2025 Danube Cruise

 Cooler and cloudy this morning with the temperature around 70. A bus took us up to a main plaza where we walked through the Belgrade Fortress which is now a very large and green park with the main fortress buildings in the center although there are ruins of the old walls extending quite a way around. This Belgrade region changed so many times, I won't even try to recount it all but it included the Romans, Ottomans, Austro-Hungarians and at times an independent kingdom.  It has been destroyed many times. During the second world war, Serbia was on the Allied side and was bombed heavily by the Germans who eventually occupied it. It was then bombed to defeat the Germans. Much of the city was damaged in the civil war of the 1990s after the breakup of Yugoslavia. We passed buildings which were still largely destroyed - several of which have been purchased by Jared Kushner to build new Trump facilities - very depressing. We then went to the Saint Sava church which is very new, const...

 Going into Serbia we had a time change to Central European Time so we gained an hour, 7am became 6am. Around 6am we came into the Iron Gates Lock, the first lock of the Danube and one of the largest. The total height of the lock is 35 meters, around 105', and needs two stages to get to this height. The ship pulls into the first chamber which closes and the ship rises to the top of the chamber. Then the gate between the two chambers drops down and the ship moves into the second chamber which then raises the ship to the top so that it can go further up the Danube. Each chamber is just long enough for the Viking ship but looks like there is room for two side by side. There is a set of locks on the Serbian side and an identical set on the Romanian side with a large dam for hydroelectric power and a road over the top. This was only built in 1972 and flooded a huge area upstream, flooding numerous towns, roads and Roman ruins. Towns had to be relocated and new roads constructed along th...

 We arrived at Vidin at 7am this morning. On the way to the bus, I thanked Sonja, our program director, about her talk last night and said that I was concerned about the direction of our country. Although we try to avoid politics, she said she was concerned also for the world. Vidin is a very old city and the area is ancient. It is famous for cave paintings in the paleolithic era, 8,000 years ago. The city itself was an important outpost on the Danube in 350AD, the boundary of the Roman empire. It was subsequently part of the Ottoman Empire, a more free country after expelling the Ottomans, then under communist rule and after 1989 moving to western democracy. The country suffered greatly with the communist takeover but also suffered greatly after communism. At the communist takeover, all private land and businesses became property of the state and people worked for the state in collective enterprise which was often inefficient as there was no motivation to do well. There was comple...

 It turns out the reason why we are in Nikola and not Rusk is that the water is too low for the ship to continue further downstream and had to dock here. Fortunately it is not much further from Bucharest. I'm not sure whey the river is shallower further down - maybe it is because it become wider, eventually turning into the Danube Delta before entering the Black Sea. There is a small ferry carrying tractor trailers across the river, 3 or 4 at a time. When we got on the bus this morning, there were dozens of trucks waiting to cross, some from as far away as Iran. We went to Pleven instead of Rusk as that would have been 2 1/2 hours away - too much for a morning tour. We traveled mostly through agricultural areas where they grow sunflowers (many waiting to be harvested), corn, wheat and barley. We went through many small villages with just a few houses, many of them abandoned and in poor shape. When the communists took over, the land went into farm collectives which were industrializ...

 Another early morning. We had to have our luggage outside the room by 7am and then check out of the hotel by 8:30. We were surprised that there were 3 Russian-speaking couples in front of us on the bus - most Viking customers are from the US with a few from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. One man we spoke with had parents who were at Aushwitz (they survived and lived to 100). He was the manager at a factory with 750 employees at age 22. His wife said she would have to wait in line after school for a little bread and margarine while he had plenty of food as a manager. They all live in the Russian area of Brooklyn. Adrian, our guide, is 33 years old and has degrees in film production, although guiding is his "day" job. At the parliament building, our guide gave us information about the modern history of Romania under the communist dictator Ceaucescu. In 1968 he gave a speech in which he indicated that he would be for the people and different from the USSR. This encouraged f...

 A fairly early morning as we had to have luggage outside our room at 6am and depart for the airport at 6:30. It was about a 45 drive to the airport, then quite a long time to check in. The flight to Bucharest is only 55 minutes. We are not sure why, but we were in first class. Another couple who traveled from the US in business class were in business class on this flight and the rest were in coach. We were served a hot meal with roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, salad, a roll and dessert - a bit much for a short morning flight. We took off along the coast of the Black Sea. When we were back over land it was largely agricultural. It looked very dry except for very green patches that were irrigated. After going through customs it was another hour bus ride to the Bucharest Marriott. There is a long tree-lined avenue into the city surrounded by parks and beautiful mansions - it would be interesting to know their history. After getting organized, we went for a walk to the old...

 The day got off to a good start with a drive under the Roman aqueduct and along the Roman city wall. The aqueduct was constructed in 373AD to supply water to the growing city of Constantinople, the seat of the Eastern Roman Empire under Constantine. Our tour guide joked that the Romans had taken care to make sure that the arches would be large enough to allow passage of buses. Along the way, our guide provided information on the development of the modern Turkish state. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is famous for the Ottoman success at the battle of Gallipoli in 1915 during WWI but the Ottomans were eventually defeated and since they had sided with Germany, were under English and French occupation - this was the beginning of the disaster in the Middle East when the borders of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine / Israel were defined without considering the history of the region. Ataturk was able to establish an army and drove out the British in 1923 and became president of the state of Tu...