Wednesday, August 5, 2026
We arose early, finished packing, and had our last delicious buffet breakfast at the Parisi Udvar. A car came to pick us up for the airport about 8 am. We got to the airport in plenty of time, a little before the Air Canada check-in desk opened (it wasn’t open at the time they asked us to arrive at the airport). After security, we sought out a lounge to wait in, but were told that we needed to pass through immigration first.
There was a huge line when we got to immigration. While we waited, they called out various flights that were about to leave and expedited those passengers through. We had a long wait, but were there early enough that we didn’t need expediting. It seems that the EU has new protocols for those leaving as well as those entering, and these aren’t running smoothly yet.
Our flight connected through Toronto, one of the Canadian cities where you clear US Customs before you get on the plane. I was wondering how the connection would work, but it was one of the easiest entries to the US we have experienced.
Epilogue:
Since returning, we have been reading a lot about the heat in Europe and the low water levels in the Danube. What we experienced was the result of a very significant drought and deviation from normal river conditions. The New York Times reported that many World War II vessels that had been scuttled by the Germans were becoming visible in the Danube. We didn’t see any, but the location they mentioned (Prahovo, Serbia) is just before the Iron Gates II lock that we passed through very early on July 30. Unfortunately, being nighttime, we missed the emerging vessels.
This is the final article in a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Today is our last full day in Budapest, and we used it to return to some of the places we had seen on our bus tour yesterday. We went north toward the Parliament and walked by a memorial along the river consisting of bronze shoes remembering the Jewish Hungarians that were lost in the Holocaust. We then continued to the Parliament building. Kenna had tried very hard to get tickets to tour the building, but was unable to book any. Still, the building is gorgeous from the outside and we got a good look at it.
We took the Metro to the city park and wandered through a castle there, stopping for a quick lunch at an outdoor beer garden. We continued through the House of Music and past the Ethnological Museum on the way back to the Metro.
We rode the Metro to the vicinity of the Hungarian National Museum. When we arrived, we saw that the temporary exhibition was “American Dream”. We began with this exhibition, which wasn’t quite what we initially thought: it described Hungarian migration to the United States.
We went through the permanent exhibits in somewhat reverse chronological order, beginning with the 1703 to 1990, followed by the founding of Hungary (roughly 1000) to 1703, and finally the pre-history, from 400000 BC to 804 AD. We got some insight into how Hungary, with its unique language and culture, ended up in the middle of Europe surrounded by Slavic, Romance, and Germanic nations.
Returning to the hotel, we had the idea to go find a club sandwich (somewhat of a tradition for us) for dinner. I found a nearby restaurant with outdoor seating where Kenna and I were able to share a sandwich and drinks, and from which to watch the passers-by. We returned to the hotel via some souvenir shops, and then packed for tomorrow’s voyage home.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Monday, August 3, 2026
The day started with a buffet breakfast in the hotel. We saw several people from our cruise and wished them well as they were mostly departing today.
It was very hot today, with a high in the upper 90s (about 37 C). We began by taking a “hop-on hop-off” city tour on one of those double-decker buses, which fortunately had a canopy over the top level so we weren’t sitting in the sun. We did most of one circuit of the tour without hopping off, which gave us a good overview of the city, including both Buda (the hilly city across the river from our hotel and Pest (where we spent most of our time). Throughout the tour, I was impressed by the architecture in Budapest. It seemed like every building had very detailed carving, often accompanied by statuary.
We got off the bus near the Chain Bridge, the oldest of Budapest’s bridges spanning the Danube. We walked across the bridge to the “0 km” marker, got overpriced Coke Zeros from a stand there, and walked back, getting a good view of Hungary’s Parliament buildings.
Kenna got us tickets to a 3:00 tour of the opera house, so we walked in that direction. A little short on time, we stopped for a quick late lunch of pizza nearby. The opera house itself was impressive. Apparently the architects were told by Franz Joseph, the Austro-Hungarian emperor, that it could not be larger than the opera house in Vienna. They complied with that but made up for it in decor. It seemed like every possible surface was decorated in some manner. Supposedly the emperor realized that he had specified the size but not the grandeur of the building. The tour ended with a short performance by two of the opera performers, which was amazing both musically and in volume.
After the opera, we made our way (through the heat) to a market building. Although many of the vendor stalls were closing, the food offerings there reflected the local cuisine. Hungarian food uses quite a bit of pepper, and red peppers reminiscent of New Mexico were prominently displayed.
We returned to the hotel to cool off a bit, then ventured out nearby and found a restaurant that offered Hungarian cuisine. Kenna had chicken paprika, and I had beef goulash. Both were quite good.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Sunday, August 2, 2026
We got up extra early this morning to put out our bags for collection, but then had ample time for breakfast and a bit of lounging before boarding our bus at 9:00. We expected that there would be plenty of space to spread out on the bus, but somehow we ended up in a seat surrounded by a family group that left us little room to move.
After driving for about two hours, we made a rest stop where I was surprised to find they had Dr. Pepper in the store. It’s not a common sight in Europe.
Because our group comprised four buses, we split up to try to minimize our time at immigration. Two buses took the more heavily traveled route through the border crossing at Szeged, Hungary, and our bus and one other took a more rural crossing near Subotica.
We arrived at the border around noon. We first needed to be “stamped out” of Serbia, which took a little while. We then needed to enter Hungary, which as part of the EU had more process associated with it: first a pre-screening where they looked at us and our passports with a small camera device, and then a second screening where we were “stamped in” to the EU. Three randomly selected passengers had their bags inspected. We also had to empty our pockets and pass through an airport-style screening device. I can’t understand the reason for this, because if there was anything we shouldn’t have been carrying, we could just leave it on the bus. We finally made it through the border at 2:30.
We were told that we would stop for lunch soon after entering Hungary. But it was almost two hours (i.e., 4:30 pm) before we stopped, in desperate need of a rest stop. We all wanted to make a brief stop and continue to Budapest. However, we were told that we needed to take our time to so all the buses didn’t arrive at the hotel together.
We finally arrived at our hotel, the Parisi Utvar Hotel in Budapest. The bus ahead of us was still emptying out, so we had to sit on our bus a little longer until it left. Kenna and I planned to stay a couple of extra days in Budapest, and are pleased that the hotel was able to combine our two reservations without having to change rooms. Otherwise we were exhausted and frustrated after almost nine hours on the road.
The hotel and our room are beautiful. We joined the rest of our tour group for a buffet dinner, which was much more food than we wanted after our late lunch. We returned to our room, unpacked a bit, and crashed.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Saturday, August 1, 2026
Today Kenna and I opted to take a bus trip to Novi Sad, the second largest city in Serbia. The bus ride was a bit over an hour. We began our visit at Petrovaradin Fortress, which provided excellent views of the city and nearby Danube.
We then proceeded into Novi Sad, and were led on a short walking tour of the downtown area. Like yesterday, it was a really hot day so we all sought shade wherever available. Novi Sad is a very attractive city, with a very pleasant downtown shopping district, many restaurants, and a variety of places for people of different faiths to worship, including Orthodox Christian, Catholic, and Jewish.
After our tour, we had a couple of hours on our own so we stopped at a local Serbian restaurant where we shared a šopska salad, another of my local favorites.
After the bus ride back to the AmaVerde, we opted to stay on board due to the heat rather than explore more of Belgrade. As this was the last night on the AmaVerde, we had a special cocktail reception honoring all the members of the crew, followed by dinner.
The Captain decided to do a special cruise later in the evening. We left our berth on the Sava River, cruised to the Danube and then west to the nearby town of Zemun and back. During this time, a Viking cruise ship left its berth allowing us to take its place in a more convenient location, especially with disembarkation happening tomorrow. The cruise was quite scenic, with the lights of Belgrade around us. We and many of the other passengers enjoyed the scenery from the Sun Deck.
The rest of the evening was taken up repacking our bags for disembarkation. We will have a short night, since we have been asked to have our bags ready for collection at 6:30 am.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Friday, July 31, 2026
Early this morning, the AmaVerde arrived at Belgrade, Serbia. I have been particularly anticipating our visit to Belgrade because I spent several weeks here in 1987, when it was still Yugoslavia, and have been interested in what might have changed.
In the morning, we took a guided tour of some of the highlights of Belgrade. We began at the Kalemegdan Fortress at the confluence of the Danube and Sava rivers, which was much the same as I remembered it. From there we went to the St. Sava Orthodox church, a very large and beautiful structure constructed since my previous visits. We also went to the Nikola Tesla museum, which had some beautifully preserved samples of early electrical instruments but was rather small. We were told that a larger museum is planned that will accommodate many more of his artifacts.
After lunch, Kenna and I set out on foot for downtown Belgrade. It was a very hot day, but we managed to walk down much of the city’s pedestrian (shopping) street, stopping at various shops along the way. We then walked through the “bohemian” zone, Skadarlija.
After a while we found Klub Knjizevnika (the “Writers’ Club”), which had been one of my favorite restaurants almost 40 years ago. It was about 3 pm and we weren’t really hungry, but after explaining my previous visits they welcomed us in and we had a snack consisting of a salad and a dessert. The Klub is said to be one of the best restaurants in Belgrade, and our snack was served very elegantly, including an amuse bouche to clear our palettes and some local bread. We ate in a very modern glass structure that had been recently constructed, and after our meal we were invited downstairs to the indoor dining area that I remember from before, which was much the same. It was a treat to take Kenna to this restaurant that she has heard so much about over the years.
We returned on foot to the AmaVerde after our snack (did I say it was very hot?), stopping along the way to pick up some souvenirs in the business district.
After-dinner entertainment was an energetic Serbian folklore performance by four young men and four young women who danced, whistled, and shouted. They were accompanied by an ensemble consisting of violin, accordion, clarinet, and drum.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Thursday, July 30, 2026
Today we set our clocks back one hour as we changed timezones. That’s a good thing, because it helped everyone get up early to watch us enter the largest lock system on the Danube, the Iron Gates, about 6:30 am. We had already gone through Iron Gates II, a sizable single lock, in the middle of the night. Iron Gates I is a double lock, meaning that we entered one lock, and after that one filled, we moved forward immediately into a second lock. The second lock then filled bringing us up to the level of the river upstream.
After passing through the lock system, we were in the Iron Gates Gorge. In sharp contrast to the fairly flat terrain surrounding the river downstream, this section of the Danube has tall, steep sides and was a very strategic location for many centuries. In addition to the natural beauty of the canyon, we passed by a large sculpture of the face of King Decebalus carved into the cliff.
During the afternoon, the AmaVerde arrived at Golubac Fortress, our first stop in Serbia, and docked there. At the west end of the gorge and close to one of the narrowest parts of the Danube, Golubac Fortress was used to collect tolls from vessels passing through in addition to its role defending ownership against attackers.
We walked through the fortress and viewed exhibits of various trebuchets and similar armament before having a little time to explore the fortress. Afterwards, we were treated to samples of local wines, cheeses, olives, and bread before returning to the ship.
During the evening cocktail reception, we were given more bad news: the ship could not continue to Novi Sad as planned. Instead, we would spend an extra day in Belgrade, and a side bus trip to Novi Sad (part of the original itinerary) would be offered on Saturday instead.
After-dinner entertainment was a professional theatrical singer with an amazing voice.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
Today we again have a morning somewhat at leisure, so Kenna and I ventured back into town in search of yogurt. We always like to check out a grocery store in countries we visit, and this was a good opportunity as we had heard a great deal about Bulgarian yogurt. Bulgaria has a unique yogurt culture it uses, and it is supposed to be very good. The grocery store is downstairs in the mall containing the souvenir shop we visited yesterday. While shopping for yogurt, we encountered several others from our ship on the same mission, so we were able to compare notes.
After returning to the ship and having lunch, we headed out for an afternoon tour to an ethnographic museum and a winery. The ethnographic museum had examples of traditional costumes, local porcelain, and armaments used in various conflicts. Our guide explained that the porcelain, in particular, was very precious during the Communist period in Bulgaria. People would save for years just to purchase a single piece.
A short bus ride took us to the Dos Alamos winery just outside town. Dos Alamos isn’t a very Bulgarian name, but signifies two poplars that were apparently on the property. We drank samples of their wine while the owner gave an introduction to his winery and some of the local traditions (festivals, etc.) surrounding their wine production. We sampled four of their wines, which Kenna and I enjoyed although we prefer more robust red wines.
After returning from the tour, we watched a short dance performance by some local youth (including our 19 year-old tour guide). We then got some bad news: because of very low water levels in the Danube, we would not be able to visit the Croatian city on our tour, Vukovar, and Mohács, Hungary, the last stop before Budapest. Instead, we would stop at Novi Sad, Serbia, and do some touring there. The following day we would need to take a bus to Budapest where we would stay in a hotel for the last night of our tour. Of course we were all disappointed but knew the water levels were outside everyone’s control.
We also passed a river cruise ship that had gone aground and from which all of the guests had to be evacuated by police boat. We later learned that the affected ship was the Viking Ullur, which had tried to approach Vidin to get supplies but was unable to do so. We were thankful for the skill of our Captain and that our ship didn’t experience the same thing.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Tuesday, July 28, 2026
Due to the quickly dropping water level in the Danube, we left immediately for the city of Vidin in northwest Bulgaria. We abandoned our planned initial stop in Ruse and arrived in Vidin about noon. As a result, we had a morning at leisure. Kenna did a core exercise class and she and I did a stretch class on the Sun Deck of the AmaVerde. Later in the morning our Cruise Director gave a talk on the plan for the rest of the cruise, particularly the parts of the itinerary that were affected by the change in departure port.
After lunch, we joined a walking tour of Vidin. Vidin is a small city, rather off the tourist track but with quite a bit to see. Led by a very knowledgeable 19 year-old tour guide, we walked to the ruins of a nearby fortress and explored it. We then walked to the city’s synagogue (really a Jewish community center currently) and learned about the thousands of Jews that were sheltered and saved from the Nazis by Bulgarians during World War II.
Following the tour, we visited a local Russian Orthodox cathedral, said to be the second largest in Bulgaria. It was a beautiful building, but under renovation. We were sorry that the scaffolding detracted from the exterior beauty of the building. On the way back to the AmaVerde, we stopped by a local souvenir shop for our usual collection of items from a new country: a flag for me, a pin for Kenna, and a postcard for our daughter Celeste. The proprietor of the shop spoke Bulgarian and Spanish (but no English) so we had fun making our purchases with our rudimentary Spanish.
Many of us on the ship spent time on the Sun Deck after dinner as there was a beautiful full moon rising over the river.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.
Monday, July 27, 2026
Today we board the ship for our Danube cruise, the AmaVerde. We were informed by email a couple of days ago that our itinerary has changed a bit. Due to low water on the Danube, our embarkation point was changed from Giurgiu to Turnu Măgurele, a bit further upstream. The ship also changed, from the AmaBella to the AmaVerde, but we were told they are sister ships and our accommodations will remain the same.
On the way to breakfast, we encountered a large group of high school kids from various countries wearing lanyards and badges. They told us that they are attending the International Linguistics Olympiad this week. They were all bright, friendly, and excited. We wished them good luck in their event. From looking at sample problems on the Olympiad website they will have a challenging week. I want to go back and try some of those problems myself.
After breakfast, Kenna and I took a short walking tour in a direction we hadn’t been before, including a Russian Orthodox Church with ornate onion-shaped domes. We then made our way to a nearby hotel in the Old Town that was the meeting point for our bus ride to the ship for our cruise.
The three-hour bus ride to Turnu Măgurele passed through agricultural areas, growing sunflowers, canola (out of season), and wheat (also out of season). It also passed through a significant large solar “farm”, and it was explained that Romania is generating a significant amount of their electricity from renewable sources such as solar.
Upon arriving at the AmaVerde just south of the town, we quickly boarded and were led to our cabin. We spent some time in the lounge and exploring the ship while waiting for later buses to arrive, followed by introductions of the cruise staff and the safety briefing.
Dinner followed in the ship’s restaurant. We sat next to a couple from Quebec who didn’t speak much English, but we hobbled by with our long-dormant high school French while they used their limited English and we had an enjoyable conversation.
This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.