Following the Tauck Guide
We stayed at the Meridien Hotel in the middle of the city and took some time to wander around the central city on our own.
We had had a chance to try the local wine in each stop, most of these countries have a well developed wine industries. We found a place for lunch on Andrássy Avenue, which is a major avenue with casual restaurants sprinkled in among designer boutiques. John and I shared a bottle of Tokay and some local salami and cheese. All good.
Locals at the Budapest Farm Market
We arrive in Budapest, which is easily the most sophisticated place we have visited on this trip.
Highlight of the Budapest stop came this morning when the group toured the Hungarian State Opera –the Opera House is a product of the Hapsburg era.
A Tauck special, we had a drop in visit and 3 or 4 short numbers from what must have been two of the established stars who showed up at 10AM on Sunday.
Everything else had to be anticlimactic – but we still had a good rest of the day. We visited the indoor market – a local version of Philly’s Reading Terminal Farmers Market – but bigger. Everyone got a chance to get in line behind the locals and taste some of the famous local pastry.
Hungarian Rider
We stop at a tiny port (Solt) in Hungary for some of the local culture. This is farm country with two traditional products – peppers that become paprika and spectacular horses and equestrian skills. The equestrian show included all of the local products – white and red wine, Pálinka, a dangerous local schnapps and flatbread baked in a big outdoor oven. It made for a nice preamble for the horses and riders, who were “big top” quality. The finale was a rider standing on one of a team of five horses – no saddles, just five sets of reins. He did a couple of laps around the “ring” without a hiccup. The five white horses were striking – the rider was amazing.
Town Center
Today we stop in Vukovar, Croatia. This area was a major battlefield in the 1990’s. It is rebuilt and attractive today – but there are still some buildings that show the signs (bulletholes, artillery damage) from the 90’s.
We had a terrific local guide who provided the Croatian version of the “Homeland War” as they called it in Croatia. Not a perfect match with the Serbia version that we heard in Belgrade.
Overlooking Belgrade
Today we’re in Belgrade, Serbia. We started at an important old fort high above the place where the Danube and the Sava Rivers meet. There was a nice display of tiny Italian tanks from WWII and other modern arms, which seesm like a major interest of the Serbs.
Our local guide was a sophisticated historian whose father had fought alongside Tito against the Nazi’s in WWII. He gave a very positive recounting of Yugoslavia in the Tito era, which ended in 1980, while he led us through around Belgrade and to the impressive Tito memorial.
Belgrade, which is a very modern city, still shows some of the effects of the NATO bombing in the 90’s. NATO bombers took out the Chinese Embassy, apparently by mistake, as well as seemingly every government and military office building we drove by. Most had been rebuilt – but not every one. Our guide covered that recent history with a very pro-Serbian spin, as you might expect. Still interesting to hear.
Cruising through the "Iron Gate"
This section of the Danube is called the “Iron Gate”. A big dam built in the 70’s turned this part of the Danube from impassable rapids to a classic series of locks and spectacular gorges. It is easily the best scenery on the whole trip. We had a great day for the trip, sunny and warm. Most of us were on the top deck or at the bow watching the river with out morning coffee or afternoon glass of wine. There were a lot of good photo opps.
It turns out that the Danube was generally the Eastern border of the Roman Empire, once they conquered whoever had lived here. So there are some interesting historic names – Roman Emporer Trajan fought the Dacians in this neighborhood to tidy up the border lands somewhere in the first or second century AD. (I think I got that right).
Icon
We are cruising up the Danube between Bulgaria and Romania today. Last night we had a concert performed by Bulgarian dancers and players. They played an accordion, a flute like instrument, a small bagpipe and a lute. The dancers were great to watch.
Today we had a lecture on the history of the Balkans. The Balkans, at least in this geography lesson, is the area from Turkey to Hungary which includes Bulgaria, Slovenia, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, and Romania. This area was ruled over the centuries by the Romans, The Byzantine Empire, The Turks, the Austro Hungarian Empire, and Russia before it became independent after WWI.
We also had a guest artist on board who made icons in the orthodox tradition. We got an interesting explanation of the meaning of the various symbols and figures on the icons. I was surprised to learn that the icon designs have all been established by religious tradition; there is no “freestyle” icon art. We found one of St George and a Dragon to bring home.
Bulgarian House
Monday: We spent the day travelling through Bulgaria. We had lunch at someone’s home in a town called Arbanassi. We split into groups of ten to make it practical and each group was assigned a local language student. It provided a nice contrast to the grimier, Communist era real estate. And our local student guide was a star – fluent in four or five languages, was starting college in England in a few weeks. This house was in the higher rent district – a gated community with one of Bulgaria’s Italian League pro soccer stars for a neighbor. They served beef stew and a salad made from cabbage and carrots with some tomatoes and cucumbers. They also served wine and cheese which they made themselves. This is definitely a nice middle class life style by US standards.
In the afternoon we visited an unused Orthodox church and had a concert. There were 4 singers who sang Gregorian Chants which was the music in an Orthodox church. They never used organs or pianos for music, just people singing. All in all, an interesting day in what had been an obscure part of the world for me.
Hidden Orthodox Church from Ottoman Era
Sunday: There was a must-do visit to the Black Sea today.
The highlight came even before we left Bucharest, when we stopped at Revolution Square in the center of Bucharest where Ceauşescu was ousted in 1989. Our Tauck guide was a 25 year old Romanian student at the time of the revolution and gave us a first hand account of the events – as he participated in them on the street.
Mamaia, the Black Sea resort, was interesting as a Romanian version of Ocean City, Maryland. Decent beach, with a lot of people and a row of new hotels on it.
Dacian King Decabalus on Romanian Shore of Danube
Saturday: We started to explore Romania today. We went with about half of our group on a 2 hour bus trip from Bucharest to Sanaia in the Carpathian Mountains. We had a local guide on board to explain the sights. It turns out that Romania was a kingdom, with a king and queen and princes and princesses for about 100 years until World War II. They had good kings who built roads and turned Bucharest into a capital that looked something like Paris at the time – a pretty good period for Romania according to the guide, who sounded like he would like to have the king back.
Our trip to the mountains was to visit the king’s summer palace called Peles. The king had relatives in Germany so the summer palace looked a lot like the same type of places in the Alps in Germany. He collected sword and shields and armor, so we got to go through room after room with armor from Europe and Turkey and India. Some pretty good stuff.
This area is really deep in the forest – people still go there to hunt. They have big black deer – not sure what those are – and brown bears. Our guide said there were 6000 bears in Romania – more than anyplace else in Europe except Russia. Outside the summer palace there is a prominent “watch out for bears” poster. I think they mean business.
We didn’t run across any bears and got back to Bucharest in time for dinner.
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