friend or a 5,000 mile flight across the pond as the Brits would say, I love it and I look forward to it.

Tomorrow begins a new adventure with a small “a”. To keep it a small “a”, we are working through a tour company that we have traveled with before. This relieves much of the stress and helps keep the possible dangers to a minimum. The company is Grand Circle Tours which states as a mission statement: “Traveling with Grand Circle is about more than sightseeing. It’s about immersing you in other cultures, sharing the

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Prologue (continued)

along on this trip (plus crew)—a full boat, so to speak. The ship is the MS Adagio and both couples have chosen the least expensive cabins. The cabins on the lowest level of the ship are as comfortable as any other with a smaller window. The windows are right at the waterline which can be interest-ing (like the time we were on the Rhine and there were swans swimming alongside the ship.)

How excited am I? I had most of my stuff packed last Sunday. The rest of the week has been thinking of things that I might have forgotten. Making sure that we both have our passports, travel wallets, enough medications, rain gear, and anything else we might need. Batteries are charged for the cameras. Plugs that will work on a European ship for the net-book and battery charger. We still haven’t figured out where our noise-cancellation headphones are, which is a bummer since the ones we have make air travel so much more pleas-ant.

We received an email the other day from our Program Directors. It was an introductory message that said they were Reka Piros from Hungary, Mircea Poeana, Stefan Mototolea and Vlad Trestian from Romania. They gave us some basic information about the kinds of things to pack, phone numbers to reach them at if we have problems, etc. It is one of the nice things about travel-ing with GCT—they always have Program Directors who are natives of the area that the tour is going through.

We first took a va-cation that I consid-ered a real adventure (with a small “a”) when we took the cruise in Peru in 2007 with all of Ed’s family. Because it seemed like a trip of a lifetime and because I was realizing how little I remembered from other vacations, I decided to write every day while traveling. Even though most people now think of something like this as a blog, I still call them travelogues. I don’t really enjoy blogging daily about my life. I do enjoy blogging about travel. I want to remember the experience as fully as possible. I want to remember the small details. I read a travelogue before the Peruvian trip by a per-son who would relate everything in great detail until he had a meal. He then would say “we had lunch” and continue in great detail about the rest of the day until the next meal. I disliked this because food can be so much of the experience. I wrote that first travelogue in long hand in a travel diary and then transcribed it all when I got home. It took another week to do that. I did the same when we took the Rhine cruise. This worked but it was a bit tedious. Before we went to Alaska we received a netbook as a gift and it made it so

much easier for me. I’d sit and type out our exploits each day and then put together the document when I got home with some of the photos I’d taken. This worked well in Mexico as well. The first two (Peru and the Rhine) were put together as webpages but by the time I did the Alaskan one I had gained experience in InDesign to put my writings together as a PDF magazine. That, too, worked well for the Mexican trip. I fig-ure this has been working well and I will continue what is now “my way”.

In Peru and Mexico, we really didn’t have a way to con-nect to the outside world which was just fine with me. I can unplug…honest, I can. (Sticking my tongue out at those that call me a cyborg.) On the Rhine and Alaskan cruises, we could connect but it was too expensive for skinflints like us. Be-cause of this, I would have to wait until I got home to share our travels with friends. On the upcoming cruise, I was able to find out from Vlad, one of our Program Directors, that as of this year, we do have wireless internet on the ship. He said that we can ask for a token at the reception that will be valid for a week or 500 MB of traffic and it is free of charge.

A couple of my friends have been traveling lately and keeping track of their travels with notes on Facebook or some kind of blogging site. It’s a great idea but I know myself too well. I would get distracted if I opened Facebook while traveling. Be-cause I know myself well enough, I plan on limiting myself to email only and only at the end of the day. As I thought about it,

I decided to create a Google Group where I could post my daily writings. Photos will have to wait until I get home so I don’t use up too much bandwidth but the friends who want to follow our adventures (with a small “a” hopefully) will be able to do so.

So, it’s less than 24 hours until we take off from O’Hare in Chicago. We are lucky enough to have a wonderful friend in Ann who loves to drive just for the sake of driving. She’s agreed to drive us to Chicago tomorrow and pick us up when we get back on April 8. Our flight leaves around 4:30pm to-morrow and hopefully it will be an uneventful day/night/and part of the next day until we arrive in Bucharest. The plan is to leave Madison around 11am which should give us plenty of time. The weather looks good for the drive (around 33° and sunny) and looks fantastic for our arrival in Bucharest (high 60° | low 48°/mostly cloudy) on Monday afternoon. (Most of the extended forecast looks like reasonably nice spring weather. Highs in the high 50°s-low 60°s and lows in the 40°s.)

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March 27-28: From Madison to Bucharest

carrot cake for dinner; yogurt, blueberry muffin, and OJ for breakfast; and on the second flight a turkey/cheese sandwich and almond cake) and kept us going until Monday night’s dinner.

We changed planes in Amsterdam and that was a little weird. We got to the gate we were going to leave from and the area was closed off (all of the gates were like this) and they didn’t open it up until about an hour before the plane was due to take off. We had to go through security again so queued up for that; got through that okay and then had to queue up again to get unto the plane. One fun moment was when this little, maybe 4'10" , elderly, around 85, woman had to be patted down when she tripped the security alarm (probably her barrettes) –she started giggling like a little kid being tickled. Even the most stoic of the security guards couldn’t help but laugh. We were delayed slightly when a passenger could not be found on board and they had to search for his luggage to remove it because of security regulations. Again, luckily, only about a 15 minute delay. I really didn’t get a lot of sleep, though. Between the two flights, I think I slept about 3-4 hours all told but not even all in a row.

Getting through passport control when we got to Bucharest was one of the easiest times I’ve ever had. I can’t remember the agent at the gate even asking me one question. We zipped through that and found our luggage almost immediately. Everything was there and intact for all four of us, we got out the baggage pickup to find four GCT employees directing us around to go and meet up with the bus that would take us to the hotel. The cutest of which was Tanya, a young Serb, who is in her second season of training with GCT. She will be traveling with us to learn the ropes.

We made it to the hotel, the Ramada Parc by about 1430hrs and found everything ready for us at the welcome desk. We met Mircea who will be the Program Director for the “blue” group, which is the one all four of us are in, and found him

The first two days barely count since it’s mostly about traveling but there are definitely a few highlights to record.

Thanks to Ann/Ragan, who loves to drive, who was willing to drive us to O’Hare International Airport so we wouldn’t have to take the bus down. The bus isn’t that bad but I like the freedom of driving by car. She is also kind enough to be willing to pick us up on our return.

We left Madison around 11am, leaving the critters in the capable hands of Chris/Gareth, and were in the airport by about 1:15. Check-in and security were a breeze and we had about two hours to wait for our flight. Paul and Cindy came in just behind us, by a mere few minutes, and we chatted and relaxed until we were supposed to leave. Slight delay in take-off since the AC wasn’t working on the plane but they were kind enough NOT to have us board until it was fixed which really only was about 10-15 minutes.

Flying KLM was nice except for the usual cramped seats. We were on a Boeing 747-400 but with only about 230 passengers. The back of the plane had been set up for cargo and we had watched them load four huge pallets of cargo. I started to wonder where they would put the passengers.Guess it’s a way for the airlines to make ends meet. The flight attendants were very attentive and we had good service all the way. This was one of the first times I’d traveled with the personal entertainment system (small screen on back of seat in front of me) and I loved it. Their headphones sucked

which was too bad since we hadn’t found the noise-cancellation headphones before leaving and Ed/Giles hadn’t brought anything else and had to make do with the ones provided. I had an okay pair of earbuds which made it okay for me. I watched The King’s Speech before/during dinner and Tangled when I found I couldn’t sleep. Both were movies I’d wanted to see. The food was reasonably good (on the first flight--chicken in a sauce w/broccoli, mashed potatoes, salad, fresh rolls, cheese/crackers and

Literacy in Romania

Definition: age 15 and over can read and write Total population: 98.4%

Male: 99.1% Female: 97.7%

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March 27-28: From Madison to Bucharest (continued)

to be very charming. More on him later. I didn’t want to stop and I’d read about the Muzeul National al Satului Dimitrie Gusti (Village Museum) which turned out to be about a mile or so from our hotel. We got directions from Mircea and pretty much took off right away. He warned us it might not be open on a Monday but did tell us that the park would be a nice walk either way.

The walk was about a mile or so to get to the park and we meandered through it as we looked for the Museum. Spring is just budding here so we saw the beginnings of green and flowers and such—it was obvious that this would be a nicer walk once flowers were flowering and trees were green but we just enjoyed the stretch of our legs. Hindsight tells me that we shouldn’t have meandered so since it turned out the Museum was open until 1700hrs—which we discovered at 1600hrs. That didn’t deter us working our way around the perimeter to find the entrance. It would have been much better to have 2-3 hours there but the 50 minutes still made it all worth it.

So, you ask, what is this Museum I’m going on about? It is a collection of buildings that had been moved from the Romanian countryside starting in 1936 to help preserve the heritage of the people. A wide variety of buildings that included farmhouses, barns and other outbuildings, mills of various types, and churches covered the 15 hectacres open-air museum. Some 80 or more made for an interesting hour of exploration.

The walk back to the hotel was painful for me (hips, knees, back and feet) but I didn’t care. It was worth the time and the pain to explore this Museum. In hindsight it would prove to be even more worth it than I thought since we really didn’t get a lot of time to explore Bucharest before leaving the next day.

Among Romanians, the dominant religion is Orthodox Christianity, which claims the support of between 70 and 80 percent of the population. A substantial Hungarian mi-nority in Romania is predominantly Roman Catholic. By 1900 there were 250,000 Jews, close to 500,000 in 1947 and only 9,000-15,000 today.

Knowing that I could be in pain by the end of the days, I had brought all the right medications to handle it. We made it back to the hotel by around 1800hrs and I took some of the meds and then a nice shower. By the time we headed down to dinner we had been on the go for about 24 hours.

There was a short welcome talk with all of the Program Directors (there will be four on the ship with us) and the trainees (another three) introduced themselves and gave us a few pointers of how things would proceed for the next couple of days. Dinner was served to the large group in the dining room around 1900hrs. The rolls served were wonderfully fresh and followed by a three-course dinner. The Greek salad was very nice with a nice light olive oil dressing. The entrée was called meatloaf but was

basically a hamburger with a fried egg on top served with fried potatoes. Unfortunately, the meat was overdone but the egg was good. And I was almost too tired to be hungry. Dessert was a chocolate torte that had been soaked in rum which was very, very good.

I think I was close to being asleep well before my head hit the pillow. The first three hours were solid and sound and the rest of the night was a bit more tossy/turny but considering the 8 hour time difference that is not surprising.

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March 29: Bucharest to Ruse

Getting up this morning was not difficult in the least. I beat the alarm by about 10 minutes and it wasn’t that hard to be mostly packed before heading down for breakfast around 0730hrs. The buffet was plentiful but not very well organized so it took a bit to get everyone through. Many things were familiar but some of the sausages and cold sliced meats were a bit more unusual. There were some salad fixings as well which is not common with a breakfast. We didn’t have trouble finding enough to eat.

After breakfast, there was another briefing and I wrote in this log for a bit before making it out to our bus by 1,000hrs. The group of 157 (almost a full ship’s worth) will be divided into four groups for the whole of the tour. We are all colour-coded and have the same Program Director throughout. So, with our group of 40 others, the blue bus embarked to see the city.

The city tour was almost all onboard the bus going through heavy city traffic. We only had two opportunities for photo stops and neither was very exciting.

One was at a statue and a statue wall from the Communist era that gave the history of Romania through their eyes. The second was at the Palace of the Parliament (Palatul Parlamentului) which was built as the People’s Parliement by Nicolae Ceauşescu as a monument to his own ego. It is the world’s second-largest building by surface area (second only to the Pentagon— Ceauşescu must have miscalculated.) We drove past some very interesting buildings and churches, down a boulevard that Ceauşescu tried to make look like Paris (Unirii Boulevard, originally called Boulevard of the Victory of Socialism), and Revolution Square where Ceauşescu’s regime was toppled in 1989. More time to actually stop and see some of the city would have been nice.

By noon they had brought us to a shopping mall that had a food court. Okay, I will say that I was very, very disappointed in this. We would have close to two hours until we needed to be back on board the bus that would then take us to Bulgaria and we had to spend it all at the mall. We asked if there were things we could go see that were within walking distance but were warned off of that path since there were a lot of “gypsies” in the area. We shared some gelato and got something to drink—not even close to being hungry after the large buffet—and then wandered around. I can honestly say that malls suck no matter what country they are in. This will definitely be in my write-up/evaluation

after the trip. At least give us a choice and let us go explore a museum or church or something. We bought another pair of earbuds and a couple of small things but that was it. We did finally find a kiosk with Romanian handicrafts but it was in the darkest, out-of-the way spaces in the basement. We didn’t buy anything but it was closer to a what we might have considered rather than clothes, shoes, etc

On our way out of town, we passed by the Cemetery of Heroes of the Revolution which was even more sobering that Revolution Square itself. Our Program Director, Mircea (more on him on pages 12-13), had been aged 31 in December 1989 when Ceauşescu was toppled in a bloody revolution. Hundreds were killed in that square, many of them teenagers, and this cemetery, as well as the church next door, was dedicated to the fallen (and almost all of the dead are buried there.)

We were back in the bus by 1400hrs and wound our way out of town to head towards Bulgaria. The best part of the hour and a half drive was when we stopped for a bathroom break and found a small monastery, only about five years old, and a small chapel. That was worth the stop and made the day much more enjoyable. According to the sign it’s called the Manastirea SF Gheorghe (Monestary of St. George) but I really can’t find any more information on it. It was just a

Our Home Away from Home: The M/S River Adagio

One of the largest ships in Grand Circle’s own deluxe fleet, the M/S River Adagio was built specifically for cruising the widest part of the Danube and the deeper waters leading to the Black Sea.

Ship and Crew Information

Registry: MaltaWidth: 38 feetLength: 418 feetPassenger capacity: 164Crew/Nationality: 38/InternationalEntered service: 2003Decks: 4Number of cabins: 82—all outsideElevator: Yes

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March 29: Bucharest to Ruse (continued)

Ruse Itinerary and Menu (.pdf )

really neat place to stop.Crossing the Bulgarian border was pretty uneventful

except when you realize that this is the only bridge that crosses the Danube to connect Romania and Bulgaria. By 1630hrs we were at the ship in Ruse, Bulgaria. We checked in, found our cabin, and didn’t have long to wait for our bags. Ed napped for a bit and I unpacked and then went up to the lounge to catch up on this log (and almost did before the battery ran down. Before the trip was over I would have to find where the outlets are in the lounge.)

The welcome reception followed with a complimentary drink, some nibbles (nothing worth writing about) and the introduction of the crew. There are 37 crew between the hospitality (hotel and restaurant) and navigation (captain, mates, and sailors) sections coming from at least a dozen different countries. Once the introductions were complete and a few logistics were taken care of, it was time to head to the Captain’s Welcome Dinner.

We have raved about the meals that we had on the Rhine Christmas Market cruise and it looks like we’re in for the same kinds of culinary treats. At our places was a large spoon with a bit of cream cheese, smoked salmon, and

lemon (a little bite to whet our appetites) and was then followed by the cold appetizer (Roasted Duck Salad with Mango and Raspberry Vinaigrette) along with a very tasty, fresh brioche. Then, the hot appetizer (Sautéed Prawns with mashed and Crispy Potatoes served on Leek Julienne and Lobster Sauce.) Lovely, tasty and well prepared. The palate cleanser was a Black Currant Granita in Yoghurt Frappe. The Entrée was next and we had a choice. Our whole table (Ed, Paul, Cindy and two ladies from North Carolina) all chose the Veal tenderloin served with green beans wrapped in bacon, Sautéed Belgium Endive, and Onion Pie that was accompanied by Prince William Potatoes and a Madeira Glace. We all chose to forego the Tortellini stuffed with Gorgonzola and Nuts, and there were no complaints from around the table. Dessert was a work of art with a Crème brûlée that was served with Fresh Fruit, a Belgium Waffle, and Ice Cream plus some very fine chocolates. It was a lovely way to end the day.

I came back to our cabin and showered, redressed, and went to the desk to ask about the ship’s WiFi (something new this year—they offer a week/500mb free.) Found out that the reception can be spotty but hey, it’s free, so you probably won’t hear a complaint from me.

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March 30: Ruse to Varna (and back again)

Sleep was definitely eluding me this morning and once awake around 0400hrs I found that being awake was less effort than trying to sleep. It made for a bit of a nappy day but considering how the day went that wasn’t all bad.

I stayed in the room until almost 0600hrs and then wandered down to the lounge. Totally alone, with no muzak playing, was a pleasant way to be for a bit. Me and my Kindle and a cuppa tea. Eventually a few people wandered through and then Ed came down and we headed to the dining room for breakfast. Breakfast is always a buffet consisting of everything from eggs, breakfast meat, cereal, yoghurt, fruit (both fresh and dried), cheeses, breads, sliced meats, juices, a single special item cooked to order, and omelets cooked to order. We tried to eat relatively lightly since we knew we had a buffet also scheduled for lunch.

Because we had a three hour bus ride ahead of us, breakfast was served from 0630hrs to 0800hrs and our bus was to be loaded, ready to go, at 0800hrs. Rain was coming down lightly (for those that know me and my travel karma this might seem a bit odd but just be patient for a bit) as we met our local guide, Natasha. Born here in Ruse, Natasha had not only worked with Mircea before but he had helped train her as a guide. She teaches high school English so is totally understandable and turned out to be quite knowledgeable about her people, culture and history.

I was feeling a bit nauseous on the bus ride but it turned out that the scenery was not too attention-demanding. We traveled through the Bulgarian countryside, sometimes more than a bit jostled by the potholes in the road, sometimes perfectly smooth. I napped most of the way to Varna, a resort town on the Black Sea (even skipping the bathroom break the bus took) and from what I heard from others, didn’t miss much.

The planned stops in Varna proved to be interesting but not nearly enough time (or at least poorly planned time) at the most interesting of them. Varna has a lot of fascinating history and our first stop was the Varna Museum of Archaeology. A find in 1972 brought back to the world one of the largest and oldest caches of gold artifacts ever. This museum had some remodeling going on (okay, so much of Romania and Bulgaria are in that situation) so there was only a few rooms of exhibits but what

we saw was interesting. Unfortunately, I believed them when they told me no photos would be allowed. There was a lot of beautiful gold pieces plus pottery, glass and mosaics. I would have loved to have gotten some nice pictures of some of the gold pieces—I know some of my friends would have loved some detailed pictures even though we did pick up some postcards and info in the gift shop. We only had about 20 minutes in this museum and a little more time would have been nice. (See end of this section for some postcards from the museum.)

Our second stop was the The Dormition of the Theotokos Cathedral and again, we did not have nearly enough time to explore. Inside the basilica, again, photo taking was not allowed but at least here we could pay about $5 for the privilege of taking photos which I gladly did. But only 20 minutes to explore the wonderful icons, wall and ceiling paintings, and highly carved pieces was not enough. The Orthodox don’t have pews, for their worship is less organized and more private unless it’s a big ceremony like a wedding or baptism. I took as many photos I could while exploring in the short time allowed and then we were back on the buses for one more stop.

Mostly what Varna is and has been for a long time is a vacation spot. A lot of resorts. And our next stop was one called Sunny (something) that was very posh. There was a lunch buffet with many Bulgarian specialties. A wide variety of salads, a couple of soups, many different kinds of meat dishes, potatoes and veggies, and a wonderful dessert table. The desserts were the best—a wonderful baklava dripping with honey and filled with nuts and a lot of cinnamon and many kinds of cakes. All of the cakes were light and airy and very tasty. The soups were very good and most of the rest was well prepared but not nearly as good as the food on the ship. We had over an hour after lunch to explore the beach so we went down and touched the Black Sea. I didn’t feel like taking my shoes and socks off to walk in it (it was very cold) but I did touch it and could look across to

Reconstructed burial of ancient chief with 1.5kg golden objects, 5-4 c B.C.

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March 30: Ruse to Varna (and back again) (continued)

Varna Itinerary and Menu (.pdf )

the horizon and know that was where my ancestors came from.We boarded the buses for the three hour ride back to Ruse

and the ship. On our way out of Varna, they made sure to drive past the Gypsy area. They had debated whether they should show it to us but knew it was more honest to do so than not. Definitely a shanty town, dilapidated and very poor looking, this is where they lived while in the area. Most Gypsies are still very transient and perfectly happy to make a living as pickpockets and thieves and are definitely problems for any of the countries that they wander through. They are the unwashed minority in most of these countries and problems that the governments wish they could solve.

Napped on and off most of the way back to the ship and by the time we got back the sun was out and it was a perfectly gorgeous day. We had gotten lucky in that it had stopped raining by the time we had to get off of the buses and didn’t start to rain again until we were getting back on the buses after our excursion to the resort. Unfortunately, the ship set off within about 15 minutes after we were back aboard. As soon as we dropped off our receivers and boarding cards (the cards are given to us as we leave the ships so they can know when we come back, accounting for our whereabouts; they also have contact numbers for the ship and GCT just in case we have problems), I went to the upper deck to enjoy the nice weather and watch the shore as we took off from Ruse.

Dinner followed the Port Talk (these talks happen each night to go over what we will be doing the next day/night.) After two buffets during the day we knew we’d had enough food to sustain

us so we were determined to eat light. The appetizer was three kinds of tapanade (tomato, green olive and ripe olive) and a slab of feta (I love their feta which isn’t as crumbly and bitter as most of the ones I’ve had before) and a bit of fresh veggies. The soup was a Macedonian Cream White Wine served with cinnamon croutons which was very nice. The entrée choice was roast beef, tilapia or

a vegetarian dish. Ed and I chose to split the tilapia dinner which was pleasant. It was served with a reduced tomato sauce that wasn’t very exciting but had a mashed carrot dish with it. Dessert was a choice of tiramisu (never one of my favourites) or a cheese plate. Ed got the former and I the latter which turned out to be three kinds of cheese, a few grapes and some crackers.

Nothing was planned for after dinner but we still tried to stay up for a bit with the hopes of being able to sleep but I found myself trying to type this log with my eyes closed.

Gold earrings with the Goddess of Victory, 4th c B.C.

Gold bracelet, 6th c. A.D.

Gold plates, 5-4 c B.C.Votive hand of Jupiter-Dolichen, bronze, 2nd-3rd c. A.D.

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March 31: Ruse to Vidin and the Fortresses of Bulgaria

The night was more sleep than wake finally. I was up between 0300 and 0430 or so and read for a while but then slept soundly until 0715. Showered and dressed without seeing Ed (I figured he’d gone to the gym to work out for a while with Paul) and went down to breakfast without him. One of the nice things about a tour this size is that it’s not that difficult to find good conversations if you are willing. I ran into two people in the lounge on my way to breakfast and found some nice conversation and then found a table in the dining room with four others that made breakfast that much more pleasant. This morning I chose to go with fried eggs cooked to my taste which was a good choice since they were very fresh, brown eggs and obviously fed on different feed than our average hens are. The yolks were dark golden and very rich and were a perfect complement to the seedy brown bread that I chose.

As we finished up breakfast conversation, the alarm claxon rang for the emergency drill (mandatory on all ships within 48 hours of embarkation time) so we went down to the cabin, got our life jackets on and then went to the lounge with everyone else wearing theirs. As soon as everyone was checked in the drill was over. Following this drill was a lesson in the Cyrillic language which was given by Mircea. He had been a teacher and is very enjoyable to learn from. Even though I had had a year and a half of Russian in high school it was still fun. Since it was very foggy outside (as Mircea said, “thick as Bulgarian yoghurt”) sitting through the lesson was preferable to sitting in the fog or the cabin.

Bloody Mary Cocktail hour followed that (it was still a bit foggy on the river so the passengers might as well get foggy, too) and Ed, Paul and Cindy all imbibed. I went for a cup of tea and caught up on this log. Following the bloody marys was a presentation of the optional tours that are offered once we are in Hungary. There are four optional tours being offered and although they all look very interesting, we know there are many wonderful things to do in Budapest but we have decided that the trip to “Medieval

Hungary” next Wednesday is our best bet. GCT does find tour guides that really know the area and the subjects being covered and any of them would be good but considering that they would each run us between $100-200, we’re pretty sure we can do as well on our own for a lot less instead of opting for any of the other three.

Lunch was supposed to be next but we docked an hour earlier than had been expected and I kept thinking about the fact that we had so little planned time at the “Fortresses of Bulgaria” as the afternoon had been billed. After all, it was one of the things that sold me on this tour in the first place.

We weren’t scheduled to leave until 1400hrs and it was an hour drive to Belogradchik and another back here to go to Baba Vida and then we had to be back on the ship

at 1800hrs. Nowhere near enough time in our minds for these fortresses. I went to Mircea to see if there was another option—perhaps rent a car to take us to Belogradchik or something and he said there really wasn’t. Vidin isn’t that big a town. However, he pointed out that the Baba Vida fortress was only about a 10-15 minute walk from the ship and if we skipped lunch we could do it.

Now, seriously, skipping a meal or two on this trip is no sacrifice and I leaped at the idea. Pretty much dragged Ed up to the sun deck with Mircea so he could give us directions, ran down to our cabin to get shoes and dry socks (I’d walked up on the sun deck in just my socks without thinking about it and didn’t realize that the deck was soaked from the fog all morning and rain yesterday.) The weather at this point was lovely—not too hot or cold, not raining, overcast and not too hot. Grabbed our room keys and cameras, picked up a boarding pass from the front desk and then realized

that they hadn’t totally done everything they needed to do have the gangplank securely in place and a few other proper docking procedures. Needless to say, we stood at the edge of the ship vibrating until they finally allowed us to disembark. Finally…we could leave and hightailed it as fast as I could move the half mile or so to the Fortress of Baba Vida.

The walkway was a nice pedestrian way and spring had

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March 31: Ruse to Vidin and the Fortresses of Bulgaria (continued)

definitely sprung here more than it had been further west in Ruse or Varna but it was still early for full green. More loose dogs running around (our guide yesterday said that the country has thrown a lot of effort and money at the problem but there hasn’t been much progress—at least the dogs look healthy, well kept, and do not seem aggressive), some with ear tags, some with collars; mothers with babies in strollers; business men; and more Gypsies. With a tight grip on my camera we came upon this Fortress that had first been built by the Romans in the 10th century, improved upon in the early Middle Ages and once withstood an eight month siege. It was partially destroyed and rebuilt in the 14th century and then taken over by the Turks. You can see all three influences from the style of brickwork, slope of the battlements, and many other touches. We spent a good hour wandering around, having a marvelous time. There was also the ruins of a hundred year old Synagogue on the way that was not safe enough to explore. I got some good photos of it and that would have to do.

We made it back to the ship with about ten minutes to spare before the buses were to leave for the Belogradchik Fortress which gave us enough time to get to the room, strip down a layer, pop a couple of vicodin (yea, I was hurting a bit and knew I’d have trouble making it the rest of the afternoon without), and grab our receivers. Our guide, once upon the buses, for this trip was Eliana who was another very knowledgeable person for this kind of trip and we were lucky to have her. She told us much about this area of Bulgaria during the hour trip. Turns out that this is the poorest area of the country and has been losing population

every year to the point where there are about 10 people per square kilometer as opposed to 70 in most of the rest of the country. Much of the farm land lay fallow, factories that had been running through the communist area were closed, and the young generation was moving out as soon as they could.

Located on the north slopes of the Balkan Mountains, the fortress was used in ancient times, first by the Romans as part of their defensive blockade

and subsequently by the Byzantine Empire. The fortress was extended by the Bulgarians and even further by the Turks. The fortress uses the Belogradchik Rocks, a unique formation that extend around 30 km length, 3 - 5 km width and up to 200 m height about four kilometers from the town. The details are one thing but it was not just unique it was remarkable.

In the first courtyard area there were some buildings that seemed amazingly well preserved but it turns out that they were built there for the filming of a movie last year, The Captain’s Daughter based on a story by Pushkin, and left there. They fit into the area very well, though, and we passed them all as we started up the inside of the fortress. I am very proud of myself, and a bit amazed, but I made it all the way to the top. The last section, especially, is particularly challenging for me (not so much for Ed or Paul) but I made it. Cindy made it up through the first two sections but the

A Legend of the Belogradchik Rocks

It is said that every stone there has a history and a legend full of suffering and heroism to explain the incredible stone beauty. Centuries ago be-tween the rocks there was a nunnery. Early every morning the nuns went out to pray to God. The youngest among them,Vitinia, couldn’t hide un-der the cassock her unbelievable beauty. The ru-mour about her beauty spread all over the Roman empire. One day, on the Day of Peter, when the monastery could be visited, Vita met with a Ro-man, Antonio. They hid their love from the nuns a long time but after many years the fruit of their love saw the light of the day. A child’s voice filled the monastery with crying. Vita was revealed and faced the strict law of the nuns. They decided to curse her and expel her from the monastery with her child. At that moment, from the hill, came Antonio riding his white horse. He started beg-ging the nuns not to punish his beloved. Then happened a miracle. Suddenly a storm started, thunder struck and the earth shook. The mon-astery laid in ruins and everything turned into stone—the monks, the rider, and even Vitinia, who turned into the Madonna carrying her child.

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Vidin Itinerary and Menus (.pdf )

March 31: Ruse to Vidin and the Fortresses of Bulgaria (continued)

last section was a bit much for her. Hopefully, my pictures will convey the awesomeness of the experience. I am so glad that I took the vicodin when I did, though, and between that and the adrenaline generated by the experience, I was flying. We were the last down from the top—Ed and Paul helped me in the rough terrain—and we had a nice conversation with Daniel, one of the trainees for this trip, on the way down. Even though we were the last to the bus, we still had 2 minutes to spare.

Coming down, both literally and figuratively, it was good to have the hour on the bus back to Vidin and the official visit to Baba Vida. We only had about 35 minutes for this one so it was a good thing we had done an hour earlier in the day. Still corners, nooks and crannies that we didn’t get a chance to explore, but it was all so good. We were pretty much the last on the bus again and this time we were about 10 minutes late but it was all right. Not that we couldn’t have walked back (I’d have been in serious pain if I’d tried) but we would have had to warn Mircea ahead of time.

A bit of a windy drive through the town on the way back to the ship, Eliana told us more about the history of the area. Before we knew it we were back to “home” (for the two next weeks). Just enough time for me to shower but not both of us before coming back us for the Port Talk. Tomorrow is an all-day on the river day but they have a lot of talks planned for us (and a lot of food) but no place to go except to enjoy the scenery and the river.

Dinner was not as good as the last couple but it was still quite good. The

appetizer had eggplant, zucchini, peppers and tomatoes (Ed got my eggplant and peppers); the soup was a lovely borscht made with beef, chicken, beets and sour cream; my entrée

was pork roast stuffed with mushrooms and the side dishes were a potato soufflé-kind of thing and there was something creamed and green (okay, I don’t have the menu in front of me right now but I’ll add it later); Ed had a blackened grouper served with rice and some kind of veggies; and for dessert we both had the chocolate mousse which was also served with a bit of lemon sorbet—strange combination but it worked quite well. Dinner conversation, again, was so much of what made it a wonderful occasion.

After dinner, the entertainment was a group of Bulgarian dancers, musicians and singers dressed in peasant costumes that performed a half a dozen pieces that were lively and wonderful. I’m used to the costumes since we have friends in Milwaukee who specialize in this kind of folk dance so I am a bit spoiled but these folks were very, very good. We found a place in the back corner so we didn’t get any photos and I worked on this log a bit. (We have no internet access the next couple of days so I wanted to get today done before we crash tonight.)

The after entertainment “entertainment” made the evening extra special. First, two folks, both almost 99, danced on the dance floor. All by themselves. Two folks that had never met before did well reading each other and keeping us all amazed and mesmerized. (Overheard at the table next to us: “We ought to be ashamed of ourselves” since we were all younger and just sitting while they danced.) Carolee, the regular evening performer who does a lot of popular music from over the last five decades (mostly) then kept trying to find the right dance music to keep people going and now, when most people have gone to bed (there are about 10 besides us left), one of the passengers, Karen, asked Carolee if he could play a song she could sing to some of the women still left. WOW!! What a voice. She had to be about the best torch-style singer we’d ever heard. She did an encore and I hope she sings on another evening before this cruise is over. Carolee is pretty good—kind of a Neil Diamond-like performer who plays keyboard and guitar. He’s from India, handsome, in his early 30s, and has a good stage presence.

Well, time to head to bed. The ship sails about 0330hrs and we have a time change before we awaken. But it is time to become a pumpkin after a truly amazing day.

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Sidebar about Mircea Poeana

I think, particularly when we were in Romania, that we were/are very lucky to have Mircea as our Program Director out of all of our choices. Reka is a lovely woman with one of the most beautiful smiles that I have ever had the pleasure of returning but she is Hungarian and she would not have had the same experiences to relate what we saw in Bucharest. Stefan is the youngest of the four experienced PDs, perhaps 27/28 so he would have been only a small child during the 1989 Revolution. And Vlad, who we finally met on Tuesday evening is only a bit older (early 30s I’d guess) so also quite young during the Revolution. So, although Reka would have experienced life under communist rule it would have been in a country where it was much more peaceful.

I knew that this trip would be different than my other experiences in Europe since we are traveling through countries that had had revolutions and violence as a way of life not only within my own lifetime but that of most of the people we would be encountering. We would see physical damage from fighting and bombing as well as the emotional damage of losing loved ones and surviving very uncertain times. Even when things seemed stable for many of them, the times would prove to have been uncertain when looked at through the lens of history.

I was pretty tired yesterday (it is now about 0430hrs on Wednesday and I’m quite awake and my mind is racing too much to read) and I realize I wrote mostly facts and very little real feeling about the experience of touring Bucharest.

One of the reasons I love museums and the historical period that I usually immerse myself in is because the pain is separated from the facts by time. The pain of loss, of war, and of disease. I sometimes forget how lucky I really am—how lucky most of those I know really are.

Mircea is about my age and very well educated. Born and bred in Bucharest, he was born in a world where the communists were in power (they came into power after World War II had ended.) He was born the same year that the Soviet Union first withdrew their troops from the country. He would have been 7 when Nicolae Ceaușescu was the Secretary General of the Romanian Communist Party and finished his secondary education and went to college during Ceaușescu’s regime. He received a Master’s in Western Literature and became a teacher who was told he could no longer teach when he tried to teach about the book and movie One Flew

Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when he drew the comparisons between Ken Kesey’s work about an insane asylum and life in Ceaușescu’s Romania. He was 31 and present in Revolution Square on December 21, 1989 when the political structure and world he knew tumbled down. He had friends among the thousand who died in that uprising. And he survived it all.

It’s hard to put into words how much this meant, not when we rode a nice, safe bus through Revolution Square and heard the tour guide, Liliana, speak of the facts of that day,

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Sidebar about Mircea Poeana (Continued)

but when the bus drove past the Orthodox church and graveyard where almost all of the thousand are buried. Each grave marked by a cross identical to the one next to it. I wish I could remember all of his words, my memory does seem to get worse almost daily, but I felt the emotion deep into my heart. You could feel how much it means to be able to raise his children now in a world where there is hope.

Romania is very much still rebuilding. There were projects started during the communist era that the country could not afford to continue building. Some, like the National Library, are just being finished now, 22 years later. Some are left totally abandoned. There are still huge spaces of empty, leveled land that had been cleared when Ceaușescu decided to level most of Bucharest’s historical center including 19 Orthodox Christian churches, 6 synagogues and Jewish temples, 3 Protestant churches (plus eight relocated churches), and 30,000 homes in two neighborhoods alone. In total, one-fifth of central Bucharest was razed to build the Palace of Parliament (then known as the People’s Palace.) At one time, before World War II, there were around 70 synagogues serving the religious and community needs of over a quarter of a million Jews. Now there are 2 serving about 5,000. There are some neighborhoods that still show the grandeur of a city that was once known as “Little Paris” between the two world wars but are crumbling around the edges.

It took a while before the city was able to pull itself together to even begin changing and rebuilding but things like this often take a generation or two to get over being shell shocked and not knowing that there can be something different, something better.

Mircea has seen it all and his survival speaks well for the ability to survive and change, hopefully for the better. He is hopeful. He understands that the world is big and that everyone has something to offer.

Yes, I am very glad that Mircea is our Program Director. His experience, intelligence, sense of humour and sheer humanity are already making this a trip that I hope I will never forget. (He also has thrown out what are somewhat memorable quotes that I had hoped to add to the finished travelogue—but I failed to find all of my notes on them.)

For more about Mircea, please check out Mircea’s Meanderings, one of the most interesting blogs I’ve ever read. (I didn’t take this last photo but er...borrowed it from Mircea’s facebook page.)

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April 1: Cruising the River and through the Iron Gates

This was the day that we would be cruising all day long. It’s funny, when we took a large cruise ship cruise through the Inner Passage in Alaska last year I had dreaded, and it turned out rightfully so, a day at sea. I want to see things. To experience them. And on a ship the size of that one—with about 2,100 strangers—it happened as I had expected. Then again, we were on an 11 story floating hotel that was too far from anything interesting—and the ship didn’t hold anything interesting for us. Today was totally different than that.

Maybe it’s the closer proximity to the natural beauty around us? Perhaps it’s the fact that with the fewer number of passengers, there is more congeniality? Or it could be because GCT is so good at their customer service that one cannot help but just enjoy everything around us? Most likely, it’s all of these things.

Another night when I was awake and reading around 0300hrs and yet, by the time it was a reasonable hour to awaken (0800hrs) I was sleeping rather soundly. Breakfast wasn’t really that much of a necessity but I went down anyway. I ate very lightly (cereal, yoghurt, a bit of cheese and some sausage) which was good since there would be much more food through the day.

At 0830hrs, the ship was going through Iron Gates II, a lock that brought the ship up 36ft. Locks are designed to overcome differences in elevation along a waterway and allow a boat or ship to pass from one level of water to another. There are two locks in the section of the Danube that flows between the Black Sea and Budapest and they are called the Iron Gates I and II. It was a beautiful day, mostly sunny throughout, with a bit of cool breeze. Going through a set of locks is not exciting like climbing a mountain to see a 1,000 year old Roman fortress or a great intellectual activity such as learning about the people or culture of a new country but it is different…and very relaxing. Stefan, one of the other Program Directors, provided a good commentary throughout. Unfortunately, I wanted to see where we were going and there were a lot of people in the bow section and I could barely hear the commentary. But I enjoyed the experience anyway. To learn more about the Iron Gate region of the Danube check out this link.

I had a bit of a problem today with my right knee and not sure what happened. I was walking fine when I awoke, stretched well before going anywhere, and did just fine on my way down to breakfast. Then, suddenly on my way to the stairs to come off of the sundeck, shooting pain shot through my knee and I could barely make it down the stairs. One of the hotel crew, seeing me in such pain, pointed out that there was a chair lift on the other

set of stairs. There is no way I want to admit that I need that. Ed suggested I needed to keep walking as much as possible. He also worked my knee for a while later on. So, I spent about half the day, or more, limping along—at one point even using my monopod as a cane. I’m just glad we didn’t have a lot of walking required today, giving me a chance to recover.

I made it down to the lounge and saw a couple of ladies playing Bananagrams and chuckled. I told them that I loved the game but no one back home will play with me any more. They took that as a challenge and let me play. Needless to say, they put the game away after one round. It was also the point when we were treated to a Balkan specialty, Cevapcici, which was a

type of barbeque which was more like an elongated meatball made of a mixture of lamb, pork and beef. This was served with a large soft pretzel, three kinds of mustard and some raw onions. Like we needed more food?!?! It was very tasty and I figure it was a way to sell beer in the middle of the morning. (Yesterday it was Bloody Marys, today beer. Yea, gotta love the bottom line, right?)

The next activity was probably one of the most interesting programs I’ve had a chance to listen to. All four Program Directors got together and discussed, from their points of view, what it was like to grow up under communism. Stefan, Vlad and Mircea are all from Romania and Reka is from Hungary and are all differing ages so there were a variety of experiences. Stefan was only 3 when that period was over, but he told stories from his parents and other relatives. One of the stories I remember best was about an uncle of his that had owned three apartments before the communist takeover and had two taken from him. Vlad was 10 when the regime fell and remembered a bit more. He told us of his parents having discussions with friends and then reminding him that nothing about any of it should be spoken of when he went to school. Reka, who was from Hungary and about 14 at the fall of the Soviet Union, had other stories. (I have to admit here that I was a bit tired and dozed on and off throughout the discussion, no matter how interesting it was, and I don’t remember details of what

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April 1: Cruising the River and through the Iron Gates (continued)

Iron Gate Itinerary and Menus (.pdf )

she told us.) Mircea had been 31 and much more involved in the 1989 revolution. Mostly what Mircea has told us is that in a way he was lucky to have lived during and survived that era to really appreciate what he has now. They opened the floor for questions for a while after the presentations. All in all, it was a very interesting hour.

Then, guess what…it was time for lunch. Didn’t really need much but there were some interesting things on the menu. Lunch is usually done as a buffet so we only needed to take what we wanted. Ed hardly ate a thing (smart man) and I tried a little of the Pork Goulash, the Chicken Kiev, a Serbian kabob that was similar to the meat thing that they served during the Balkan party, and a bit of salad. I couldn’t resist the dessert table, though, especially the bread pudding they served. I’ve never had bread pudding that had a meringue topping which was also served with a cream custard sauce. I also tried something that looked like a cake but turned out to be more like a Bavarian cream. Both were very tasty and I ate all I took. I tried not to take too much, though.

By the time we had finished lunch we were approaching the next lock. Iron Gates I is a double lock and raised us up 96ft. Even though it wasn’t exciting, I enjoyed the experience. Especially because by the time we were going through this set of locks, the sun was high and warm and the sky clear. Since we were moving, it was comfortable even with just a t-shirt on. I chose to stay on deck with my Kindle and camera rather than join Ed for the galley tour. We had toured the galley on our cruise on the Rhine (same type of ship) and when we were in Peru. As much as I love to see kitchens, I enjoyed the beautiful spring weather even more. The power generated from these locks powers much of both countries (they must, by agreement, do so equally.)

When we came out of the locks, the terrain had changed quite a bit and the rocks rose on either side of the river, both Romanian and Serbian, and the next couple of hours was just so beautiful. The part of the river that is called the Iron Gates is the narrowest and deepest part of it and had a few features that were very interesting. There was a carving that the Romans had left at the water line on the Serb side. A little further up river, there is a face carved in a large stone on the Romanian side that was supposed to look like it had been done by the Romans but is actually very modern. There was not a lot of progress in the buildings on either bank and a dearth of activity. Hardly any wildlife to be seen, virtually no recreational boating or even

fishing boats. This surprised many, including me, but since the river is the border between the two countries the communists had forbidden development since it was strategically so important.

I stayed on deck as long as I could before the winds got too cold. The sky had become quite cloudy and the boat was moving swiftly. I came down to the lounge and got a cup of hot tea (there is a hot beverage machine at the entrance of the lounge that has coffee, hot chocolate, mixtures of the two, and hot water with a wide assortment of teabags near by.) I curled up in a chair with my Kindle and the tea and just enjoyed the warmth. The ship’s entertainer, Carolee, was playing for a bit and it was very relaxing.

Before the Port Talk tonight, we were treated to Karen, the guest who sang last night, singing again but this time for most of the passengers. Then, Mircea gave a short history lesson about Yugoslavia since we will be in Serbia tomorrow and Croatia on Sunday. This was useful to understand some of what we will experience tomorrow.

Of course the last thing we really needed to do tonight was to eat any more but dinner was next on the schedule and we followed the rest like

cattle to the barn for another wonderful meal. This time, again, Ed and I had chosen to share the entrée. The appetizer was some of the best Dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) I’d ever had. This was followed by a cream of garlic soup. Mmmmm. We chose to split the halibut that was served with hash browns a top and beets for the vegetable. Ed went for ice cream for dessert and I went for a kind of apple pie thing. It was beautiful and very tasty. The conversation during dinner was lively and it was a good topper for the day.

Entertainment tonight was a Liar’s Club game with Stefan as the MC and the other three Program Directors as the liars. Mircea really could be a stand-up comedian (and a professor and maybe even a salesman) and had everyone rolling with laughter. Vlad and Reka kept up pretty well, though, and it was a lot of fun. After that, Karen joined Carolee for quite a few songs. We could listen to her sing every night without hesitation. She told me this morning at breakfast that she used to sing professionally with a band that did 40s music. I can easily see it.

It was a lovely ending to a lovely day. But now it’s time to sleep.

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April 2: Belgrade, Serbia

Sleeping last night seemed to be better than it has been for the past week. I was mostly awake around 0500hrs and kind of dozed on and off for the next couple of hours. Up finally around 0700hrs, showered, and down to breakfast shortly thereafter. I ate well since we weren’t sure we were going to do much for lunch—we’d already decided we weren’t coming back to the ship midday and staying in town as long as we could. So, I had a couple of fried eggs, a piece of toast, a bit of bacon and a few slices of fruit.

The buses were leaving at 1,000hrs for a morning city tour. They stuck to showing us around the older part of town and we had three stops/tours through until about 1300hrs.

Our tour guide, Sophia, was very good and knowledgeable as we toured around. The first stop was the Kalemegdan Fortress and Park. This fortress is now in the middle of a large park on a bluff overlooking both the Danube and Sava Rivers. This is the core of the old city and for centuries the population of the city was concentrated around it. We had a good hour tour to explore this, mostly 18th century, fortification. Within the fortress, there is a much more modern military museum. We were able to get back there later in the afternoon so Ed could explore the artillery weapons that spanned most of the last century (German, Italian, Poland, and French, mostly, he said.)

The second stop was Josip Broz Tito’s tomb. I didn’t remember reading that we’d be visiting this mausoleum but it was very

interesting. Since Tito is such a contrast of personalities when it comes to his place in history, seeing this monument to him that included many artifacts from his life was fascinating. One room adjacent to the tomb area had an exhibit of batons that had been used in youth relay races over the decades and presented to Tito throughout his term/regime/time in the leadership role of Yugoslavia. Tito was such a controversial figure that it was interesting to listen to our guide skirt around the edges of his

life. There was another building in the complex that held gifts that had been given to Tito from members of the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) over the years from all over the world. It was a fascinating collection of native costumes, furniture, musical instruments, weapons, and many other things and I would have loved to have had more time exploring them. My photos only touch the surface of what was there.

The last organized stop was at St. Sava Temple (Hram Svetog Save) which is the largest Orthodox church in Europe. It was only supposed to be the largest in Serbia. It will hold 12,000 people. Preparations for the construction of one of the largest orthodox churches in the world started way back in 1894. After two public competitions, the design authored by architects Bogdan Nestorović and Aleksandar Deroko was approved in 1926. Construction works were interrupted with the bombing of Belgrade at the beginning of World War II. They were continued after a very long pause, in 1985. They are still working on constructing the inside but the outside is done. It is already awe-inspiring and will be incredible when it’s done. This cathedral is dedicated to Saint Sava, founder of the Serbian Orthodox Church. It is built on the location where his remains were burned by Ottoman Turks in 1595.

The buses were due to head back to the ship for lunch at this point and we were told that we were kind of far from the old city center so we figured we’d take the bus back to the ship and then head back to the city instead of wasting time on the ship for lunch. Not that the food or the company isn’t good if we had come back but we knew there was a new world to experience. On our way back they showed us the place where the shuttle bus would bring people back to after lunch and pick them up towards the end of the day. We chose to get out there since it was the main square in the old city. We had about 5 hours before we had to be back to the ship.

We explored the Knez Mihailova Street (Prince Michael Street) which is the main walking street in the city. It is protected by law as one of the oldest and most valuable landmarks of the city and many of the buildings dated back to the 1870s. There were outdoor cafes, shops, street vendors, buskers, and lots and

Think about it

Our guide, Sofia, found out that we had a gentle-man on the ship who will be 99 in May. She point-ed out that if he had lived in Belgrade all of his life he’d have been born in the Principality of Serbia; started school in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes; he became a man in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia; lived through the Nazi occupation and saw the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugo-slavia form when he had a young family of his own; after he retired and had grandchildren he lived in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and then the Union of Serbia and Montenegro. He now would be living in the independent Repbu-lic of Serbia. All without moving out of the house he’d been born in.

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April 2: Belgrade, Serbia (continued)

Belgrade Itinerary and Menus (.pdf )

lots of people. We found a restaurant in a hotel just off the main drag which still gave us the feel without the bustle, was nicely shaded (it was getting very warm in the sun), and the food was quite good. Ed got a veal goulash and I had a pasta dish with catfish. Ed even got to have his glass of Slivovitz (plum brandy) which he had been looking for since we’d gotten here. All of that plus a large bottle of water only ran us about $13.

After lunch, we wandered down the street, passing a pack of sharpeis (about 6 of them) surrounded by children, a blue elephant, an albino snake and a komodo dragon, and all sorts of street vendors. We ran into Paul and Cindy going the other way and said we were going to try to find a church whose spire we kept seeing. They pointed the way and we headed that way.

The church turned out to be the St. Michael’s Cathedral and was absolutely beautiful. No photos were allowed but I surreptiously took a few of them but we purchased the English version of the guide book on our way out. It has wonderful photos in it. I’m so glad we went into it since every inch of the interior was a work of art.

We worked our way back up Knez Mihailova Street and found our way to a Chocolate Café for dessert. Ed got a parfait with espresso, chocolate and caramel and I got a cake that had chocolate, banana, pistachio, and lots of other stuff. So very rich. We were sitting in a much more active area than we had for lunch and people watching was fun.

From there we wandered back to the fortress so Ed could check out the military museum. We bought a few souvenirs and just enjoyed the day and the walk. The sun was high, the air clear, and even though I was tired I enjoyed the time away from Americans and surrounding us with Serbs. I sat and watched children climbing all over the tanks and other military equipment wondering what their parents were thinking. We’d seen bombed

out buildings (from 1991 and from WWII) and I couldn’t help but wonder about the lives of these people. One of the souvenirs we’d bought earlier was a 500,000,000 dinar bill that had been printed in 1993. It was real and from a time when the country had dealt with the worst inflation in the history of the world.

We found our way back down the hill from the fortress to the ship finally just as the storm clouds were gathering and darkening the skies. (I have this uncanny ability of bringing sunshine when I travel—can anyone else say they went to Ireland in late November/early December and have 9 days of sun out of 10? Or go to the rain forest in Peru in the rainy season and not see a drop of rain closer than a mile away from the boat?) The first rain drops hit us just as we hit the gangplank. Unfortunately, I hear I missed the rainbow since I needed to go to the cabin and have a shower and unlax for a bit. Sore again? Yea, I was. Was it worth it? Definitely.

Took showers and changed and came up to the lounge in time for a discussion with two Serbian students who took questions from the audience. These two young ladies were very well spoken and fielded questions about their upbringing, college education, how they viewed current politics and where they thought Serbia was heading. I was so tired that I know I dozed off for a few minutes but it was fascinating when I could keep my eyes open. College education is paid for by the state mostly and there is very little that a student needs to pay for the public colleges. The private ones are considered a place that only the rich go if they want to buy a degree without studying.

Gee, I wonder what was next? 1900hrs, it must be dinner time. The appetizer was puff pastry with a spinach and cheese filling on salad. The soup was a simple beef consommé. For the entrée, we both got something different and split them. There was a pork Wellington and a quiche Lorraine (w/o bacon which was odd). Both tasty enough but I think lunch was better in town. My dessert was a hazelnut Bavarian and Ed got ice cream with strawberries.

After dinner entertainment was karaoke night. I keep being reminded why I never do this at home. However, it’s not that bad when Carolee, the regular entertainer, or Karen, the guest who has such an awesome voice, participates. Some of the crew performed and so did the Program Directors and that was fun. The rest has become a bit of a sing-a-long. I think that means it’s time for me to crash for the night.

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April 3: Vukovar/Osijek Croatia

Considering I woke up with pain in my knee a few times last night—even to the point of having to have Ed work me over (PT)—I slept through breakfast and only had a few minutes to get ready to leave for what would prove to me a most interesting day. Ed did bring me a muffin and a bit of bagel with some cream cheese and smoked salmon which I stuffed into me after hastily dressing, brushing my teeth, etc.

We started the day with a walking tour of Vukovar, a town that was the site of a devastating battle during the Serb/Croatian War (1991). About 90% of the town was destroyed or heavily damaged in that war and the scars of the town are still very obvious. It’s such a different experience to walk through the town square and down the streets to see many damaged buildings and the rebuilding that has occurred in the past 20 years. GCT was the first tour company to offer such a tour believing that it was important for people to see it like it really is. Our guide, Marko, had been only a small child when the war happened so much of what he knows is from his parents.

After about 45 minutes of walking around the town (me mostly limping since my knee was killing me—it got better as the day wore on though my back was hurting by the time we would finish the day), we boarded the buses to go to Osijek. Osijek is a small town situated on the Drava River about 15 minutes from the Danube. The area’s advantageous geographical location made it prey to assault throughout the centuries. It was destroyed by the Huns, rebuilt in the Middle Ages, destroyed by

the Turks, and rebuilt again in the 18th century. In Osijek, we visited Tvrdja (which has a combination of military buildings with baroque family houses) which is a fortress that was built between 1712 and 1721 by the Austrian authorities in case the Turks returned, which they never did. The monastery within the walls has a beautiful church that we were able to visit. One of the most

interesting features are two sculptures in the courtyard. One is a cross with a sculpture representing Jesus—all of it made out of ammunition. The second is a nice bronze Jewish menorah that can hold six candles which was a gift from a rabbi who once visited the monastery. It is to be lit when he comes to visit but it has been a while since he had.

We walked around the fortress some more learning of its history, Marko’s life and what life in Croatia is like today, and other things for an hour or so. We boarded the buses which took us to a smaller village about five minutes away for something that GCT does that no other tour company, that I know of, does—a home-hosted lunch.

The forty of us on our bus were divided into four groups

and each group went to a different house. Mircea offered to put Paul and Cindy in the same group as we would be but Paul declined the offer. We usually figure we can compare notes later. In fact, they ended up at the house of the brother and sister-in-law of the woman who hosted us. Adela is a single mother raising a son who is almost 12. She is a nurse and also does nails. There were 10 of us altogether (4 couples and 2 sisters traveling together) and, it turned out, our lunches were similar to those of other travelers—a vegetable soup, fresh bread (store bought), meatloaf, a rice

The Battle of VukovarVukovar was defended by a force of some 1,800 defenders over an 87 day period that was pitted against an army of up to 50,000 Yugoslav/Serbian troops. According to some estimates, Serbian gunners fired up to a mil-lion shells into Vukovar. Croatian officials placed the cost of damage at 2.5 billion dol-lars and estimated a total of 15,000 destroyed houses. Although the battle was a significant and symbolic loss for Croatia, which did not regain control of the town until 1998 when the Croatian refugees were finally able to return to their homes,it was also a costly vic-tory for the JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army)and helped to gain international support for Croatian independence. As such, it is widely regarded as having been a turning point in the course of the war.

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April 3: Vukovar/Osijek Croatia (continued)

dish, pickled vegetables (a couple of kinds of peppers, pickles and cauliflower), and a tomato cake for dessert. Adela is a very good cook. Throughout the meal we asked her many questions about her life and she did her best to answer. She only learned English after starting to be a host and did not deal well with complex questions but she did very well. We also were treated to Slivovitz (plum brandy) and white wine that her father had made.

We were then bussed back to Vukovar and driven around a bit longer to see more of the city and then dropped us off near the ship. I waited near where they dropped us off while Ed went to drop our pack off and then he and I along with Paul and Cindy wandered around the city for a while on our own. We walked a mile or two, amazed at the progress of rebuilding. As I said around 90% of the town had been destroyed in the war and it has been decreed that buildings must be built

just as they were before the war. Croatia suffers from a 30% unemployment rate (Serbia’s is about 25%) but has a well-educated population (about 99% finish school). The first year of college is free to everyone. We found a small café open and sat for a while with something cool to drink and a dish of gelato and four spoons. We walked a bit more after the treat and rest and circled back to find the ship.

Yea, I was hurting again but it had been such an interesting day, it was worth it. The shower felt good and then I downloaded photos and posted the past two days of this log to my google group before the Port Talk about tomorrow which always precedes dinner. Tomorrow we get to Hungary and the optional tour sounds like fun but the small town we’ll be docked near should be fun as well.

Dinner tonight was quite good. Appetizer was melon and proscuitto followed by a cream of spinach soup. We both chose the duck with orange sauce for the entrée which was served with pickled red cabbage, mashed potatoes, and Brussels sprouts. Ed had a chocolate cake with chocolate sauce over it and I wasn’t interested in that or more ice cream so I just asked for a fruit plate.

The after dinner entertainment was a group of Slovenian musicians who all come from Osijek (they even had Marko, our guide from earlier, as their announcer and translator) which was very nice. They did about 7 or 8 pieces, mostly very lively, and even a couple of songs in English. It was a nice way to end the day. I didn’t rush out to buy their CD but I enjoyed it.

Now my eyes are slamming shut so time to send this off and hit the sack. Tomorrow will be another day of adventure (with a small “a”).

Vukovar Itinerary and Menus (.pdf )

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April 4: Kalocsa, Hungary

It really is hard to believe that we only have a few days left although, on the other hand, the travel is starting to catch up with me. I was kind of bored most of this morning but I think, ultimately, that might have been a good thing.

I slept a bit better last night with less pain than I’d had the day before. A combination of more stretching and the right pain meds certainly didn’t hurt my ability to get a good night’s rest. Breakfast could be very leisurely today since we would be cruising until after lunch. I had eggs and toast with a bit of fruit today. I love the eggs they get. Brown eggs that are so very fresh—the yolks a deep golden colour and so rich tasting.

After breakfast, I grabbed my Kindle and came up to the lounge—I first went up to the sun deck but it was a touch cold, though nice and clear, and I hadn’t grabbed my jacket. I curled up in a corner to read while Mircea met with the folks that would be doing a post-tour extension to Prague. Almost any tour that GCT does has a pre- and post- tour extension. The pre-tour for this trip was to Transylvania and the post- to Prague. Some day it might be fun to do one of those, too. After the Prague briefing, the captain did a short presentation about the ship and answered questions about the technical side of things as well as questions about his own life. I kind of listened and napped on and off through it. It was interesting enough but the captain isn’t the most dynamic speaker in the world. His English has gotten better since we first met him on our cruise on the Rhine.

I followed Ed up to the sun deck after that (with my jacket, which I now didn’t need at all), and enjoyed the bright sun and read some more. When they called us to lunch I decided that I didn’t want to be inside—the weather was that nice—so I went down to the dining room, put together a salad, and wandered back to my Kindle and the sundeck. When I stepped into the dining room I felt an almost oppressive heat

and seemed overwhelmed by the noise that the chatter of a 150 people can create. Going outside to eat was a very good choice and I was the only one to do it. As much as I’ve been enjoying this group, quiet time can be important, too.

We docked, sideways (which was interesting to watch) near the small village of Kalocsa next to another cruise ship (and that’s all the room there is to park ships this size) just as lunch was finishing up. The afternoon’s schedule had an optional tour to view the Hungarian countryside and go to a horse show. That would have been fun but they also had a shuttle bus set up to take us into the village (about 3 miles from the river) and we opted for that.

We were dropped off near the main pedestrian street and wandered through the town. There wasn’t much to see but they had marked a Paprika Museum and a church on the small map they gave us. We wandered into a bookstore and I bought a chart that had the lineage of the Hungarian rulers through the centuries. We passed the City Museum which was closed (it is Monday, after all) and found the Paprika Museum which, although the sign with the museum’s hours said otherwise, was closed.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral of Kalocsa was just across the street from the museum and was well worth the visit. The church was highly decorated in an ornate Baroque style. We were enjoying just wandering around and trying to figure out who a couple of statues were of when a tour group came in. I noticed they were English speakers and picked up that one of the statues was St. Stephen (Tzent Istvan) and missed the other but then noticed that the group was GCT travelers. Took me a while to notice that they were of the part of our group that had gone on the optional tour. We were about to leave when I overheard someone say something about a recital and noticed everyone was finding a seat in the pews. It turned out that part of their tour included a recital on the church’s pipe organ. Wow! I’m not a keen fan of organ music but the organist was not just playing the organ but was playing the entire church.

We wandered off just as the recital was winding down

PaprikaThe Turks introduced the pepper plant to Hun-gary during their rule in the 16th-17th centuries. Due to the favourable climate and geographical conditions Hungarian paprika has a bright red colour and a distinctive rich flavour that allowed Hungary to became one of the leading paprika producers in the world. Learn more about paprika here. Find a recipe for Hungarian Goulash here.

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April 4: Kalocsa, Hungary (continued)(not too salty which was nice). We both chose the meat entrée which was a couple of lamb chops along with a lamb kofta (ground lamb mixed with spices) served with polenta, ratatouille, and a few small peapods. Ed went for the cheese plate for his dessert and I had something called a “beehive” which was a honey Bavarian in a meringue shell served with a cherry sauce. I think this was one of the best dinners yet. Again, the dinner conversation was pleasant although I overheard someone say earlier today “We have to find someone we’ve already had dinner with since I don’t think I can remember any more names.”

The after dinner entertainment was the “Crew Show” which is a tradition on any of GCT’s river cruises. It draws from every part of the crew from the nautical department to the kitchen staff and housekeeping. We got front row seats for this hilarious, very entertaining show. It seems that there are a few favourites that they train everyone in like a trip to the doctor’s office or a comic, slapstick piece called “If I were not aboard this ship, a _______ I would be” and the blank was filled with different occupations that came with body gestures that had to be precise or one crew member might knock out another crew member. The odd thing is that they don’t assign the parts until just before they perform so it’s always new and very, very funny. One of the most interesting was all of the Indonesian members of the crew playing “Take me Home, Country Roads” on a bamboo instrument native to their country (and I’ve never seen the like of before.) The whole thing ended with the Chicken Dance and a mambo-like line all the way around the lounge and bar area that ended with those that went before the rest of us forming an arch and then tickling everyone that came after.

It’s very windy tonight and the river is actually quite choppy but these ships are very stable and you cannot tell, even on the lowest level that we are on.

and got directions to the Paprika House which was not the Paprika Museum. We took just a bit too much time in trying to get directions and ended up finding the place—mostly after a kind passerby noticed us reading the map and looking perplexed—about 5 minutes after the place had closed. **sigh** We still had a lovely walk through the town. It was sunny and about 70°, and the town was colourful (many of the houses are painted yellow, orange, pink, light green, etc.) and we felt comfortable walking through the town.

We made a final stop in the grocery store—definitely one of my favourite places to buy souvenirs—and picked up a few

things to take home. A young lady overheard us and it turned out that she was an American who was teaching English locally. She offered her services if we needed them in translating things. We made it back to the bus with about five minutes to spare.

We stopped by the little souvenir shop just off the end of the gangway so Ed could pick up some Paprika Vodka and some Apricot Brandy. (Very strong and tasty, both.) We dropped a bit of money and came away with

some nice things. Ed even went back to get another smaller bottle of the apricot since he wanted to try it sooner rather than later. The shopkeeper just gave the little bottle to him.

My weather karma is still holding up—the dark clouds came in and the wind picked up just after we got back onboard. I settled down to download photos and catch up on this travelogue while awaiting our Port Talk about what we’ll do tomorrow. Ed is still debating about whether he wants to rent a car and head out into the countryside on his own though he needs someone to go with him. I don’t really want to be stuck in a car for 2 ½ hour drive each way so I might see if there is still room on one of the optional tours. The Port Talk by Reka tonight was amusing (probably helps that she is talking about her own country.)

I was actually hungry by the time we made it to the dining room for dinner. The appetizer tonight was smoked salmon rolled in Russian pancakes followed by a very nice onion soup

Kalocsa Itinerary and Menus (.pdf )

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April 5: Budapest, Hungary

were rushed through so much that we couldn’t go see its famous relic (the mummified hand of St. Stephen) but it was still impressive. I would have enjoyed more time in there but, again, there might be another time some day.

The bus then took us back up Andrassy Avenue and then across the Chain Bridge and up to the castle district in Buda. They left us off not from the museums and walked us over to Matthias’ Church (Mátyás-templom). Officially known as The Church of Our Lady, this was a church that we had visited about 9 years ago, the time I’d come over to Hungary with Ed/Giles to pick up bows and I knew I wanted to come back to. We decided to leave the bus behind at this point and explore the rest of the afternoon on our own. This was definitely the best

choice.Next to the church is

the Fisherman’s Bastion (Halászbástya)which is a terrace in neo-Gothic and neo-Romanesque style and just magical in my eyes. They now charge to go up to the upper level which we chose not to do but the view from the lower level was quite good. Towers, turrets, and arched openings give a wonderful view of the Pest side of the river. We could see the Parliament building and St. Stephen’s Basilica quite well from there. I just loved being able to take really interesting photos (least I hope they’ll be interesting to others) from different areas of the Bastion.

We don’t remember being charged to go into the church before but it doesn’t matter. I really, really wanted to spend some time in there with my current camera. The exterior is very impressive with its varied-coloured roof and gothic-style spires but the interior is very medieval. Every inch of the walls and ceilings are painted in a variety of medieval motifs/patterns and the floor is a wonderfully patterned tile. There is no doubt that this is one of my favourite churches to visit in

We were pulling into Budapest just as we were sliding out of bed this morning and the dock that we’re tied up to couldn’t be in a more ideal location. We’re only a few hundred meters from the end of the Chain Bridge on the Pest side of the Danube. The Chain Bridge was the first permanent stone bridge connecting Buda and Pest and the second bridge crossing the whole length of the Danube. Our cabin is on the river side of the ship so we can see Buda Castle, St. Matthias’ Church and the Fisherman Bastion from our window. What a way to wake up.

Had a pleasant breakfast with a lovely couple—she is 91 and he will be 99 in May. Talk about an inspiration. He was out there dancing many an evening here on board. There is so much to choose from every morning that it’s pretty easy to have something different every day. I have to force myself not to overeat in the morning, though. Just enough to get going.

The day started with a city tour by bus that left at 0900hrs. They took us through Pest first via the elegant Andrassy Avenue and Heroes Square (Hősök tere in Magyar). The millennial monument was built in 1896 to commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of the arrival of Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin. The tomb of the Unknown Soldier can also be found in the square. At the two sides are the Museum of Fine Arts and the Art Gallery that I will have to come back to visit some day. We only had about a half hour to wander

around the square. From there, the buses took

us past the zoo, the amusement park, and the Gellert Baths. Our guide, Maria, told us we should find time to go the baths if we could. (And so did Tarrach. J) Obviously, that will have to happen on another trip. The zoo looked like fun, too.

Our next stop was St. Stephen’s Basilica (Szent István-bazilika) , Budapest’s largest church and, unfortunately, we

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April 5: Budapest, Hungary (continued)

discovered that we could have gone to the Budapest History Museum which we thought would be closed (it was closed on Tuesday the last time we had tried nine years ago) and found out we could have gone…except it had closed early, 1400hrs, due to technical difficulties. It was, of course, 1500hrs. We met a nice Australian couple as we walked away and had a nice conversation—a nice interlude.

By this time, it was after 1600hrs and I was starting to get tired. It was definitely time to head back. We were just about to the Budavári Sikló (a funicular railway that runs up the hill) that was first opened in 1870. It was destroyed in the Second World War and reopened on June 4, 1986. We had a very windy walk back across the Chain Bridge but only felt a few timid drops of rain and back to the ship. I was tired but not overly so, though I still asked Ed to bring the netbook and cables up to the lounge so I could download photos and write for a while. I did that until the Port Talk.

Dinner was quite good starting with a shrimp and apple cocktail, followed by a tasty corn chowder. We split the entrée choices since both the meat and fish choices looked good. There was beef tenderloin that was served with a red bean stew and rosemary potatoes or grilled salmon with a mango relish on buttered spinach and a lemongrass sauce. Dessert was a very tasty apple crumble served with vanilla ice cream.

After dinner there was supposed to be a Learning and Discovery talk about Hungarian Traditions but thanks to a friend (waving hi to Kathy/Deva) who studies Magyar history, we had a different plan. She told us that if we were in Budapest on a Tuesday night that there’s a little pub called Potkulcs (“spare key” in Hungarian) that has live music for a few hours. We decided to try that out and Paul and Cindy agreed to come with us on what we hoped would be an adventure with a small “a”. Thanks to one of the Program Directors, Reka, who is Hungarian, we were able to get a cab to pick us up near the ship and take us there. It was a

all the world (so far) and I was happy to have as much time as I could have to explore with my camera’s lens. Ed took the opportunity to nap a bit in a pew while I did what I could do to satisfy my love of this edifice.

From the church we started to wander down towards the Military History Museum but then decided we weren’t really in the mood to go there (and I just checked the reviews and they seem to be poor so it was probably just as well). On the way there we found a restaurant called Fekete Holló (Black Raven) which advertised Goulash and other Hungarian specialties. They had to bring out cushions for the chairs since we chose to sit outside (did I mention that we had another beautiful day today)—we think they either keep them inside to keep the pigeons from messing them up or to keep people from just sitting on them without actually being patrons. We decided to order goulash soup for Ed and a bowl of fruit soup for me along with some bread and water. The fruit soup was delicious but too sweet for me to eat a whole bowl (and much better for dessert) so we ordered another bowl of goulash soup for me and it was wonderful. Both soups were different and very flavourful. The bread was fresh and chewy.

We found the remains of a church (couldn’t read the plaque to know what we were looking at) across from the Military

Museum—only the front of the church and the foundation still existed and there was a modern back wall where a wall should have been. The foundation appeared to date back to at least the 13th or 14th centuries.

We worked our way around to a river walk that overlooked the town of Buda. Much of the walk was still being constructed but it was still a pleasant way to go. We definitely got the feeling that the workers were state workers (five watching three working). We made it down to the museum area (there are three or four museums in many of the old buildings) and

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BudapestBudapest as “one” city has only existed since 1873—when the twin cities of Buda and Pest were united into a single city, together with the small-er Óbuda (old Buda) which became part of Buda. The history of the settlement here goes back as far as the second millennium BC. The develop-ment of Buda and Pest’s wide riverbanks did not really start until the 12th century, and was largely thanks to the French, Walloon and German set-tlers. The Hungarians call themselves and their language Magyar.

Budapest (day 1) Itinerary and Menus (.pdf )

April 5: Budapest, Hungary (continued)

good thing, too, since once he figured out we were the fare, he got us there quickly (cabs are cheap in Budapest) but the building was very dark with no signage. He pointed through a doorway in the wall and we could see some lights across the courtyard. We were in the right place and passed through the room with the bar that had a sign on the wall that said “Magyar Folk” under the name of the group (according to our friend, Kathy, translates as “The Fire’s Flames” and found another room where there were musicians just setting up. Check out this video that I took of them.

Ed and Paul went to the bar and got beers for Paul and Cindy and some Palinka (apple and cherry though we never figured out the difference) for Ed and I. Palinka is a very potent fruit brandy (about 36.5% alcohol on average) and has a nice warming effect. The musicians consisted of a singer/leader, violin, two whistles, two instruments that looked like lutes, and a large drum that had a cowbell attached. The music was loud and lively and eventually some young folks got up to dance. I’m sure that Kathy/Deva can identify the dance style for me sometime. At one point, the leader dragged Paul up to

dance with her. I kidded Ed that at least they got the graceful brother. :D We stayed through two sets and the party really was just getting started but the day had caught up with us. Ed got the bartender to help him call for a cab and it was waiting for us by the time we got outside. (Five minutes is a very short time in Budapest.)

We had the cab drop us off near the Chain Bridge and then walked from there. It was a beautiful night and the bridge as well as all of the buildings up on the castle hill were lit up. There was something very magical about it all. We found our way back to the ship and I could have fallen right into bed if I hadn’t reeked of smoke. So, I showered and got ready for bed. After a nice back and foot massage from Ed, I was pretty much out of it.

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April 6: Esztergom, Visegrád, and Budapest, Hungaryperiod (and no, I can’t name that tune). Funny, after he did that I asked after the CDs he had on display and ended up purchasing one. (Two of them were 500HUF and one was 1,000 HUF—about $3 or $6.)

Inside the Basilica, we only had about 10 minutes after our guide finished her presentation so I broke away from the group and took as many photos as I could. I didn’t get a chance to get down to the crypt or up into the cupola. As it was, I still was one of the last back to the bus.

It is a shame that we didn’t get a chance to see more of Esztergom. In fact, that was going to be my battle cry all day. Not enough time to see things the way I want to see things. We left the city without seeing anything else and headed towards Visegrád.

Visegrád has two castles, the upper castle and the lower castle. Unfortunately, they took us up the hill and drove us past the upper castle but only stopped partway back down the hill so we could take pictures of the view. I may be the only one who got some decent photos since my camera has a 30x optical zoom. They said it wasn’t open to visitors but I saw people on it exploring the ruins. I asked why we couldn’t do that, too, and was told that they tried it once and had four people hurt themselves including trips to the hospital so GCT has determined it’s not safe enough. Needless to say I was very disappointed. Mircea said I would be satisfied with the lower castle.

The lower castle was really neat—they have been doing a lot of reconstruction including making reproductions of the furnishings, the tiles, etc. It’s an ongoing project and was a lot of fun. There were three rooms of original artifacts in display cases and many rooms that had been furnished as they might have been. Bedrooms, dining hall, and kitchen. But they said we only had 10 minutes to explore. I tried to convince Mircea to leave me there while everyone else went off to lunch and

Good, sound sleep before what I’d hoped would be a fun and special day. I wanted to finish writing up yesterday so I slipped down to breakfast, ate lightly by myself, and slipped back to the room to write. We pulled our stuff together in good time so we could make it out to the bus without any fuss. Today was the day for the optional tour entitled “Medieval Hungary”. Hardly any fuss—it would have helped if I’d remembered to pick up the receivers and boarding passes on my way out. Ed caught up to me about halfway to the bus and asked if I had the electronics and I felt sheepish and said I’d forgotten them. He ran back and got a lot of ribbing when he got to the bus—after all, he hadn’t given himself time to exercise this morning so I was just helping out, right?

Our guide today was Kathy who did a good job of leading us through the history of Hungary as we took the trip, about an hour, towards Esztergom. We were really only there to see the Basilica there as well as the view from on the hill that the Basilica sits upon. This building is the tallest one in Hungary and the 18th biggest church in the world. There was a lot of incredible art within this building but one of the most impressive was outside at the scenic overlook. (The overlook is a great place to view the bridge from Hungary to Slovakia as well as the small town on the other side of the river in Slovakia.) The statue at this overlook is of the Coronation of the first Hungarian King, Matthias.

As we were going into the Basilica, there was a busker, dressed in medieval garb, playing two recorders at once. Unfortunately, he was playing things like “Lara’s Theme” or “When the Saints Go Marching In”. I shook my head and looked at him and said, “Nothing medieval?” He immediately put down the two recorders he’d been playing, pulled out a different one, and played something that was much more

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April 6: Esztergom, Visegrád, and Budapest, Hungary (continued)

see the lute player in action. The wine was unlimited and it was actually pretty good wine so people came away from the experience happy. Oh, did I mention we all got paper crowns to wear?

After lunch we started back to Budapest. I think almost everyone napped a bit. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself that there wasn’t enough of the day that I had been looking forward to but I guess I had too high of hopes. (Hmmm. I think I’ve been listening to Romanians or Hungarians speaking English a lot these past 10 days. My syntax has gotten a bit convoluted.)

Yesterday, someone asked me if I’d seen the iron shoes along the Danube yet and I didn’t know what she was talking about. We saw them on our way into town, very close to where the ship was docked. I decided to wander along the waterfront for a bit rather than getting right back aboard and headed in their direction. The Shoes on the Danube Promenade is a memorial created by Gyula Pauer and Can Togay on the bank of the Danube River in Budapest. It honors the Jews who fell victim to fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest during World War II, and represents their shoes left behind on the

bank when they fell into the river after being shot. It’s an eerie sight and I’m glad I was alone for a while there. I wasn’t the only one who walked that direction but I stayed longer than the others did so I had time alone with my thoughts and the ghosts that stood in those shoes.

I wandered a bit further until I got to the House of the Nation (Hungarian Parliament.) I knew that I wasn’t going to give myself time to take a tour this trip but I did want to see the façade a bit closer up. I had fun seeing what the camera could do in getting detail pictures of some of the gargoyles and other statuary that adorned this impressive edifice. The building is one of Europe’s oldest legislative buildings and is currently the largest building in Hungary.

come get me afterwards. (Turned out it was an easy walk between the castle and the restaurant.) Unfortunately, they wouldn’t leave me behind.

The Renaissance Restaurant was not as cheesy as I had expected it to be. We were greeted by two garbed gentlemen playing drums. The hall had painted ceilings and walls that was pretty authentic. Some parts definitely weren’t but suspending disbelief was pretty easy to do. A gentleman playing a lute wandered through while we were served a nice feast. The bread was very white (not authentic but fresh and tasty) and there was garlic butter as well as pitchers of water, red and white wines, and dishes of salt, pepper, and paprika for seasoning. The soup was very, very good—rabbit, venison, and dumplings—and we would have been happy if that had been all they’d served us. There was a nice honeyed red cabbage dish that accompanied roast pork, roast turkey leg, and cheesed potatoes. (Yea, yea, yea. Turkey and potatoes. Medieval? **sigh** But it was well presented and tasty.) There was a lot less schtick than I expected. They had a king and queen that didn’t do much of anything other than tell everyone to eat. There was a very fine lute player who either wandered from table to table or had a space set aside for him. I tried to record one of his pieces but there is a lot of background noise, unfortunately, but the video is fun because you can

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Budapest (day 2) Itinerary and Menus (.pdf )

April 6: Esztergom, Visegrád, and Budapest, Hungary (continued)

originally but there’s always incidentals like the bar bill to deal with) and it seems that the one car rental placed was closed about 2 weeks ago and moved to the far side of town. Luckily they discovered that a rival car rental place wasn’t too far away so they walked over there and made the arrangements to get a car at 7am tomorrow.

We got all the information about settling up the bill including how to pay the tips for the ship’s crew and for the Program Directors. We found out about how we would be transferred from ship to airport (yay—we get to have our bags outside our rooms at 0245hrs on Friday morning and they will bus us to the airport at 0330hrs.)

Dinner started with an appetizer of cheese and sausage and was followed by beef consommé for the soup. Pleasant but not very exciting. We both chose fish for our entrée and the perch was well prepared—served with rice and a spinach/cheese mixture that was quite good. Dessert was a Swedish pancake filled with a nut stuffing that was the best part of the meal.

The after dinner entertainment was that the Captain took the entire ship for a cruise up and down the river so we could enjoy the lights of the city. Reka provided a very nice commentary and we tried to take nice pictures of all the wonderful lights. The ship was going a bit too fast but I think I still got some nice pics. It was a beautiful night and as long as the ship was going in the same direction as the wind, not windy at all. A bit windier coming back but still nice.

Guess I should crash now. It’s after midnight here and Ed’s alarm will go off at 0615hrs. He’ll be off to the wilds of the Hungarian countryside and I’ll be off to Szentendre with the organized tour in the morning and up to Buda castle and the National History Museum in the afternoon. Maybe more museums or I’ll try to find the farmer’s market in the afternoon.

I think I’m almost ready to go home and find my comfy bed and be overrun by the critters. I only say “almost” because I love having new adventures every day.

Construction began in 1885 and it was completed in 1904 and is a magnificent example of Gothic Revival style. In 1945, the Holy Crown of Hungary (it’s a very important symbol of the Hungarian people) and the crown jewels were transported to Western Europe and eventually given to the United States Army by the Hungarian Crown Guard for safekeeping from the Soviet Union. For most of the Cold War they were housed in Fort Knox, KY and returned to Hungary by Jimmy Carter in 1978 even though the Soviet Union hadn’t left Hungary yet. The crown jewels, including the Holy Crown, were transferred to the Parliament building in 2000. I’ll have to

wait until another visit to see them, I guess. The building is a magnificent sight to see, though, and I enjoyed the nice walk in the afternoon to do so.

I wandered back to the ship and retrieved the netbook so I could download the photos from the day and start writing about today’s adventures. I hadn’t seen Ed or Paul for a while. They had gone out in search of the rental car office that was supposed to be a short walk from the Chain Bridge. (Ed has decided that he is

going to go off tomorrow to seek out one of his bow suppliers that he hasn’t met yet—Paul’s agreed to go with him. I’m just not feeling like it would be much fun to get into a car for a 5 hour roundtrip and just watch the countryside go whizzing by—especially when there’s so much to see still here in Budapest.) They finally showed up just before the disembarkation talk (information about checking out and reconciling the bill for all expenses incurred onboard the ship—almost everything is paid for with the package we paid for

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April 7: Szentendre and Budapest, Hungary

shopping and just enjoy another place for a bit. We’ll be back to the ship by 1300hrs and I suspect I may just skip lunch and head up to the museums.

Shopping in Szentendre was a lot of fun and there are tons of shops with tons of stuff in them. Picked up a few presents along with a hat that is supposedly made out of mushrooms. Strangely enough I haven’t tracked what it really is made out of on the internet but it’s cute and different. The best thing about Szentendre was the Szamos Marzipan Museum And Confectionery (Marcipan Muzeum Cukraszda). It was absolutely incredible to see the wonderful dioramas and portraits

and figures and just plain magical things that they made out of marzipan, chocolate or other confections. Unfortunately, they weren’t making anything while we were there but Cindy and I really enjoyed the museum (even though it was beastly hot in there.) We also ran into Nancy from the ship there who was as enthralled as we were. I picked up a couple of small gifts but was feeling cheap at first. We then wandered and shopped for an hour or so and I decided to hike back up the hill to pick up some more as treats for folks back home. We were given a bit over 2 hours on our own there and Cindy and I didn’t stop moving and exploring and shopping.

On our way back to the ship, Mircea waxed quite poetic and philosophic about a number of subjects. He did a wonderful recap of the whole trip beginning with our arrival in Bucharest to that moment. Someone at the back of the bus started “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and we all sang it to him. There were definitely tears in his eyes when we were done. He took a few moments to say good-bye to each of us personally who would not be continuing on to Prague with him.

I was kind of warm and tired when we got back to the ship

Our last full day on this tour and I’m finding myself reluctant for it to be over. I want to see everything and do everything and there aren’t nearly enough hours in the day nor days in the year nor forints in the pocketbook to do so. I know that I’ve enjoyed so much of the past week and a half, and have memories (when my memory works) to last a lifetime and I shouldn’t feel that I am wanting for more experiences. No matter what, I have come to believe that my bucket list is the combined catalogues of GCT and OAT (Overseas Adventure Tours, GCT’s partner company). I’m feeling like Cindy felt when Ed asked her where are we going next—it keeps changing when I talk to someone else. That is a fun part of traveling with a good company like GCT—so many others have taken more trips than we have that one of the first questions at dinner when we sit with someone we haven’t met yet is “How many GCT/OAT trips have you taken and which was/were your favourites?” The most traveled couple we found had been on 29!

Ed and Paul were off just after 0700hrs this morning to go gallivanting across the country to find Ed’s supplier, Grozier, so I’m my own. It’ll be fun to compare notes later. I was pretty much awake as soon as Ed left so I did the morning routine and went up for breakfast. I knew I was going to get fried eggs again since we’ll probably only get a continental breakfast tomorrow when we arise at 0245hrs. Not that we’ll be hungry at that time, to be sure. I sat with Cindy and three other ladies and had very pleasant breakfast conversation before wandering back to the cabin. I could actually start to pack now since there isn’t much else to do for the next 15 minutes so I probably will. Getting the Kindle and the MP3 player recharged as well.

The morning organized tour is to go to Szentendre which is only about 25km from Budapest. It is described thusly: “This charming little town, whose name means “Saint Andrew”, is known for its well-preserved houses and churches, many built in a Balkan style as the area was originally settled by Serb refugees. Today the town’s best-known inhabitants are artists and small galleries can be found on every street corner.” So, this will be a chance to do a bit of souvenir

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April 7: Szentendre and Budapest, Hungary (continued)

as I crossed the Chain Bridge for the last time (on this trip.) When I got back to the ship Reka told me that Ed and Paul had returned. We shared info about our day while I showered (he already had) and we did most of our packing. He’d had a good day, hardly got lost at all, found Grozier and was able to talk business through an interpreter. He didn’t buy any bows to take back now but he did figure out how to get them shipped for a better deal than he had in the past. He did get to try a few of the bows out that were new to Grozier’s line so it was a successful trip all around.

Before the Port Talk, as I was beginning to write up today, we were joined by Ann and Glenna who are both from the Madison area, as well as Paul and Cindy. The conversation was lively and fun as we heard about Paul and Ed’s trip into the countryside.

The Port Talk tonight was short and sweet but poignant. One gentleman had written a poem that he called “Four Guides” and it was about Stefan, Reka, Vlad, and Mircea…and the river. It was about love and democracy, and it was very special for everyone in the room. I had also asked Mircea to announce that I was willing to share my travelogue and photos with anyone who gave me their email addresses. He introduced me and then handed me the microphone. Within minutes I had a couple of business cards and people asking me if I had a pen. I didn’t but promised to have one at dinner.

Tonight was the Captain’s Farewell Dinner and was similar in composition to the Captain’s Welcome Dinner. There was a spoon with a little bite to start—this one with a bit of ratatouille, cream cheese and caviar. The cold appetizer was smoked salmon and the hot appetizer was some kind of ravioli (I’ll include the full description once I can access the menus later since they’re already packed—we did most of our

but I didn’t want to waste too much time before I went off to the Budapest History Museum. I got to the room, wiped myself down with a cool cloth, and changed and then set off again. The weather was so nice today. Almost hot but with a nice breeze (it was near 80° by the time I got back to the ship so warm it was) and the walk across the bridge to the Buda side of the river was very pleasant. I bought a roundtrip ticket for the Budavári Sikló and made it to the museum in good time.

The man selling tickets was very apologetic that some areas were closed because there was a conference using the museum but I said that was okay. He suggested I come back another day and I told him I’d tried 9 years ago but they were closed and I had tried 2 days ago but they had closed early. He then understood and gave me a 20% discount on my entrance fee. I asked about taking photographs and he said I’d have to buy a photo ticket. I said okay. He said “no flash”. I said okay. And I spent the next 2 ½ hours there. It was hot. I was sweaty and hot and sore by that time and decided to skip the basement level where two sections were closed because I had hit a wall. I

took a ton of photos and they look like they turned out pretty well. I tried to get detail photos of pottery, shoes, jewelry, glassware, and even some embroidery.

The room with the embroidered tapestry and shoes was climate controlled and rather dim to protect the fabric and leather. Considering that they think that the tapestry dates to about 1400, this made a lot of sense.

Feeling tired, dripping sweat, and walking slowly, I felt a sadness

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April 7: Szentendre and Budapest, Hungary (continued)

cake to everyone at the birthday person’s table, the turned off all the lights. The ENTIRE crew (all the sailors, cabin stewards, hotel staff, cooks, and everyone else) came out in a parade with a 2 ½ foot long baked Alaskas that had sparklers in them. They sliced them up and it was served with chocolate or strawberry sauce and whipped cream. They finished it off with some very fine truffles and chocolates. Ed couldn’t even be tempted for another bit of the chocolates or a cup of coffee.

We said a few good-byes to people who had become very special to us and came back to the room around 2130hrs to finish packing. We left a wake-up call for 0230hrs as we have to have the bags out at 0245hrs. We have to be off the ship by 0330hrs for a 0615hrs flight.

So, it’s now after 2200hrs and I really better try to sleep a bit. I’m feeling rather melancholy and sore and tired but it’s all good. Despite a few lower points that I hope GCT thinks about changing for future groups, it was a magical trip filled with magical moments, sights, sounds, and people. I know I’d recommend this for someone who wants something a bit different than your average European vacation.

Where to next? Who knows? But you know that I’m thinking about it.

packing before going up for the Port Talk.)I never tasted the palate cleanser which Ed told me was

very, very sweet because I decided that I wanted to try to get photos of every table in the dining room. I hope they turned out. It also gave me a chance to go from table to table and kind of meet people I hadn’t met yet. It took me a while and I missed a couple of courses which I didn’t really need. People gave me their email addresses and thanked me in advance of being willing to share all of this with them. I tried to explain that I love doing it—and besides, I can barely remember what I did yesterday now so it’s an easy way to remember things. I made it all the way around the room by the time the entrées were served to our table.

I had wanted to sit with Gail and her friend Gloria for most of the week since every time we talked we enjoyed the time. So, it was planned for tonight. I hope Ed enjoyed the conversation between them since I ended up away from the table for half the meal. My entrée was the beef tenderloin which was fantastic and Ed chose the vegetarian option.

Dessert was spectacular! First off, they do a wonderful production whenever there is someone with a birthday onboard. They parade the cake around and set off a sparkler that is as big as a flare when they get to the person’s place. They sing and have music piped in for this. There were two tonight. Then, after they had cut and served the

Budapest (day 3) Itinerary and menus (.pdf )

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April 8: From Budapest, Hungary to back home again

We landed in Detroit a bit early and it took us less than 45 minutes to make it through passport control and customs. I talked to Ann who is picking us up in Chicago and she had gotten the message and will meet us at baggage claim in Chicago. Talked to Chris (friend who is house and critter sitting) and found out that all is well at home. The hard part of the travel was over and only another six hours to go.

There were a few delays, first because of a minor technical problem on the plane and then because of weather in Chicago. I think we were only about thirty minutes late leaving but by that time it felt like forever.

We finally got to Chicago, got our bags, were found by Ann, and said good-bye to Paul and Cindy. Finally, in the car for the last leg home. I don’t think they want people to leave O’Hare, though. Ann had gotten a bit turned around when she dropped us off two weeks ago and ended up in downtown Chicago. This time we wandered the northern suburbs for a while. Once we found the interstate, it was smooth sailing.

Finally made it home, over twenty-four hours after we’d awakened in Budapest at o’dark early, around 1930hrs and got overrun by 3 dogs and a toon who gave us a hero’s welcome. I had planned on heading out almost immediately for a weekend trip to Minnesota but thought better of it by this time and it was a good thing. Home felt good.

Guess I must have slept some since the wake-up call at 0230hrs jarred me awake. It didn’t take too much to stow my nightshirt, throw on the clothes I’d laid out, brush my teeth, take my meds and pull the last bits together. Luggage out the door by 0245hrs. No way I really needed any more food but I grabbed a banana and stowed an apple in my pack. We turned in our room cards and got my passport (Ed had his from his country excursion the day before.) I kind of dozed in the lounge until it was 0330hrs and the bus was ready to leave for the airport.

No traffic on the road so we got to the airport in good time—the ticket counters weren’t even open yet. When they opened, we tried to check in and they couldn’t find my reservation. Oh, yay! Not the way I wanted to start the long travel day home. We went to the KLM desk and found out our flight from Amsterdam to Chicago was cancelled and we had to be rerouted. A couple of other folks that should have been with us got rerouted through Frankfort to Chicago but they were still sending us through Amsterdam but to Detroit first and then Chicago. Less of a layover in Amsterdam but an added two hour layover in Detroit.

After that, things were pretty uneventful. The first flight from Budapest to Amsterdam was on time and I pretty much slept the whole way (and think Ed did as well.) Took us a little bit to get our boarding passes in Amsterdam but finally got them and that plane was on time. I found that I could get a bit of free internet access so I could send Ann a message about the change of flights (it was about 0215hrs back home.) They served us drinks, fed us lunch, kept us watered, and fed us another snack in the course of the 7 hour flight. I slept a bit, Ed slept more, I watched a stupid, mindless movie (Jack Black’s Gulliver’s Travels) and a great one that I not only have seen and love but own (The Dark Knight) and could turn off my mind (since it didn’t really want to kick in anyway.) Every time I tried to read I found I couldn’t concentrate.

Links to all of my photos• The whole collection, all 2700 or so photos

• Arriving in Bucharest, Romania. A day in Bucharest. Embarking on the MS River Adagio in Ruse, Bulgaria 255 photos

• From Ruse, Bulgaria to Varna, Bulgaria; visit to the Black Sea 104 photos• Vidin, Bulgaria and the Fortresses of Bulgaria: Baba Vida and Belogradchik 208 photos• Cruising the Iron Gate--all day on the Danube 115 photos• Belgrade, Serbia 311 photos• Vukovar and Osijek, Croatia 311 photos• Kalocsa, Hungary 247 photos• Budapest, Hungary 454 photos• Esztergom, Visegrád, and Budapest, Hungary 356 photos• Szentendre and Budapest, Hungary 364 photo

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