We are now off the ship, having finished our wonderful cruise two days ago. We are in our final "home away from home", an apartment in the little wine village of Sablet, in Provence, France. I am finally able to do a post about the second half of our river trip which was from Vienna to Bucharest.
As I ended the last post, we had arrived in Budapest. What a wonderful city! It is beautiful with many bridges, interesting architecture and many sights to take in. Jon and our friends Chris and Dennis spent a morning at the Terror Museum - their wives Pat and Eileen and I decided that we'd had enough of the Nazis and communists for the moment. The guys said that it was very good, with lots of handouts in English and interesting displays. I enjoyed a peaceful morning which included a chat with my friend Madeline, a fellow educator. Of course during our time in Budapest we also had a half day bus tour and we also took some optional tours including one to several sights in the Jewish neighborhood. Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved 35,000 of the city's Jews during WWII by issuing them Swedish passports, is one of my personal heroes and there were several memorials to him in the former ghetto. On another tour we went to Esztergom, a town which stands on the site of a Roman fortress and has a beautiful basilica. From the hilltop, we looked down on the Danube Bend where the river is the boundary between Hungary and Slovakia. After seeing Esztergom, we continued to Visegrad where we also had beautiful views and watched a recreation of a knight tournament which demonstrated the weaponry and combat of the 1500s and enjoyed a delicious medieval feast. On yet another optional tour, we went to the nearby town of Szentendre which had wonderful shopping! We found several items that we couldn't do without. The timing was perfect since most of our treasures went into the last box that we mailed home later that afternoon. We also went to the baths in Budapest with Eileen and Dennis, which was an interesting experience and one that we very much enjoyed. We wore our swimsuits and didn't see any nudity, although there were areas where it was allowed. That evening our ship left Budapest at night so that the captain could show us the lights of the city. It was lovely! We went past the huge Parliament building and under several bridges - breathtaking!
On Saturday, June 26, we stopped at Kalocsa, a rural town on the Great Hungarian Plain, where we saw a horse show, went to a paprika factory and saw lots of beautiful, ornate embroidery items and listened to an amazing organ concert performed on the third largest organ in Hungary where Franz Liszt also played.
The next day we crossed into Croatia. Unlike our earlier visit to vibrant Zagreb, the city the ship stopped at, Vukovar, is in the extreme eastern part of the country, in a rural area where the Danube is the border with Serbia. This location was the sight of a prolonged Serbian attack during their war in the 80's. The Serbs won the battle and there were many atrocities committed. It still looks like a war zone and was quite depressing. On the other hand, we experienced a wonderful home-hosted lunch with a Croatian family. The food was plentiful and delicious. We had soup, pork meatballs, cole slaw, rice, green beans and two kinds of dessert. We were also served homemade plum brandy, elderberry juice, white wine and water. We rolled onto the bus later!
The next stop was in Belgrade, Serbia. We had the usual city bus tour and then free time. We ventured out to do some shopping and had an adventure involving the city buses, but managed to get back to the ship just fine. Late in the afternoon, two young college students came on board for an interactive discussion. They were articulate, bright and just about ready to go out on their own. The discussion was lively and thought-provoking.
From the beginning, we had found it interesting, in view of this area's recent history, that we had a Croatian captain and several Serbian crew members. When I asked one of the tour directors about it, the answer was that the captain set the tone and that everyone got along just fine. Hopefully a sign of things to come.
For the second half of our cruise, we had two new tour directors. Helmut stayed on board with us, but Cristian and Reka joined us and were the leaders of the other two small groups. Reka is from Hungary and Cristian is from Romania. On the 29th., they presented a fascinating discussion regarding life under communism. Cristian lived under communist control until he was in college. Reka was younger but still remembers it well. Helmut, being Austrian, did not have many memories since the Russians left Austria voluntarily about 10 years after WWII but he did have some insights to contribute. The onboard movies also offered documentaries on Tito, Stalin and Ceausescu, which were extremely enligtening. In 1989, the Iron Curtain fell and there were revolutions in all the former communist satellite countries. That's only 21 years ago. Each country has tried to find it's way forward and some have made more progress than others. There is a huge difference between these nations and western European countries, but they all want to catch up. Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania are part of the EU and so have some financial advantages that the others don't. We wish them all well and hope that the lives of all the people will improve quickly.
On Thursday, July 1, we docked in Varna, Bulgaria. From there we took a bus tour to see fortresses and the general countryside. It was very interesting to realize how much influence the early Greeks and Romans had on this area. The museum had many beautiful items created in ancient times, especially gorgeous gold jewelry.
On the last day of our journey, we docked at Ruse, Bulgaria. At 8:15 we got on a bus to journey to the Black Sea. It was a warm day and when we got to a resort there, we had a fantastic lunch and then could swim or wade in the sea. We waded and the water was surprisingly cool, not cold, and pleasant! There was a beautiful golden sandy beach. We spent several hours and then left at about 3:15 for the return trip to the ship. Jon and I were scheduled for an early morning flight the next day (my fault) so we took a taxi after dinner to Bucharest and stayed in the hotel there that the others would use the next night. The next morning, the same driver picked us up and took us to the airport for our 8:30 flight to Heathrow in London. Helmut arranged for the taxi driver and let the hotel know that we would come a night early, for which we thank him.
Once at Heathrow, we had to transfer to Gatwick for our flight to Marseille. That went well and then we found that our flight was delayed for 2 hours due to a problem in Rome and other issues. We finally arrived in Marseille at about 6:45 instead of 4:45. After more delays, we picked up our rental car and headed for our hotel in St. Remy where we were to overnight on our way to Sablet. We ended up having dinner in St. Remy at 11:00 pm, but we had made it and we happily dropped into bed at about midnight. The next morning we drove the final leg of the journey and reached the apartment here.
Here are some last photos from our cruise. From top left: bust of Raoul Wallenberg in the Jewish museum in Budapest; one of the bridges of Budapest lit at night; Hungarian embroidery, our lunch and our hosts in Vukovar; the gates of the Danube; a small Bulgarian village near one of the fortresses; finally, the Black Sea!; our farewell dinner with our friends - around the table clockwise - me, Chris, Eileen, Dennis, Pat and Jon; Helmut, Jon and I in front of River Concerto as we wait for our taxi to Bucharest.
No comments:
Post a Comment