Journey Through the Iron Gate

On Tuesday, we disembarked the cruise ship after breakfast and rode by bus to Bucharest, which took about 3 1/2 hours. Our ship had docked a little further away than planned due to low water levels of the Danube, which partly accounts for the long drive. The other reason for the long drive was very heavy traffic, which apparently is common in Bucharest. Our tour guide, Huana, told us that Bucharest is the 6th largest crowded city in the world. Romania is one of the largest countries in Europe by size. The population is 21 million. The language spoken here is Romanian and they use the same alphabet as us, rather than the cyrillic alphabet like Bulgaria. Romania is the only Latin country in southeast Europe, and is surrounded by Slavic countries (except for Hungary). Since Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal are also Latin, the Romanian language is very similar to those languages, especially Italian. The main religion is Orthodox. Romania is a former Communist country, ruled by  N...

On Monday, we took a 2 hour bus ride from the ship to the town of Veliko Turnovo. Our tour guide's name was Kremena. Kremena told us that she learned English from watching Dr. Phil and Judge Judy. She said her favorite Judge Judy phrase is "Beauty fades; dumb is forever." Along the way we drove through rural areas and little villages, with flat brown fields in the foreground and rolling foothills in the background. It was very nice scenery. Along the way, Kremena shared some history of Bulgaria with us. Bulgaria suffered a lot under Ottoman (Turkish) domination for many centuries. Then, in 1878, Russia fought with them against the Turks and liberated them. At that time, Bulgaria became a monarchy until 1944, when the Communists took over. Before the Ottoman domination, Bulgaria had been a monarchy. But during the centuries of domination, the monarch family line was lost. So when they became a monarchy again in 1878, they didn't have a king. So they invited a for...

On Saturday morning, Denise took a walk with the group to the nearby castle. Here are some of her pictures from that walk.

On Sunday, we took a 1 hour bus ride from our ship's dock in Vidin, Bulgaria to the Belogradchik Rocks and Fortress. Our bus driver's name was Georgia and our tour guide's name was Albania, and she quickly pointed out how both of their names are also names of countries. Along the way, we stopped at a [very] small town that had little more than a 4 star hotel, a schoolgirl, and a sign that said it was 176 km to Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. I think the schoolgirl needs a little explanation: it was a rock outcrop in the shape of what appeared to be a schoolgirl, knapsack and all. When I learned we were going to the Belogradchik Fortress, I thought oh, great, another fortress where we listen to narration of how the town built it to defend themselves against an attack - and another attack, and another attack, and.... But not so. This "fortress" was mostly natural rock surrounded by unbelievable scenery. The rocks consisted of limestone and conglomerates that, d...

On Saturday, we took the Journey through the Iron Gate! There were no stops or excursions planned for today. It was strictly to be a day of cruising and passing through some of the most beautiful scenery. We started off with idyllic scenes of the quiet countryside, occasional towns with the church steeple in the midst, and then we cruised into the area known as the Iron Gate. With the Carpathian Basin on one side and the Balkan Mountains on the other side, this part of the Danube River forms a spectacular narrow gorge. At one time, the river here was not passable. So the engineers came up with some kind of construction thingy (notice as the cruise goes on, my technical terminology gets more sophisticated), and now we have arguably the most beautiful passageway on the Danube River. With the gorgeous, warm, sunny weather, most of the passengers were on the sundeck for this portion of the cruise. On both sides of the ship were towering white limestone cliffs that majes...

On Friday, we started the day with a tour of Belgrade, Serbia. Our tour guide's name was Milan. The name Belgrade means "white city" and comes from the white limestone walls of the fort that was built to protect the city when it was founded. During the years, the area has been taken over by different groups, and has endured so many wars, that it is hard to remember it all. Serbia has a very complicated history. Our tour guide Milan has been a tour guide for 15 years. His father was a tour guide and his grandmother was a tour guide. Before being a tour guide, he sang for the Belgrade Opera for 16 years. He also has a PhD in Art History and is an Art History professor at a local school. Some of the facts Milan shared with us during the bus ride portion of the tour:  - Serbia was once attacked by Attila the Hun (not to be confused with Attila the Hungarian, our former bus driver)  - there is a large Russian influence here, and the Serbian language is very close to the ...