Safely home again

In Seattle, where 70 degrees means warm summer weather, and the Wednesday night regatta is about to begin on the lake.

What we thought was just normal Bucharest weather that was too hot and humid for our Northwest sensibilities turned out to be a genuine heat wave, that hit Romania before spreading north and west to places on the Danube where we shivered only a week or two ago. Some of us went out to explore Bucharest a little on Monday afternoon, but fled back to the air-conditioned hotel after less than an hour, taking advantage of every bit of shade we could find on the way (just as everyone else on the street was doing.)

When we arrived in Amsterdam, on Tuesday afternoon, we were delighted to find Holland cool and gray. Instead of trying to do the entire trip home in one long haul, we stayed a night at Schipol before catching the flight to Seattle today.


Luckily, the final tour excursion, on Monday morning, was to Snagov Lake north of Bucharest, where, after a drive through dense, cool woods, we took a 20-minute boat ride out to a small island. There a Romanian Orthodox monk cares for a church that was recently rebuilt on its own ruins. The late dictator Ceausescu destroyed the previous church, built himself a palace , and made the island off limits to everyone. Now the government has rebuilt the church, which is reputed to be the burial place of Vlad Tepes, otherwise known as Vlad the Impaler, or, yes, Vlad Dracul. Except for tourists, and a few of the faithful who come to the island for Sunday services, the monk has only his goats, his dogs and his flowers for company.


While the church is new, many of its lovely interior frescos were rescued from other old churches and brought together in this protected facility.

Bucharest at last!

A faithful reader e-mailed to ask if anything is wrong. She hasn't seen a new blog post in a couple of days. 

Nothing is wrong - it's just that we have been far from Internet cafés, dependent on the very slow shipboard connection just to get mail. 

For us the Danube ended yesterday, in Cernovoda. The port is a long way from the actual exit of the Danube into the Black Sea, but very few large boats venture into the Danube Delta.

So we loaded onto coaches for an hour and a half run to Constanta, on the edge of the Black Sea, where we could enjoy its blue color and saltwater smell. (The Danube is brown - all brown  - and in Cernovoda it is very slow and full of mysterious floating objects.)

Constanta, like so many of the places we visited along the Danube, was a Roman city for a long time (and a Greek one before that.) One of its most famous citizens in ancient times was the poet Ovid, exiled here for the crime of writing the Metamorphoses. The serious-looking statue was given to Constanta by the Italian government many years ago. (The other may have been inspired by Ovid's risqué verses - who knows?)

After Constanta we proceded to Mamaia, a fancy resort farther up the coast, where we were guests of a beachfront hotel for lunch and water access. This meant plastic lounge chairs under umbrellas advertising Coke or Ursus Beer, and masses of people baring as much flesh as you can imagine to the hot sun. On the whole, we were happy to be back at the ship, in plenty of time to get ready for the Captain's farewell reception and dinner.

This morning it was bags out by 8:15, load the coaches by 9:15, and drive to Bucharest, through miles and miles of wheat, sunflowers, and soybeans.

"This could be Kansas," someone said. 

Bucharest looks nothing like Kansas, unless Kansas has suddenly sprouted block after block of crumbling Soviet-era apartments. As you get closer into town, the apartments get a bit better looking, and there are occasional streets filled with large pre-war houses, in varying states of repair. 

Bucharest is booming. Since the blogger-in-chief was last here, in 2005, many new glass towers have appeared, and what is even more important is that many old public buildings are covered in scaffolding and plastic, being repaired at last.

"If you come back to Bucharest in a few years you will see many good changes," said the guide.

 

Here we are in Belgrade...

And it's warm, finally. We were happy this morning that a sprinkle of rain cooled the air quite a bit. I am happy that Belgrade possesses Internet cafes with English keyboards that let me access my e-mail. (And the towers even have a USB port, but unfortunately I've got no pictures with me to upload.)

Ever since arriving in Croatia (where we stayed in Vukovar, famous for being the first town destroyed in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s)we have been treated to varying explanations for just what caused the Former Yugoslavia to implode. In Croatia, the basic answer is: Serbia! In Serbia: many conspiracy theories, presented by people who speak impeccable English.

Especially in Belgrade one gets the feeling that no one has gotten over the Tito era, when a Yugoslav passport would take you almost anywhere and socialism worked reasonably well. Now Serbs, alone of all the other ex-Yugoslavs, have to get a visa for almost anywhere they want to travel, and the local joke about medical care is that it isn't free, it isn't medical, and they don't care.

We sail in and out of these places on a luxurious hotel ship on which we have 5-star accommodations no matter what the local situation. It's easy to feel a complete disconnect from the passing scene, even more than when you are traveling by local transport and staying in hotels.

Late yesterday afternoon we moored in Novi Sad, Serbia, and after dinner on the ship the customs permitted us to walk around the town a bit. We had to take passports with us (same thing today,) a sure way to feel you are in a different country.

There isn't quite so much football (soccer of course) madness here as we encountered last week. UEFA European championships are being played out all over Europe, and in Prague, Salzburg, and Vienna we ran into hordes of fans.

Vienna was particularly football-mad. In the shops we saw tortes decorated to look like soccer balls, and some entirely unexpected places (buildings along the Ringstrasse, for examle) had piles of soccer balls as decor. Most extreme things were the bushes in the Stadt Park, trimmed and tinted to look like soccer balls, and the giant cutouts of soccer players applied to the support beams of the huge ferris wheel in the Praterstern.

News from Budapest...

We did not mean to bring Seattle weather with us, but this morning we woke up in Budapest to cold rain. By the time we left to tour Pest by bus and Buda on foot, the rain was gone, but the cold continued until well after lunch.

Now it is a bit warmer, and the sun is out - more Seattle weather. Wear a jacket.

Today most of the passengers, the captain, the cruise director, the hotel manager and all three of the tour guides who have been with us since Prague left the Swiss Emerald. Now we are to have a Romanian captain (replacing our Dutch captain, who invited Nancy and me to share his table at the farewell dinner last night. That was fun.)

Ship sails between 6 and 7 tonight. It would be nice to have another day in Budapest, but we saw quite a lot. Now to go back to the ship to meet the 52 new passengers coming aboard...

Bratislava

And here we are, for another hour or so. Beautiful day, in contrast to yesterday in Vienna, when we nearly got blown off the streets. In spite of all that, we managed a good quick tour, seeing the Nachsmarkt, St. Stephen´s Cathedral, and, most important, managing lunch and a shared Sachertorte at the Cafe Sacher. Wonderful way to warm up.

Slovak keyboards are even more impenetrable than Austrian, and Blogger in chief just got kicked off her ISP when she tried the old familiar password. Alas.

Bratislava is very nice, all renovated within the past 10 years or so. Our very knowledgeable Slovak guide, a native of the city, caught us up on several hundred years of complicated Central European history, then led us through the Old Town on an excellent tour.

From here it is on to Budapest, where all but 36 passengers leave the ship. By Sunday night we will have many many new friends, as one of the tour guides said.

Visiting Wien

No pictures today, and possibly some odd spellings, because this is an Austrian keyboard. BIC (blogger-in-chief) has not worked one of these in a couple of years, and forgets almost all the time that y´s, z´s and apostrophes are in unusual places.)

We left summer behind in Linz, and found weather more like Seattle as we floated through the Wachau Valley. In Durnstein, "Pearl of the Wachau," we sheltered from a 4-alarm thunderstorm in a 17th-century church, hoping its tower, almost the highest point in town, would not become a target! Rain continued through the afternoon, and we were happy to be invited in a bit early to the wine restaurant where we were to taste several of the (justly famous) local wines.

Ship arrived in Vienna about 11 p.m. We are berthed across the Donau from the big UN complex of striking new buildings, and have at least one other riverboat tied to us. This means that our lobby becomes a corridor - slightly odd situation.

Tonight there is another entertainment in a palace, and tomorrow we have a free day in Vienna. Julie will try to be a good tour guide.

Linzertortes to everyone!

Or words to that effect. Blogger-in-chief is somewhat punchy today, having gone through all sorts of contortions to get onto the internet. Thanks to a helpful coffee shop worker, connection happened at last!

The word from internet land is FRUSTRATING. Connections are iffy - at best - on the boat. Last night in Linz I was able, finally, to read e-mail, but blogging is not possible. 

But enough complaints. One of our fans out there said we sound like two sorority sisters on a post-college trip to Europe, partying our way from here to there. No no no -- well, not all the time. Since joining the Tauck tour in Prague we have been to (1) one welcome reception (champagne); (2) one elegant dinner at a castle (champagne and wine from the castle owner's own vineyards); and (3) one "welcome aboard" reception on the Swiss Emerald (champagne and wine, of course!) 

In between we walk through interesting old cities, take lots of pictures, and become acquainted with our fellow passengers. Only 36 of this group plan to go all the way to the Black Sea - the others get off in Budapest.  

In Prague, we enjoyed a meal at a restaurant featuring Czech specialties, and Nancy indulged her craving for dumplings (they were in both the dinner and the dessert!) Fortunately, our tablemate was happy to share the dessert, as his menu choice didn't include one.

Next evening was the elegant evening at the castle, whose present prince was born and raised in Boston. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, he and some of his family returned to try to recover some of the properties confiscated in 1948. Thus far they have succeeded in getting back a number of their castles and the artwork that belongs in them - the particular treasure of this castle is a Rubens that hangs in a place of honor upstairs. 

The castle itself is Italian renaissance in style, and, fortunately for its present owners, was used as a regional museum until they were able to reclaim it. Now they recoup the money they spent on restoration by making it available as an event and conference center. After listening to "Prince Charming" outline the castle's history, we toured the public rooms with costumed guides, then sat down to a meal fit for royalty.

Next morning we got on three very comfortable buses and set off for Regensburg, Germany, where we met the boat at last. Not until we were on a walking tour of the city did we realize why its name sounds familiar - it is the home city of Pope Benedict.

(In spite of the post title, the picture is of the cathedral in Regensburg.)