Viking River Cruise
with our own pre-trip and post-trip
October 6-October 23, 2018
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| George, Stephen, Paula and C.J. on sundeck of the Viking Aegir |
C.J. has been hoping
that we would have a chance to go on a trip with her kindergarten girlfriend,
Paula, and her husband Stephen. Since they live in North Carolina, it’s been a
challenge. But this year they had a deal on a Viking river cruise from Budapest
to Bucharest and invited us to join them. We’ve wanted to experience a river
cruise so we jumped at the chance, particularly since it was going into Eastern
European places to which we had never traveled. At first we signed up for the
Viking Pre-Trip to Prague since we have also wanted to see that city with its
original Old Town undestroyed by WWII bombing, not re-built like many European
cities. But after seeing what Viking offered, we thought we could do our own pre-trip
with Paula and Stephen for a lot less. And, we could do our own arrangements
for a post trip to the Transylvanian Alps with a local guide, too. It all
worked out even better than we had hoped. The only problem was that the Danube
was short of water and we could not board our ship in Budapest but had to be
bussed down river to Mohacs. In the grand scheme of things that was hardly
noticeable as a problem. Other people trying to come all the way from Amsterdam
to Bucharest had real problems.
6 Oct, Sat – Left home about 0410 for parking at ParkNJet2.
Quick shuttle to SEA (2) while I used the Delta App to check in; somehow I had
forgotten to do that on Friday. Dropped our two old, large, big wheel suitcases
and got through the TSA pre-check. We were seated across the aisle from each
other in the Delta Comfort section up near the front of the 737-900. We got a
breakfast sandwich that was pretty good and then a lunch before we landed. It
was cloudy all across the US and we did not have window seats anyway. We got in
to JFK around 1630 and were pleasantly surprised how it had been spruced up
since our last trip through there probably 20 years ago. We took the “JFK
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Click on any photo to see it larger
C.J. at JFK International Terminal
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Jitney” (a bus) from T2 to T4 and spent a little time strolling through the
shopping concourse before going to our gate. Our next flight wasn’t until 2140
so we had a long wait. We stood in line for a meal at the Shake Shack (like the
place we ate at in DC) and enjoyed a double SmokeShack burger, crinkle cut
fries and a black-and-white shake. Later our gate was changed and we moved down
to B25 and pretty soon Paula and Stephen arrived from Asheville via Atlanta and
we had time to catch up before going aboard our flight. We had Sky Priority
boarding again and were seated in the Comfort area once again. It was a long
flight and we got two meals.
7 Oct, Sun - I didn’t
sleep on the flight but tried to rest as much as possible rather than read or
watch movies. Once we reached the edge of Europe at Eire we used the Flyover
Country App and the seatback flight info to follow our progress. It was almost
completely cloud covered until we were crossing the English Channel where we
could see some boats. Then the coast of Belgium near Dunkirk was clear and the
plane was descending so our views of the ground were better. The Czech Republic
had villages of red-roofed buildings and lots of farms fields. We landed at PRG
around 1130 local time and passed through the Immigration check, got our bags,
and had no customs inspection
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| Old Town Astro. Clock |
at all. Paula and I used the ATM to take out
10,000 Czech korunas each, around $500. Our driver was waiting for us just
outside customs but it seemed like he had only expected two of us.
Nevertheless, he managed to fit all of our bags in the trunk of his car and we
drove maybe a half hour into the city and to the Hotel Hastal in the Old Town. We
checked in but our rooms would not be ready until 1400 so we took off some of
our warmer clothes, left our fleece jackets behind and went off to explore the
Old Town Square. There were a lot of tourists, especially around the
Astronomical Clock on the old city hall. I got some photos of the clock, the
Jan Hus memorial, and the Tyn (say teen)
church behind (and the stand selling trdelniks, strips of dough wrapped around
a skewer and cooked over a charcoal fire). We took a walk around a “block” to
kill some time before
the hourly glockenspiel show at the Clock. When we got
back from wandering through the narrow and crooked streets there was a REAL
crowd in front of the Clock but we were able to see the skeleton pull his rope
to ring the bell and start the whole thing off. Afterward we looked inside the
old city hall and stopped to ask a TI where to get a SIM card. He directed us
to a Vodaphone store just outside the Old City not far from Wenceslas Square.
It was an interesting walk through more winding, cobblestone lanes and past an
outdoor market (mostly souvenirs, but some nice-looking fruit) and many
tsochkes shops and places to eat. There were a bunch of places selling the trdelniks
as well as ice cream/gelato, hot dogs and advertising traditional Czech food
(like goulash in a loaf of bread). Vodaphone fixed us up with 1GB data SIM
cards quite quickly and Paula and Stephen decided to head back to the hotel to
rest. We spotted an art installation down
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| Trdelniks baking over charcoal |
toward Wenceslas Square and checked
it out – a big head made of silvery horizontally rotating pieces that formed
the face then changed. After that C.J. and I walked through a food court and
then started to make our way back to Old Town Square but we took a different
route so we could see more stuff like the Bethlehem Chapel (Betlémska Kaple).
We took a left onto Karlova street and swam upstream in the tourist river
coming out at the Charles Bridge. We had a good view of the Prague Castle/St.
Vitus in the distance. We turned back and flowed back down Karlova passing the
Klementium and finally reaching the Old Town Square where we found the trdelnik
stand and bought one with a cup of ice cream inside it. The pastry itself was
quite good but the ice cream quickly melted. We sat on the curb around the Hus
Memorial to eat since all the benches were filled. After that we retraced our
route back to the hotel where we got 45
min of rest before 1730. By then the
jetlag and fatigue was starting to make themselves felt but we decided to go
out to eat with Paula and Stephen at 1815. The desk person suggested any of the local
restaurants and after looking at posted menus, we chose Speciál just a couple
of doors down. I had a flight of 4 craft beers and C.J. had a glass of local
red wine. We shared a plate of “homemade ham” and pickled veggies for an
appetizer and an entrée of “beef cheeks” and mashed potatoes. When we got back
we went right to bed and I went right to sleep.
8 Oct, Mon – Up at 0700 for showers and down to breakfast at
0815. There was a big buffet of not only breakfast stuff like scrambled eggs
and sausage but also dinner items like pasta, chicken and steamed vegetables.
The coffee machine produced good hot chocolate and there was a selection of
juices including a good “multivitamin”, cereals and pastries. The four of us
got going after breakfast
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Art Nouveau house, Wen-
ceslas (Vaclav) mural
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and went first to the Old Town Square where C.J. and
Paula got information at the TI while Stephen and I checked out the Huss
Monument and some other Art Nouveau houses and got info about an exhibition of
art by Dali, Mucha and Picasso (?). Once we all got back together we stopped at
the St. Nicholas Church which was once a Hussite house of worship and later
became a music hall and a warehouse before returning to a Hussite church. We
saw info about a concert to be held there that night and thought we might
attend it but did not buy tickets because the rep said there would be tickets at
1930 when the box office opened. From there we went to the Josefov, the Jewish
Quarter. Paula and Stephen went to the Old-New Synagogue while C.J. and I
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| Clock Tower, Josefov |
walked over to
the Vlatava R and out on the Manesuv Bridge where we could see the three-headed
snakes on one side of the bridge supports and the angels with torches on the
other side. There were a lot of river-tour boats. We rejoined Paula and Stephen in the Josefov
and headed off to the Charles Bridge. Along the way we passed a building with
two sphinxes guarding the entrance and with decorative, but ugly, head
sculptures high on its wall. We were looking for a WC by then so Paula and I
checked out the entrance to the Rudolphinum, the grand concert hall of the symphony (no luck).
When we reached the “Karliy Most” (Charles Bridge), we slowly crossed in what
seemed to be a smaller crowd than we had encountered on Sunday. There were
buskers and people selling art and caricatures all along the edge of the crowd.
There were also statues on the bridge of famous heroes, kings, Duke Wenceslas,
saints and martyrs. We stopped at Starbucks for hot drinks and ate our brown
bag lunches. Then Stephen left us to return to the hotel to rest. Paula, C.J.
and I caught the #22 tram to Pohorelec Street stop on Castle Hill where we walked down to a
viewpoint of the Loreta church (and a statue of Edvard Benes, second president
of Czechoslovakia). Uphill from that square is the Cernin Palace, now the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. [First Czechoslovakian president Jan Masaryk was
found “defenestrated” below his office window when he became a liability to the
Soviet Union.] We
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| St. Vitus Cathedral |
walked back to a tunnel entrance to the grounds of the
Strahov Monastery, peeked in at the church, thought about going to the library,
but went instead down to the Bellavista Restaurant and ordered drinks on the
terrace with its magnificent view out over the “City of a Thousand Spires”.
Just down below the terrace we stopped at the Classic Viewpoint; an artist gave
us a deal on three watercolors for 500CZK. It was already getting chilly as we
walked back up through the Monastery main gate and down to the tram stop to
catch #22 downhill. We did not get off at Malatranská near the Starbucks so we
could walk across the bridge; instead we got off at Narodni Trida and walked
along what we thought was Narodni. It
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| Paula and George, Bellavista Terrace |
wasn’t, and we had to backtrack, then walk
north on Narodni, back to the end of Wenceslas Square, past the Powder Tower
and the Municipal House (where C.J. found out that there was a reduced Mucha
exhibit of his Slav Epic). With Paula leading we
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Dinner at Hastalsky Dedek
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reached the hotel and were
able to use the bathroom and rest before going out around 1850 to search for a place
to eat. After going around a long block out into the New Town, we looped back
to a more traditional Czech Place, Hastalsky Dedek. C.J had potato pancakes
with ham and sauerkraut and I had goulash with beer-and-bacon dumplings. We each
had a small Kotel Cerny, dark draft beer. The restaurant seemed like more of a place for locals than for tourists. Great!
9 Oct 2018 – Up early at 0615 so that we could eat another
bountiful buffet breakfast and still get started early enough to get to the St.
Vitus Cathedral and the Prague
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| Nave of St. Vitus Cathedral |
Castle by opening time. We left around 0815 or
so and decided on the fly to use the #15 tram to get us to the #22 tram (so
Stephen did not have to walk all the way to the Charles bridge, across the
river to Malatranska and the stop for #22). It worked well and we got off at
the western entrance to the Prague Castle, walked to the entrance, passed
through the security screening and crossed the Stag (or “Deer”) Moat. Inside
the courtyard we had a 15 min wait until the ticket office opened up and we were
able to buy our senior discount tickets. There was no line waiting to get in to
the cathedral and even the free area in the back of the nave was uncrowded. We
spent an hour walking clockwise around the 800-ft long nave, short transept,
and apse. There was a stained glass window by Mucha, several tombs,
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| Art Nouveau stained glass |
and the
Wenceslas chapel. Outside we went around to the south side where the Golden
Gate entrance (once the
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| Prague woodcarving |
main entrance until the cathedral was completed) had
the refurbished Last Judgement mosaic above the doors. We saw the replacement
for the original St. George fountain and the foundation for a previous 10th
c St. Vitus church. The polished obelisk was also in this courtyard. Next we toured the
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| Flying buttresses, St. Vitus |
Royal Palace. In addition to a hall large enough for jousting
tournaments, we saw the room where the defenestrations took place that led to
the Thirty Years War. An open porch gave a great view out over the city but the
air was not as clear as it had been the previous day. We visited the Diet Hall
that had a throne and seating for the members who advised the king. We exited
down the wide and gently descending stairs in a vaulted tunnel used by horsemen
who were competing at the joust. In the next courtyard we had a good view of
the east end of the church with its buttresses and flying buttresses holding up
the walls of the apse and choir (although there was scaffolding around the
lower part of the structure). C.J, got a glass of hot wine and sat on a café
terrace with Paula and Stephen who needed some coffee and a rest. Next we used our
tickets to get into the Baroque-fronted, but mostly Romanesque
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Photobomber in
Municipal House
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Chapel of St.
George, burial place of many of the earlier rulers of Bohemia. After exiting we
descended to another ticket-required area, Golden Lane. There were some tiny living
quarters furnished as they might have been during certain periods that the area
had been inhabited by people who worked in the castle, and there were a bunch
of souvenir-sellers in others. That was it for our Rick Steves book guided tour
and we exited the castle area. We had a picnic lunch sitting on the wall on the
south side of the castle. Then we started down a steep lane with steps which we
thought would have 700 stairsteps but took just 700 walking steps to reach the road
that the tram runs along. It was only another block or two for us to reach the
stop for #15 and get on for a trip to Nemesti Republici, Republic Square. Then
a short walk took us to the Municipal House where we got tickets for the Mucha Slav Epic exhibition. There were 14
large canvases depicting Mucha’s take on Slavic history. Fortunately there was
a good brochure that described each panel because some of the symbolism was
pretty obscure. Photos were not allowed but we took a mirror selfie which Stephen photobombed. Stephen headed back to the hotel on the tram while C.J., P and
I wandered
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| C.J. and market socks |
around an outdoor market for a while. C.J. found a pair of wool
socks for Ginny, then we headed toward the hotel ourselves. On the way we found
a shop specializing in ice cream and cakes and bought a cherry-rosemary scoop
and a chocolate-cardamom scoop. Instead of going directly inside, we walked
around the Hastalska Namesti with its cloister church. We spotted a restaurant
that we may try tonight. Back at the hotel, we grabbed a glass of the free wine
and went upstairs to our room to see if we had enough money
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| Golem, Hastal patio |
to pay for our room
in cash (required because we got a Rick Steves discount, I think). We did, at
least if we can charge our dinner tonight and pay for our “panoramic transfer”
on Wed. with a credit card. [I received an email from Mike the Chauffeur
telling us who our driver was and his cell number.] We did go to the Restaurace
U Cerveneho Kola behind the local church around 1900. It was a bit more upscale
than our last two dinners, having candles, tablecloths and chargers under our
plates. C.J. and I shared beef tenderloin in a nice gravy, small roasted
potatoes and a side order of broccoli. Stephen ordered a chocolate souffle with
raspberries and whipped cream for us all to share. We did a bit of packing and
then went to bed around 2200.
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| Cesky Krumlov castle |
10 Oct, Wed – Up at 0600, paid our bill at the desk just
before breakfast. Mike the Chauffeur’s driver, Rasti, was right on time at 0800
and we were off on the 2.5 hr drive to Cesky Krumlov. Rasti dropped us at the top
of the Castle Hill so we could walk down through the castle garden and to the town,
then meet him in the parking lot reached by taking the pedestrian footbridge
and going under the castle gallery to parking lot #1. The garden had a hedge
maze and other formal design elements. The walk down through the five
courtyards was pretty scenic with fall foliage just beginning to show,
especially when the sun finally broke through the fog. C.J. and I paid to climb
up the Round Tower decorated on the outside with painted designs, and some of
the same faux sgraffito making it look like it was made of large bricks. The
view from the top out over the castle and the town was worth the fee and climb.
We continued to descend until we reached the final bridge (at one time a
drawbridge over a moat) where we peered over the edge hoping to see one of the
bears that the Rosmberg family kept there since the 13th (?) century.
No luck, however. The town had narrow, winding streets and lots of interesting
shops including a gingerbread shop where C.J. bought a large, finely-decorated cookie.
There were also several marionette shops. We walked to the main square with its plague column and then
out by another route to the pedestrian bridge at the old mill, and on to the
parking lot where we hooked up with Rasti who arrived shortly after we did at
1330. The rest of the trip was a long drive mostly on autobahn-type highways –
more than six hours to Budapest. Traffic was slow around Vienna and on the last
bit as we must have arrived around rush hour (1900-1930). We paid for our
“panoramic transfer” with the Visa credit card when we got to the Hilton
Budapest City. After checking in and getting somewhat organized, the four of us
went into the Westend Shopping Mall and found the food court (and the ATM where
we took out 25,000 Hungarian Forints ($1=280 HUF approx). There were a lot of
choices in the food court; Paula and Stephen had Pizza Hut pizza while we found a
Turkish/Middle Eastern outfit that served a pretty tasty moussaka. We also
picked up a bottle of sparkling water. Then we stopped at an ice cream place
and had a scoop each of really good chocolate gelato. Back at our room, we
downloaded our camera cards to my computer and got to bed around 2300.
11 Oct, Thu – Up at 0620 so we could have breakfast at 0700
for a departure on a bus tour of Budapest at 0830. Breakfast was a big, if
somewhat crowded with Viking tour members, buffet. It had only a little more
variety than the relatively tiny Hotel Hastal in Prague. We all made lunch with
sliced meat and cheese, as usual. Around 0830 everyone who wasn’t doing a
different excursion loaded onto several full-size Viking tour buses and we
commenced a whirlwind tour of Buda and Pest. Here’s a list of what we saw and
had described by the excellent local guide: the main train station designed by
Eiffel just a short distance south of the Hilton, Hero Square and the nearby churches and park, the Budapest Eye, a
dismountable Ferris wheel that hasn’t been moved for five or six (?) years, St.
Istvan Basilica, Chain Bridge, Tunnel, Presbyterian church, and Maria Theresa’s
double spired church. On Castle Hill we got off the bus and walked a short
distance to St. Matthias church and our guide secured tickets so we could go
inside. Back outside we viewed the city and river from the Fishermen’s Bastion,
saw the plague column and walked over toward the Royal Palace. I had forgotten
that everything had been bombed to rubble by the Nazis and then the Allies during WWII and that
all the gothic-looking structures are careful reconstructions. Around 1145 we headed
down the back side and out through the tunnel (enlarged by the Russians), back
across the Danube over the Margit Bridge then down past the Parliament building
(largest in Europe (beats the Br. Parl. by 6 ft) and caught a glimpse of the
shoe memorial on the Danube bank just S of the Parliament. Back at the Hilton
Paula and Stephen went off to rest before their excursion to Szentendre. We took a pack
of lunch and water and headed off to see the Parliament building up close and the
Shoe memorial. Right near the memorial was the Viking ship Idun which was being
loaded with a tour group’s luggage. We thought that was strange since we had
been told that morning that we could not board our river boat in Budapest but
would have to leave early on Friday and go by bus three hours to Mohacs where
we should get aboard in time for lunch. The reason given was that the river was
too low due to lack of rain this year. [Later – it may be that Viking was using
the Idun for a hotel.] Anyway, next we walked out on the Chain Bridge to get a
photo of us for comparison with the one we have hanging up on the wall from our
1998 visit to Budapest. We returned to the Pest side of the river and headed
south again to the Vaci Utca pedestrian shopping area. C.J. was getting tired
and achy by this time and even a scoop of bonbon ice cream outside the Hard
Rock Cafe didn’t revitalize her. We walked a little farther but the stores were
not inspiring us and we turned back. It was a long walk back to the hotel past
the Eye and lots of cafes (our guide said there are 600 in Budapest, rivalling
Paris). The route was Besci Ut, 6th of October, and Honved to
Radhoti, then a difficult crossing of Vaci Ut. We rested from 1630 until Paula
and Stephen got back from their excursion, about 1830. Then we all returned to
the food court in the West End Center and ate at the same Turkish stall. We had
a dish consisting of a layer of chicken covered with ham, then some cheese and
mushrooms. We also had a Greek salad and a bottle of Coke Zero. On the way back
to the hotel C.J. and I stopped at an ice cream place for a scoop of dessert.
We ate earlier so that the mall was much busier than it was the previous night.
We got to bed earlier since C.J. has been complaining about not getting enough
sleep (and her Fitbit indicated 20,000+ steps).
12 Oct, Fri – We woke up before the alarm went off at 0645,
early enough so we could put our pajamas in our suitcases and stick them
outside the door for collection by 0700. I postponed my shower until after we
ate breakfast (not as crowded this morning). The coffee/cocoa machine was not available but a waitress got us glass cups of hot (not really) chocolate with whipped
cream. We did not need to make sandwiches since we were scheduled to be on the Viking
ship in time for lunch. We were scheduled to depart at 1000 and the buses were
loading shortly after 0930. We got on the third (maybe the last) bus so we
could sit together with Paula and Stephen and snag a front seat. We drove north a bit
then turned south passing in front of the Parliament. We crossed the Danube on
a bridge south of the Chain Bridge and then went south mostly on motorway. We
stopped about an hour down the road at a gas station/rest area where the line
was long at the women’s rest room. It was another hour and ten minutes to
Mohacs where we got off the bus and walked a short distance to where the Viking
Aegir was moored. Our check-in went quickly and we went directly to the dining
room for a buffet lunch. It was a mob scene with no organized line until later.
The food was okay and wine, beer and soft drinks were served with lunch. After
lunch our cabin was ready and we went down and checked it out but did not
unpack. We wanted to visit the town while we had time so we went for a walk into
Mohacs. It was a non-tourist town with a history (the Battle of Mohacs, 1562)
and big enough to have three large churches, one a Serbian Orthodox. We walked
along the pedestrian mall, asked about a statue of three girls (“Serbian,
Croatian, and Hungarian”) at the TI in the City Hall. Then we spotted a little
crafts market in the square near the big Catholic church. C.J. bought a table
runner of the resist-dyed blue and white cloth. We walked back up the
pedestrian street and then upriver a bit to the Serbian church, then back to
the Aegir. We spent some time unpacking and stowing our clothes in drawers and
closets and putting our suitcases under the double bed. By then it was time
(almost 1800) to go to the welcoming toast with captain, introduction of the
officers, and a briefing by the program director. By the time that was finished
it was time for dinner. The menu had three sections: “classic”- items that were
available every night, “regional”- this time Hungarian starter, main and
dessert, and “regular”(?) – a choice of two starters, two mains and a dessert. We
all ate with a couple from San Diego, Sheila and Dan?
13 Oct, Sat – After getting up at 0615 for an 0800 coach
excursion back up the river, we had a breakfast buffet. Glad we got there
semi-early because it was a bit of a free-for-all around the buffet island. Paula
had picked up our tickets and permission slips to leave the ship so we didn’t
have to go to the reception to pick them up. We had a local guy who said he was
a farm boy (although he had a couple of degrees) as a guide. It was a 1hr 15min
ride to Kalocsa where we had a bathroom break at a local college then went
across the street to the Baroque cathedral in Holy Trinity Square, the fourth
on the site, built between 1751 and 1754. Our guide, Micklos (Nicholas) pointed
out the small bronze spire on the roof ridge. He explained that it was for
ventilation. We all went in and had an explanation of the interior features of
the cathedral. And then there was a 20 minute organ concert. After that we
returned to the buses and drove about ten minutes to the Bakod Puszta
demonstration farm-ranch for a horsemanship show where csikos (Hungarian equivalent of US cowboys) rode horses, drove
wagons, snapped whips and even rode 10 horses at one time. Everyone’s favorite
was a short csiko who rode a donkey and acted like a rodeo clown. After the
show we got a taste of local brandy and a ride in a horse cart out past a herd
of heritage long-horned cattle. Then we walked through a barn where the horses
were stabled as well as some hairy pigs and twisty-horned sheep. On the way
back to the bus we got rid of some of our HUF by buying a tube of paprika seasoning
crème for gulyas, and a porcelain
spoon rest with Hungarian blue designs. We drove back to Mohács, arriving about
1400, and had lunch, a combination of buffet and ordered items. At 1515 we
smoothly pulled away from the riverboat we were tied up to and almost
immediately docked again at the border check station. We had to wait almost an
hour for the customs agents to come aboard; when they did everyone had to line
up with our passports and process quickly through for a “face check” followed
by a stamp in our passports. The ship then turned around and we finally started
downstream passing quickly into Croatia. C.J. and I (and later Paula and Stephen) walked
several laps around the sundeck. I tried out the shuffleboard and finished a
crossword and did some reading. Dinner was at 1900, preceded by a port talk
about our excursion on Sunday to Vukovar and Osijek. For dinner we had gulyas
soup, chicken paprikash or ahi tuna, and crème brulé. We sat with Al and Cathy
from Philadelphia. He had been a career helicopter pilot in the Army and she
had been an Army nurse for two years and was recovering from breast cancer.
Later I tried to change some US money to smaller bills but the reception could
not help (and no ATMs for the rest of the trip would produce USD or EUR. It’s
going to be a bit challenging to do any tipping of the local gudes since we are probably not going
to get any more local money until we get to Romania.)
14 Oct, Sun – Up too early at 0615 for an 0830 departure
(the buses actually roll on out of the parking lot at 0830, so we have to be 10
min early at least). We drove through Vukovar while the local guide told us
about the Serbian aggressors being held off for months by light infantry
against the Yugoslavian national army with heavy weapons. Finally the town was
overrun and the patients in the hospital were massacred. [Grim story! But our
Viking tour director told us to hold judgement until we hear from both sides.
On the 15th we go to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia so we should
hear the story from another side.] Our next stop was in a small village,
Laslovo, an ethnic Hungarian enclave. A mother, Valerija, and her grown son
welcomed us into their very nice house, fed us chocolate cake and mint water
and answered the questions of a dozen of us. Afterward we went outside to see
that they had quite a large backyard filled with rabbit, geese, chicken and pig
pens, fruit and nut trees, and a vegetable garden. Their house had been
destroyed in the “Homeland War” and the government paid for material and labor
to rebuild. But the family was responsible for the interior. They appeared to
be doing well with the father working, the mother taking care of the house and
garden, the middle son working at a gas plant. The youngest son, 17, had gone
off to live with his girlfriend and the eldest had gone overseas, a common
solution for a country with high unemployment. After a too-short hour we
re-boarded the bus to travel to Osijek where we toured the historic city center
(Tvrda), the remains of the walls (the Water Gate), all in the fort. We visited
the Franciscan Church and, after a description of its features, there was a
concert by a singer who accompanied herself on a piano. After a bathroom break
and a visit to the church souvenir shop, we moved on to the main square of the
old town. The old Hapsburg guard building was now a university and there were
other schools and a bunch of cafes around the square. We returned to the buses
and drove back to Vukovar and lunch on the ship. C.J. and I shared a dish of
BBQ ribs with fries, plus some salads. In the afternoon we took Paula and Stephen on a
walk around the town. We walked past the devastated house with flowers in the
windows not far from the ship. The city is keeping it a ruin as a memorial to
what happened during the Homeland War. We walked around the Orthodox church of
St. Nikolai which was not open. The Dom, the church of Sts. Phillip and Jacob
(Crkva Sv. Filipa I Jakova) another Dominican church associated with a
monastery, was on a high point in town and we climbed a long stairway to the
top. We were surprised to find the door open and no one around except a few
other Viking passengers. The interior of the church had been sacked by the
Serbs and there were holes in the walls and columns where they had tried unsuccessfully to
place explosives to totally destroy the church before withdrawing. We headed
west to the main shopping area in the town center. So far we had not found any
shops open on a Sunday, but there were a few in the pedestrian area across the
Vuka River. We continued west as far as the Hrvasti Dom (Hrvatska is how Croats refer to their country) and a museum, then
went north to a foot/cycle path along the Danube back to the ship. We were in
time to take a break before going to the lounge for a performance by a Croatian
tamburica band. [A tamburika is a stringed instrument believed to have
originated in ancient Mesopotamia.] At 1845 was the port talk about our day in
Belgrade. For dinner we joined Jane and Trevor from Norfolk, UK. C.J. had the
regional specialty menu of (farmers pecorino market salad), medjimurje duck,
with rozata (a caramelcustard) for dessert. I had the cevapcici and ajvar
(spicy minced pork sausages on a skewer with red pepper relish, rib eye steak
and steak fries, with the rozata for dessert. After dinner we went up on the
sun (moon) deck to see what the scenery was like at night. It seems that much
of the Danube is dark at night. We could see the crescent moon riding over the
east bank and we could see Vukovar astern. It was pretty chilly even with a
windbreaker. C.J. went up to the presentation of what it was like to grow up in
the Balkans while I got my journal written and got photos saved on the
computer.
15 Oct, Mon – We got up a little later at 0630 and ate at
0715. Then we had an 0830 start to a bus tour of Beograd/Belgrade with a young
female guide with a good sense of humor. We first drove across the Branov
Bridge just upstream of the Aegir on the Sava River. We saw the new bridge with
its off-center cable support, shopping malls and a huge football stadium as
well as Lake Sava. Back in the old city, we stopped at the huge St. Sava
Serbian Orthodox church. The interior is still being worked on so we could only
go into the crypt. It had a only go into the crypt. Its centerpiece was an
enormous chandeliers, but the walls (and ceiling) were covered with gold-leaf icons
of saints (and ?). From there we drove to Republic Square and had 45 minutes of
free time to explore the downtown pedestrian shopping area on our own. Paula and Stephen walked
with us past the opulent Moscow Hotel to a point where we had a good view of the
Serbian Parliament Building and the iconic horses and tamers (one pushing and
one pulling) at the entrance. That was as much as we had time for but we made
it back to the meeting place on time. The bus next dropped us off at the
entrance to Kalemegdan, the Belgrade fortress on the highest point of the city,
a bluff above the Sava and Danube Rivers. We walked through three gates and as
far as an overlook to the west, and a view of the Victor, a sculpture of a nude
man holding a falcon and a sword. I think it was placed on the bluff to
commemorate the ending of the First World War. From there we returned to the
ship and had lunch. After a short break we went back out. We had missed the
1400 shuttle which would have taken us back to Republic Square, instead we
walked up the stairs and along a street that took us back to the Fortress. This
time we took a route that led us along the SW side and to the base of the
Victor. Then we worked our way around some walls and through some gates to the
street vendors. They didn’t have anything that we wanted (and we didn’t have
any Serbian Dinar, anyway) so we continued to the downtown pedestrian shopping
street and walked several blocks before we recognized the area around Republic
Square. Then we took a subway under the main street and walked up to the
Parliament where we took some pictures from closer in. From there we followed
our noses and a not-so-detailed map down to the Sava River and to our dock.
[Little did we know that there was an elevator from the Brancov Bridge to the
river bank.] At 1730 there was a lecture by a Serb who explained why there was
a long term enmity between the Serbs and Croats (and the Bosniaks – Christians
who converted to Islam), and why Kosovo broke away from Serbia (settled by the
Turks forcibly moving Albanians there a long time ago). Dinner was a special
“Taste of the Balkans” starting with a bit of slivovics, followed by an
assortment of starters on our table. Then the main as another assortment, all
very good. When I left the table to check out the buffet area (which had even
more food), there was a line up waiting for the dessert pastries plus hazelnut
ice cream with various sauces. That was followed by a tour of the kitchen by
the hotel manager. It was much smaller than what I would have expected for
preparing food for 200 people plus crew. The hotel manager expressed concern
for continuing river trips if the water level continued to drop. Usually the
Aegir goes from Bucharest to Budapest and then picks up another group to go on
to Amsterdam. But they can’t get through the Budapest area, so the Aegir is
yoyoing back and forth between B and B. Around 2100 there was a special Serbian
folklore show with dancers and a three-piece band, excellent performance.
Before we went to bed we had to move our clocks forward one hour as we were
moving into the Eastern Europe time zone.
16 Oct, Tue – Because we had no excursions on Tuesday, we
got up at 0730 (still, that was 0630 Central Europe time). Paula and Stephen
were not at breakfast when we got there and they didn’t show up until we were
almost done. The scenery along the Danube was much better now that we were in
the hills between Romania (on the left) and Serbia. There were occasional villages
so there must have been roads on each side. Around 0930 we entered a gorge and
it got pretty cold where we were sitting in rocking chairs out on the front
deck, even with the protective glass wall. But the scenery was good, and we got
a commentary from the cruise director about what we were seeing and the history
of the area. One plaque we passed was dedicated to Emperor Trajan who had
caused a road to be built alongside the Danube. At the end of the gorge just
after a small monastery was the famous face of King Decebalus (“Decebalus
Rex Dragan fecit” was the inscription)
carved into the cliff. There was a road on each side of the river, although we
heard that it was only one lane in places as that was all the room there was among
the cliffs. Later, as it warmed up, we reached a major dam and went through two
locks, one with a solid gate that lowered, the other with the more typical
two-leaved gate that swung inward. We ate lunch outside on the open deck just
forward of the lounge. A crewmember was cooking hamburgers to order, and there
was a buffet which included sliced pork as well. Later C.J. found out that
there was banana split on the lunch menu and we went downstairs to the dining
room to share one. At 1445 a dozen of us had a short tour of the wheelhouse and
then at 1500 the head chef did a presentation on preparing poppy seed strudel
followed by a sample session (too much food for me, if I had any more food I
wouldn’t be able to appreciate whatever dinner was going to be). [C.J. went and
got some samples, anyway, and we shared them – quite good but I didn’t like the
poppy seed as much as most of the others. We left Serbia behind when we went
through another lock. That put Bulgaria on our right (west) and Romania still
on our left. C.J. and I dropped in for a free vodka Collins and a shot of Aquavit
at the Viking Cruise program. We also went to the 1845 port talk about Vidin
and the area around it. After the included excursion we will be going to a cooking
demo/home visit where we learn to make banitsa,
a cheese pie in phyllo dough. In fact, at dinner I had a banitsa while C.J. had the scallops. I also had a small cabbage
roll for a starter while C.J. had sweet potato soup. Both were good. We pulled
in to the port of Vidin as we were finishing our meal and a talk with Ken and
Toby from San Diego. They had come from Amsterdam and had way too many bus
rides, no time in Budapest and a hotel stay in Vizegrad HU instead. They were
not happy but did not expect they would get any compensation from Viking. I
guess that we’ve been lucky.
17 Oct, Wed – We departed from Vidin for the Belogradchik
Mountain and Fortress, Bulgaria. The ride took us up into the hills and through
forest, very fall-like. We stopped at a four star hotel for a coffee and
bathroom break. [I checked on room rates at the desk and found out that an
average double room was only $39 per night. Later we asked our guide about
paragliding in Bulgaria and she knew of a few places – might be worthwhile to
do some research. Sounds hot in summer and usually rainy in October (but not
this year) so Sep. might be a good choice.] Belogradchik is a high rock
formation, or group of formations, kind of like Garden of the Gods, with a
fortress built around it. Our guide was stationed on the highest point and we
followed her (more slowly) up steep steps and ladders to the summit where the
view was good of the town below and all the surrounding fields and hills. We
got back to the ship in time for lunch and then went out again on an optional
excursion to a town outside of Vidin where we had a cooking demonstration at a
large, rather opulent, family home. Our hostess, her aunt and a cousin met us
in the driveway with bread and salt (or honey) and rakija as a traditional
welcome. Then we went inside to a spacious kitchen where they showed us how to
make a banitsa, a traditional Bulgarian pastry. Once that one was in the oven,
we all participated in making another one. While that one was baking we got to
sample the first one. The second one went back with us for the ship’s crew.
Since we got back a little earlier than we had expected, C.J. and I walked
along the river shore (on a metal 4-ft wide bicycle path that was hinged to
flip up to make a wall along the top of the dike. No idea of the purpose). We
couldn’t go too far because the “all aboard” was only a half-hour away, but we
did get far enough to spot the minaret of a mosque and walked over to get a
photo. It would have been nice to walk into town and stroll along the
pedestrian area, but it was clear that this city in Bulgaria did not have the
wealth of cities in Serbia or Croatia. We made it back to the ship with a
little time to spare. Dinner was tasty as usual (maybe I’ll remember what we
had later) but an older couple from D.C. joined us and monopolized the
conversation by talking about their medical history and ER experience in
Israel. Back in our room we spent an hour maybe filling out the Viking
questionnaire and deciding which optional (but free) Romanian excursion we’d
take – the big Parliament building or the old town.
18 Oct, Thu – Two-hour bus ride from Nikopol to Veliko
Tarnovo, Bulgaria with guide Teodora. The rural countryside had large fields
which had been harvested. The houses in the towns looked somewhat dilapidated;
apparently many people moved from there to the cities where there was more
work, having lost contact with the feeling for the land after collectivization
under the Communists. We stopped at a hotel in V. Tarnovo for a coffee and
bathroom break. Then we walked out on a bridge that gave a view out over the
town which was built on a hill side above a river. The river water reflected
the mostly white houses with red tile roofs. We drove up to the center of town
and got dropped off near the entrance to a huge restored walled citadel with a
stone church at the very top. [I had some trouble climbing up the cobblestone
lanes and stairs, and also later when we returned uphill from the meeting place
to the bus.] About half of the group did the hike to the top and the rest
stayed on the bus to be dropped off on the pedestrian “craft street” where
there were icon painters, silversmiths, other crafts people and souvenir shops.
Once we had collected everyone at the meeting point we had to drive down and
find one confused man who was still waiting at the bottom of the hill. From
there we drove a short distance to the museum town of Arbanasi where we had an
excellent three-course lunch at a country restaurant – shopska salad (like
Macedonia), soup, beef goulash served with flatbread hot from the oven, and a
dish of Bulgarian yogurt with walnuts and honey. After lunch a folk dance
troupe with traditional instruments performed in the courtyard and throughout
the dining rooms (separate rooms). C.J. got swept up into a circle dance with
the colorfully costumed dancers. From there we walked a short distance to a
souvenir shop where we could sample rose liqueur either sweet or “rocket fuel”,
Turkish delight and ? Next we walked to a house that had been preserved from
the centuries of Ottoman domination. We were able to tour through the interior
and see the reception room, the kitchen, bedrooms, and a maternity room for
birthing. Our last stop was a church, small because Christian churches were not
allowed to be taller than the height of “an Ottoman soldier on horseback
carrying a sword”, the interior of which was totally covered with icon-style
frescoes, “the Sistine Chapel of Bulgaria”. It was a two-hour ride back to the
ship and shortly after we arrived back at 1730, the ship made the last leg of
the voyage – just across the river to the Romanian side (not Russe as the
original itinerary showed). We had our last dinner aboard which was every bit
as good as the first one. C.J. had a nice rare roast sirloin with what looked
like Yorkshire pudding but was called something else. I had the seared bass
fillet which was good, too. Jane and Trevor sat with us again and were good
company. Back in our room we finished packing up for the 0800 departure. I
didn’t get around to writing in my journal so I was now two days behind. I went
up to Reception and used the Citi Visa to pay for gratuities for the crew and
for the tour director.
19 Oct, Fri – Up at 0600 for breakfast at 0630 so we could
check out of our room by 0730. Shortly after we boarded a bus that would take
us all the way to Bucharest. The commentary by the German guide was loud and
intrusive as many of us wanted to rest or work on journals. We stopped once at
a gas station to use the rest rooms. The land was very flat and was mostly
rural with large fields and small villages. It looked considerably less rundown
than Bulgaria. When we reached Bucharest we drove past some of the major sights
like the Palace of Parliament, the world’s second largest building (after the
Pentagon), the new (still being built) national cathedral (Romanian Orthodox),
a bunch of government ministries, national opera, etc, etc. Then we went to a
restaurant in Herastrau Park (Pescarus?) that provided entertainment in the form
of a folk instrument band and dancers. Lunch was pretty good with a cabbage
salad, somewhat tasteless soup, chicken in a red sauce with potatoes, and ice
cream that Stephen described as sliced and diced and reassembled Eskimo Pie.
From there we got on the bus again for a short drive in traffic that was
already starting to look like Friday rush hour to the outdoor museum village in
the same park. We had less than an hour to look at the collection of houses,
churches and buildings that had been brought to the park starting in 1936. The
seed press, wool felting and wine press mills were particularly interesting.
Surprisingly every structure had a sign in both Romanian and English. Back on
the bus we took a somewhat roundabout (and slow, because of traffic) route to
the “Casa Poporului”, Romania’s parliament building. Inside we got a tour by a
local guide that covered only 2% of the huge marble building. After that we went
directly to our hotel, the Sheraton. C.J. and I picked up our room keys to 1108
and found our luggage already arrived. After resting just a bit I went
downstairs and found an ATM and took out 1000 RON (Romanian new lei) (about
266USD? – bad exchange rate). Armed with local cash, we ventured out while it
was still daylight. We walked around the block that the Sheraton sits on while
it was still light, and spotted a couple of the recommended restaurants. The
Embassy was expensive and the Italian place had an American tout who offered us
a menu (but the seating looked to be outside where smoking is permitted). We
continued past an area of craft booths to the noisy boulevard. We saw a couple
of patisserie shops that had sandwiches, but we kept going until we came upon a
shop selling pizza and other round foods from a window. People were lined up buying
slices so we asked some young men what the round pastries were. “Salty cheese”,
he said, “and apple”. Sounded good to us so we got a slice of pizza, salty
cheese (made with phyllo, we think), and an apple “turnover”. We ate them back
in our hotel room while watching flights of crows wheeling through the sky at
about our height. Later we went down to 615 to say goodbye to Paula and Stephen.
Stephen still sounds terrible with his cold and cough, but he had gone out with
a Viking rep and gotten some cough lozenges, and some cough syrup with codeine.
They have to leave around 0400, Viking is doing the transfer. We are supposed
to meet Bogdan at 0900, so we’ll have time for the included breakfast buffet.
20 Oct, Sat – Up at 0630 after a restless night. I took a
shower and then we went down to the Mezzanine to the Avalon Restaurant where
the buffet breakfast was. It was a good one with an omelet/egg station as well
as already made eggs benedict. No Bircher-muesli, though. The coffee machine
produced an excellent cup of hot chocolate. We said goodbye to some more people
from the cruise and then went upstairs to finish packing. We got back
downstairs at 0845 and Bogdan found us shortly afterward; I’m not sure how. We
loaded everything into his lemon-colored VW and headed off out of the city
passing the Arcul de Triumf and the village museum. It was quite a long drive
to our first stop at Peles Castle, the one-time residence of the first king of Romania,
Carol I or Charles the First. Bogdan found a parking spot just a short walk
from the entrance and secured senior-discounted tickets for us. Then there was
a long line for the (ladies) rest room which Bogdan told C.J. to circumvent by
using the men’s room. We needed to hurry because the English-speaking tour had
already started. Bogdan got us through the door and tagged onto the tour. Unfortunately,
there was so much ambient noise from the other groups, and the guide’s voice
was accented and not very loud so we didn’t hear much. However, the opulent
palace was interesting even without knowing who painted what and how many books
were in the library. There was lots of gold and the walls and ceiling were
covered with ornamental carvings. One room had an amazing display of edged
weapons and armor; another one had hand weapons as well as early gunpowder
weapons. The outside was almost as interesting as the interior, especially
since the sky had mostly cleared and there was some sunshine. [We ran into a
couple from our Viking cruise – the young bearded guy with his Asian wife. They
were not on the Viking post trip.] Next we drove to Bran to see Bran’s Castle
(the location that Romania/Transylvania pushes as “Dracula’s Castle”). [Bram
Stokers location for the fictional character’s castle was hundreds of km to the
north…where there is actually no castle at all.] First we grabbed a chicken
schnitzel wrap and a Schweppe’s Bitter Lemon at a snack bar like a snell imbiss. Then we moved right along
to stay ahead of the crowd that was arriving in tour buses after us. We got
some good pictures from the outside and then Bogdan guided us through the castle
of Vlad the Impaler (Dracula, son of Vlad Drakul). The descendants had lived in
the castle up until the 20th (?) century, had lost the site to the
Communist takeover and fought to get it back after the downfall of Ceaucescu,
and then donated it to the new Republic of Romania. From the crowd that was
pushing in through the doors, the government of Romania is making a bunch of
money on entrance fees and taxes on the marketplace below which is swarming
with souvenir sellers. Our last tourist site for the day was the fortress at
Rasnov. While many Transylvanian towns had a defense wall around their
fortified church, Rasnov had actually built a citadel on the hill above the town
which successfully defended the citizens from every attack but one (the time
they ran out of water; after that, they dug a 140m-deep well before the next
attack). We took a tractor-drawn cart to the citadel from the parking area and
then entered through the double gates into the barbican. The area between the
gates had a removable bridge over a stake-studded pit and arrow slits all
around. Inside the inner wall were 80 or so houses used by the townsfolk during
an attack. Now some of these had been converted to souvenir shops. From the
very top the countryside looked a lot like the Berkshires in Massachusetts,
especially because of the muted fall colors. We caught the tourist cart back to
the bottom and drove to Brasov, where Bogdan lives. He gave us an orientation
tour of the town before dropping us at Casa Timar, a small inn about a
10-minute walk from the central square and pedestrian area. We got checked in
and rested a bit. Then we went out to eat at the recommended local restaurant, Ceasu
Rau, just a few blocks away. Unfortunately the main restaurant was totally
booked (maybe for a private event) but the hostess sent us around the side to
the garden (terasa) part of the
restaurant where there were tables available. It was a little chilly, and people
were smoking, but we had an excellent dinner of a pickled cabbage salad, and a
mixed grill of beef, pork, chicken and cevapcici (sausage) with wine and beer.
C.J. was still feeling like she had a cold, mostly a bad cough, so she got to
bed early while I finished up writing in this journal.
21 Oct, Sun – We got up at 0730, although C.J. had a
terrible coughing attack in the middle of the night and I don’t know if she got
back to sleep. Breakfast was waiting for us at 0800; we each had a plate filled
with nicely arranged meats, cheeses, a warm boiled egg, a slice of bread with
pimento spread, plus there was a basket of toast, orange juice, finger bananas,
and muffins. C.J. got tea and, after a bit of hunting, the host found some good
hot chocolate for me. It was a bit too much but we ate almost everything but a
muffin, some toast and the pimento spread bread. Bogdan picked us up just after
0900 and whirled us away to our first stop (not counting a gas station/rest
room break) – the oldest fortified church in Romania in Viscri. In the 12th
century King Geza II asked peasants from Luxembourg (Saxons) to settle in the
area. By 1500 there were 51 households and the people had constructed a new
church to replace the old Romanesque chapel that had been built on the hill.
Fortification of the church began in the 12th century with a wall
built around it. By 1743, the fortifications were no longer needed and parts of
the church were converted to grain storage. We drove in on a new road;
apparently the government is trying to make it easier for tourists to reach the
village. The streets in the town itself are unpaved or cobblestone and any
house improvements are strictly regulated – basically the place has to stay the
same as it looked at least a hundred years ago. We entered through the small
gate (the main gate no longer has a strong door) and paid a small admission fee
which gave us access to the museum as well. The church was small and humble
compared to the huge, gold-encrusted ones we’ve seen elsewhere. Like all Saxon
villages, this church was Lutheran, and is not used regularly (There are only 27
Germans left in the village; most of the Saxons, who still spoke German, BTW,
returned to Germany around 1990). In the rear of the church was a strong door
that guarded the treasury and the steep, narrow stairs to the tower. We were
glad we were early before the (small) crowd gathered as there was only room for
ascending or descending, no room for passing. There was a great view of the
walls and battlements from the walkway at the top. When we got down we went to
the museum which had interesting, if eclectic, displays, most not covered up
with glass display cases. Bogdan drove us down from the hill and onto a
different road that headed away from the town. This one was under construction
and maybe it would soon be as good as the one we came in on. The next stop for
the day was Sighisoara. Once again Bogdan got a parking place right near the
entrance to the citadel and we had only a short walk and climb to pass through
the two gates. This is the largest fortified church in Romania and it is still
in use – people live and work inside the citadel. The streets are all decent
but paved only with cobblestones. We started with the museum in the Clock Tower
which involved a climb to the top for a remarkable panorama of the citadel and
town. The most fascinating exhibit was a window into the glockenspiel where you
could see the 80cm figurines that represented the day of the week as Roman gods
and goddesses. There was also a window that gave a view of a part of the clock
mechanism (but not the electronic regulator that keeps the old clock running exactly
on time). When we got down, we went to lunch at Casa Vlad Dracul, the reputed
birthplace of Vlad Tepes, “Vlad the Impaler”, a hero to many in Romania for his
resistance to the Turks. He was asassinated by an Ottoman agent in 1476. C.J.
and I shared a tomato salad and cabbage rolls with polenta (Our guide was not
charged for his lunch). We were surprised by two things: the prices were not
outrageous as you’d expect at a tourist trap, and there was not a crowd there
at lunch time. After lunch we walked around the citadel looking at the bastions
and towers which were sponsored and manned by various guilds. We walked up a
narrow lane (Str. Tamplarilor) framed by old pastel houses, Bogdan pointed out
that this was the most photographed lane in Sighisoara, so I dutifully took a
couple of pictures. It started sprinkling about then and B disappeared to find
a rest room. C.J. and I took shelter on a bench under a tree because we had
left our packs, raingear and umbrellas in the car. Fortunately it did not rain
too much and we followed B up the “covered stairway” (1642) to the “Church on
the Hill” (on School Hill). We didn’t enter the church but did see the
Ropemakers Bastion which is the only bastion to have someone still living in it
(the family takes care of the German cemetery). We walked down through the
cemetery and came out near the bottom of the covered stairway, then continued
around a corner to a view of the Tinsmiths Bastion which still had bullets scars
from a 1704 attack. We continued down through the citadel and out through the
gates under the Clock Tower. Returning to the car, we drove the 110 km back to Brasov
where we arrived around 1700. C.J. was feeling well enough to walk with me to
the city center where there is a pedestrian area with lots of stores. We found
a restaurant called the Ursul
Carpatin, or Carpathian Bear. It was too cold to sit outside in the
wind, even with the patio heaters, so we went upstairs to the dining room which
was nicely decorated with circular, vinelike motifs of (maybe) Carpathian animals.
We shared a pickled cucumber salad, and a rack of pork ribs with peasant
potatoes with rosemary and some more pickle salad. On the way back we stopped
at Betty Ice for a scoop of gelato. We walked back to Casa Timar in the dark
after putting on all the clothes we had carried with us, about a 10-15 minute
walk.
22 Oct, Mon – Up at 0715 to give me an extra few minutes to check
in for our flights on Delta.com. KLM and Delta then sent me an email with a PDF
file of the boarding passes. At 0800 we had breakfast- a little different: fresh
scrambled eggs, croissants, juice and hot choc or tea. The other couple who had
arrived last night had the same breakfast we had the first morning. We got
packed up and met Bogdan at 0900 and stowed our bags in The Lemon along with
his carry-on and an Ikea mattress topper that he needed to exchange in Bucharest.
It was a short drive to Prejmer where there was the best-preserved fortified
church in southeastern Europe. We got our tickets and visited the well-organized
museum. Then we went to the church which had some early Gothic vaulting on the
Greek-cross- shaped nave and transept. There was a triptych on the otherwise
plain altar dated from between 1450-60 (before the Reformation when the
parishioners were Catholic). The courtyard surrounding the church was large
enough to keep the villagers animals, and the many rooms, built on the inside
of the walls, were numbered to correspond to each villager’s home. We climbed
up to the internal passageway that was between the rooms and the walls
themselves with their arrow slits and spouts for pouring boiling liquid on
attackers. According to history, the fortress was attacked more than 50 times
and only had to surrender once when the water/food ran out. Unlike the other
fortifications we had seen, this one was in excellent shape right down to fresh
whitewash on the smooth plaster walls. Next we drove back through Brasov and
headed SE toward our final sight, the Snagov Monastery on Snagov Lake. We drove
through several tourist centers in the mountains (some of the higher mountains
had a dusting of snow from the previous day’s precip) and stopped to try to get
the last bit of money I needed to pay Bogdan. The first place had a lousy rate
(3.69lei/USD) and the second would only give a max of 200 RON, and the third was
out of order. Finally, in Sinaia, I hit an ATM that gave the best rate yet,
4.059/dollar). I took out 1000RON which would give us a cushion for whatever we
needed to spend in Bucharest for meals and taxi to the airport. We also stopped
at a rest area/gas station to use the WC and try to get a sandwich. But a tour
bus had beat us there and there was a long line at the food counter. We came
out of the mountains onto the Danube Plain and then it wasn’t far to the
monastery which itself is not far in distance from the capital. We walked
across a bridge to the island and entered the church whose interior was covered
with painted icons. They were probably painted (frescoed) over earlier frescos
because when some plaster had cracked off, there were figures visible beneath.
I took a bunch of photos for no good reason, then we went out and walked around
the grounds a bit. The area of the island was quite small. From there it was
only 20 minutes to Bucharest, but traffic (at 1430, not a rush hour!) slowed us
down quite a bit. Bogdan dropped us off right in front of the Hotel Trianon and
we gave him his fee in leis with our thanks. He was off to Ikea and then south
to visit his grandfather who is expected to die soon. After checking in to the
hotel, we ate the gingerbread cookie from Cesky Krumlov with tea and hot
chocolate. I got our boarding passes printed at the hotel desk and we rested
for a while before going out to find something to eat. C.J. is still suffering
from her cold and cough and has been taking cough suppressants, but she still
does not feel very well. Around 1730 or so we went out in search of a place to
eat. I had picked up a card with a map on it for Tulin, a Lebanese restaurant
only a few blocks away. We walked past a Romanian Italian restaurant that
looked okay but went a couple of blocks farther walking along the edge of a
park. When we spotted Tulin we crossed the street at a small plaza with a bust
of Pope Paul II, now a saint. The restaurant didn’t look like much from the
outside, but it had a welcoming interior and we settled in to eat up as much of
our Romanian lei as we could (not really, but we had plenty of cash for a good
meal in the pleasantly inexpensive city). So we got a starter of hummus with
pine nuts and a fresh baked pita (“Just one?” the waitress asked) and both were
really good. Then we immediately ordered another pita, this one whole wheat (“Told
you, you should have got two,” our waitress ribbed us.). The Beirut salad and
our main of Ismeril, which was a couple of rolls of minced lamb and veal on what
looked like a tortilla with sides of roasted whole onion and tomato. The salad
was good, too, with lots of tomatoes, cucumber, onions and other salad stuff
with a good oil and vinegar dressing. C.J. ordered a limonada with sparkling water and honey (good thing because it was
pretty tart). And then ordered an unknown drink that ended in “nectar”. It was
pretty sweet, but mixed together, the two were excellent. I had a Tuborg beer
since there were no beers on tap and all the wine seemed to come only by the
bottle. It was still light when we got back to the hotel. We spent some time
finishing up packing and then went to bed; it was maybe around 1930. I’m not
sure how much sleep C.J. got because she did a lot of coughing.
23 Oct, Tue – The alarm woke us at 0325 and we were
downstairs at the desk requesting a taxi by 0410. The taxi arrived within five
minutes and we had an easy ride through the quiet city, a major change from
when we had come into the city with Bogdan at 1500 when the traffic was heavy.
On the way I had a few moments of stress when we drove right by an airport, but
it must have been a local airport because we reached the main
domestic/international airport in about 30 minutes. The fare was only 40 incl
tip which was pretty inexpensive compared to many places we had been recently.
Inside the terminal, the monitor did not show our flight or the counter to go
to for check in, so we waited. After a while I noticed a big line so I went
over and asked someone. It turned out that the line was for airport security,
but there was a different monitor that showed what counter we should go to. The
line wasn’t too bad there and we got our bags checked reasonably quickly. The
really long line was for passing through the security check, but it was moving
along pretty well. I guess the x-ray tech must have spotted something she
thought suspicious in my bag because I had to open it up and then an agent went
through it all, finding nothing, of course (that was all in my checked bag, ha
hah). While hanging out in the terminal before checking in, I exchanged our HUN
forints for about 30 EUR (+ one lei in change). And afterward, at our gate
there wasn’t time to buy any food, or to exchange the rest of our ROM lei. The
KLM plane had the 3+3 seating and we got a pretty awful egg omelet wrapped in
bread, then a small, plastic-wrapped pastry, definitely not up to the new Delta
food standards. The BUC-AMS flight was only two hours, and we had only 1.5
hours layover so we were very shortly on our flight to Minneapolis, about 8.5
hours. It was cloudy on the first leg and most of the way on the second leg.
Fortunately we got a good lunch on the Delta flight where the seating was 2+4+2
and we were in the window-aisle seats but back against a bulkhead next to the
rest rooms. At least there were no kids kicking the back of C.J.’s seat (but
there was a crying, screeching baby somewhere across the plane. I wore my
noise-canceling headphones and C.J. shut off her hearing aids for much of the
trip.) [Before we left I took my Vodaphone SIM card out of my mobile and
replaced it with my Consumer Cellular card so we’d have phone service when we
got back to the states.] We had two and a half hours in MSP, Minneapolis-St.
Paul, plenty of time to clear customs and then wait for our flight. We had to
move from the original gate to the next one down the concourse when some
problem turned up with the original plane. This 737 had 3+3 seating and our
row, 25, was over the back part of the wing. It hardly mattered since we had
been assigned the aisle and middle seats. Still, there might have been scenery
as the sky was not as cloudy in North America, and I had finally got the scenery
app, Flyover Country, to work. We got into Seattle about 1600 PDT, had a
longish wait for the shuttle. The rush hour traffic wasn’t as bad as I thought
it might be, just a slowdown when we first got on I-405. The HOV lane got us
through that easily, and we didn’t even need that when we got as far as Renton;
all lanes were moving right along. We found a big limb blocking the driveway,
one of the ones that had broken in a windstorm before we left. There was
another one that was still connected to the tree and probably won’t come down
for a while yet. I moved several limbs aside and backed in over the thousands
of walnuts. It looked like I would be busy for a while cleaning up the limbs,
leaves and nuts. C.J. went to bed really early and I didn’t stay up past 2100.
It was somewhat chilly since the house hadn’t been heated while we were gone.
