Danube River Cruising

The MS Amadagio is one of six almost identical ships Amawaterways uses on the main European rivers. It is 360 ft long and carries 150 passengers in 150 sq ft cabins and two larger suites.

Day 1: We arrived at the ship about 3:30 pm after spending the day touring the Hungarian countryside as part of the land package. The Amadagio left Budapest about 9:00pm sailing upstream instead of downstream toward Istanbul to treat the passengers to the nightly illumination of Budapest’s’ major monuments– the Palace on Capitol Hill, the Parliament building, the bridges over the Danube, and the Central City Parish Church. Just beyond the Parliament building, the Amadagio made a U-turn and began its trip down river toward Istanbul.

The cruise director and the daily info sheet reminded us to go up on the sun deck to best see the illuminated monuments, but this was also the best time to see the ship execute a U-turn, an unusual maneuver since, given its length, a river ship can make a tighter turn than a motorcycle by using its bow and stern thrusters, water jets that shoot out the sides of the ship at the front and back so the ship can rotate on its central axis– it stands in place and reverses direction.

Day 2: The first stop after leaving Budapest was at Mohacs, Hungary, with a morning half day bus tour to the Hungarian city of Pecs (pronounced something like pehsh or paysh or half way between them). Pecs is, at least for us, one of those rare places you sometimes come across when traveling that you never heard of that knocks your socks off when you see it. Pecs has a well preserved airy Baroque old town with two mosques still standing from the 150 years that Hungary was part of the Ottoman Empire and an impressive town square. Don’t miss the town square, the cathedral quarter, and a walk down the pedestrian street, Kiraly Ut.

After lunch on the ship, a number of passengers opted out of the afternoon bus trip to a wine tasting in Vilany, Hungary’s’s major wine producing area. All those who opted out seemed to do so for the same reason– been to so many wine tasting, it had become boring. So we who stayed behind explored the port town of Mohacs. Not much to see, but for that reason it gave us a glimpse at Hungarian life away from the tourist centers.

Day 3: Vukovar, Croatia, was a major casualty in the Bosnia War(1990). The town still shows war damage– burned out buildings and shot up walls of houses. The bus tour went a short way out of town to the impressively sober monument to some 300 citizens– many dragged out of the hospital– of Vukovar who were murdered by Serbian troops in nearby field. During lunch on the Amadagio, we sailed from Vukovar to Novi Sad, Serbia, for a 11/2 hour walking tour of the old town and pedestrian street just before dinner. There are no great sights in Novi Sad, just a pleasant example of a small Danube town. The most impressive feature of Novi Sad was the interior of the church on the main square.

Day 4 found us docked in Belgrade, capital city of Serbia, former Capitol of Yugoslavia, and home to the tomb of the independent Communist dictator, Tito. Belgrade is easily one of the least interesting cities in Europe. Forget it, because you will.

Day 5 was the one day of full time river cruising as the Amadagio sailed through the scenic Iron Gates, a gorge separating Serbia and Romania. Romania’s answer to Mt. Rushmore is the giant depiction of the head of Dacian King Decebalus. Also of interest was the monument set up by the Roman Emperor Trajan in the first century A.D. to mark the completion of the Roman road along the banks of the Danube through the Iron Gates.

Day 6 found us docked at Vidin, Bulgaria, a modest sized City on the Danube. As the day’s tour did not take us walking through Vidin, I took advantage of an hour before breakfast to visit the slowly awakening City center. The impression was much like Novi Sad– no striking sights, but an interesting look at life in the Balkans, the poorest corner of Europe. Today’s 4½ hour bus and walking tour was described as a visit to two old forts. Not very promising sounding, but it turned out to be very interesting. Our bus first took a circuitous route through Vidin so we could see some of the city and stopped at Baba Vida, a remarkably well preserved Mediaeval fortress complete with a moat that had water in it thanks to the recent rains. Baba Vida was located just a few blocks down the river bank from the Amadagio. We were treated(or perhaps subjected to) to a short historical pageant on Bulgarian history, most of which I wisely skipped to use the time to explore the old fort.

Note on souvenirs: fancy embroidery and lace work is characteristic of Balkan folk arts, and is offered for sale by many sidewalk vendors and shops. We bought some embroidered bookmarks at a stall in Baba Vida, paying about half the price we saw the bookmarks going for in other cities– shop here.

The "theater" was set up between the walls and the keep. On leaving the theater, we passed through the walls of the keep into the inner courtyard of the fort where there were several open doors in the surrounding buildings. Be sure to look inside each of these open doors, for it is a modest but interesting museum.

From Baba Vida we traveled by bus into the Balkan Mountains to the Bulgarian resort city Belogradchik to visit the Roman fort constructed in the mountians above the city. Our first stop was for refreshments(included in the tour price) and a restroom break a the town’s best hotel whose terrace offered an impressive view of the surrounding scenery. Then back on the bus and up to the Roman (later expanded by the Turks) fort for about an hour of exploration and then back to the Amadagio for lunch an sailing on to the next stop.

Day 6: We boarded the busses in Giurgiu, Romania, for a 10 hour trip to Bucharest. On arrival in Bucharest, we stopped at a mall for a restroom break, then drove through the city to the Parliament building, the secondlargest office building in the world and an interesting tour through Communist Dictator Ceausescu’s $6 billion monument to himself. Following the visit to Parliament, we bussed to the largest park in Bucharest for lunch at restaurant overlooking a lake. After lunch, we drove around the lake to the Village Museum, an interesting outdoor collection of old farm houses and rural churches. Could have used another half hour to have been able to conduct a whirlwind tour of the whole museum.

Back on board the Amadagio, we had the oddest sail of the trip, a 20 minute passage across the Danube to Rousse, Bulgaria, directly across the river. After a last night onboard and the "Captains Dinner"– that means five courses instead of four at dinner– we boarded buses for a two day bustrip to Istanbul. Passengers taking the cruises only headed for Bucharest to fly home.

The lower Danube is very big river, with few bridges over it below Hungary. Consequently, the last day of our river cruise was a rather oddtrip. On the second o the last night on the ship, we docked at in Romania to get set up for an all bust trip to Bucharest the next day. Upon returning to the ship around 5:30pm, we set sail for about 20 minutes to go across the Danube to Rousse, Bulgaria on the opposite shore where we docked for the night.

Our bus left the Danube at 8:00am. Late in the morning we arrived in Veliko Tarnovo, once the capital of Bulgaria for some 300 years. Veliko Tarnovo has an impressive setting on steep hills overlooking the RiverYantra. Our first stop in Veliko Tarnovo was at a hotel overlooking the City across the river, just opposite on end of the ancient fort where we had morning refreshments.

Then we drove through Veliko Tarnovo to the entrance of the ancient citadel but had only time for brief visit, nowhere near long enough to explore the remains of this ancient capital of Bulgaria(we made it across the entrance road from which there are good views of the fortress).

Following this all to brief stop at the ancient citadel, we went for lunch at one of the leading hotels in Veliko Tarnovo where the attractive lunch room had a scenic view high up on the hill overlooking the river valley.

After lunch we had some free time to explore the artisans street, a street of attractive mostly 18th Century Bulgarian buildings whose style was influenced by the Ottoman Era that housed upscale souvenir shops– and crafted pottery, paintings, a blacksmith making small tinned copper items, and various items of clothing, able cloths, and other fabric works.

From Veliko Tarnovo we climbed to a pass in the Balkan Mountains. At the top of he pass, we stopped for a snack– hot tea or coffee and local cookies– at the site of famous battle victory against the Turks, marked by a monument atop the hill across the road which was alternately visible or invisible in the swirling mists.

We descended the Balkan Range into the Valley of the Roses, a thriving farming area devoted to raising roses for rose oil. One on the valley floor, the snow capped Balkan Range, which rises suddenly on the east side of the valley was far more impressive than when approached from the east side of the mountians. Another, lower range of mountians marks the west side of the valley. The ancient villages and prosperous farms set against the backdrop of he striking mountians made for a scenic drive up the valley until the road to Plovdiv branched off to the west. I wish we had had more time in Plovdiv, an ancient Roman town sett on three hills, for There clearly was a lot to explore. We arrived at the Dedeman Trimontium Princess Hotel about 5:00pm, with dinner at 7:30pm–not much time to visit such an interesting place, especaily after a room booking screw up at the hotel took almost an hour to resolve (see Plovdivreview).

Next morning our bus left for Istanbul at an uncivilized 8:00am. About 11:00 am, we reached the Bulgarian-Turkish border. This was the first time we had ever crossed a border in Europe that was not part of the Shengen Group by bus. It is not recommended. It took about two hours and our guide seemed pleased with that.

While there is an exact border, border stations usually have no man’s land between the official departure point from one country and theofficial entry into the next one. While our trip director took care ofthe lengthy formalities, the 100 or so of us on three buses went into the border plaza in no-man’s-land for a break, and the all importantrestaurant visit. Here we met our first Turkish scam. There would more in Istanbul. The toilet fee was one Turkish Lyra or 0.5Euros– about 75 cents, about the official exchange rates. As we had been in no Euronations and were just entering Turkey, nobody had Turkish Lyras and only a few had some Euros. No problem, there was an attendant at the door to supposedly made change. People gave him a dollar. He waved them through, no change. One lady gave him a 2 Euro coin. He waved her through, no change. It took a while for our mob of 100 people or so to enter the restroom, and at one point, management came by, so what was happening, lectured the attendant and stood there for about five minutes to see that change was being given. As soon as management left, no more change was given.

Upon finally crossing into Turkey, we stopped again to leave our Bulgarian buses and board Turkish buses. Each bus also got a new, Turkish local guide. A few minutes further down the road, we stopped for lunch at the town of Edirne. Unfortunately, the restaurant where we ate was well out in the outskirts and we had no chance for a first exploration of an old Turkish city ( as we drove through the town, we caught glimpses of an impressive Mosque on a hill in the center of town), only a fairly modern suburb.

Back on the bus for the final 2-3 hours of our trip into Istanbul, the sights seen from the bus got more interesting about an hour outside the city center when the highway began to skirt the shore of the Sea of Marmara (factoid: Istanbul is not on the Mediterranean or Black Sea. It lies on the shores of the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Golden Horn, a bay of the Bosporus.). The suburbs of Istanbul that line the expressway to Bulgaria for miles outside the city center looked fairly attractive, With much nice modern architecture overlooking views of the sea with Mosques scattered here and there.

We could say we officially entered old Istanbul when the highway ran under the ancient Roman Aqueduct that used to bring water to the city. Our local guide commented on the foresight of the Romans in realizing 2,000 years ago just how wide they should build the arches supporting the aqueduct so that 21st Century traffic could pass through, one vehicle traveling in each direction, at a time.A note on modes of travel. We started traveling in Europe about 40 years ago and have since taken about 40 European vacations. This trip was the first on which we over took an overnight bus tour. It lived up to all our expectations as to why one should not travel by bus: 1] the fixed time schedule means your are stuck looking at things you prefer to avoid andare often rushed away from things you want to explore in more depth; 2] there is a lot of dead time in waiting for laggards to get on the bus or for time wasters like two hours to clear customs. ON the plus side, the tour did take us to interesting places and often it is easier to sightsee out the widows of bus than when you are driving. All in all, I far preferto travel overland by car.

Restaurant CINAR

Elm Path Between Two Bridges (Nightingale Island) No: 13 Karaag aç Mh

Our 14 day almost all inclusive tour with AMA Waterways included three different types of meals– included were three (or six if you counted the between meal snacks served) meals a day on the ship while on the cruise,all meals on the two day trip between the Danube River and Istanbul, and breakfast buffets at the hotels in Budapest and Istanbul. Lunches and dinners in Budapest and Istanbul were on our own. As there were 90 to 130 people to feed each meal, the bus trip meals and shipboard meals were all mass feedings. Hands down, AMA Waterways shipboard food was the run away winner in the mass feedings, followed in quality by the restaurants we selected on our own. The bus trip meals were mostly straight from the rubber chicken circuit.

The nine meals we ate in Turkey revealed that Turkish food falls into two categories. First, there are the uniquely Turkish dishes, which were the mezes and meat courses. The rest of the meal– salad and vegetables-- were pretty much like their traditional American counterparts and that is not a compliment.

Our first Turkish meal was lunch in the border town of Edirne, close by the interminable wait to cross the border. Lunch started with a small salad of so-so greens topped with a nicely flavored vinaigrette. Next came a decent bowl of tomato soup reminiscent of Campbell’s from the can. There were two offerings for the main course: chicken kebobs or grilled meatballs, sometimes called meatball kebobs. There was choice of rice or potatoes for the side with the main course. We opted for the chicken kebobs which had a nice spice flavor but were over cooked– stringy and dried out meat. In retrospect, having eaten meatballs and chicken kebobs at several restaurants in Istanbul after our lunch in Edirne, I would have chosen the meatballs because they are a more interesting dish. The kebobs were accompanied by very good mashed potatoes and a so-so butnicely flavored mousakka (eggplant and tomatoes cooked to a near mush). In general, Turkish potatoes were quite nice and superior to Simplot’scurse, our ubiquitous Burbank russet (baking) potato. Desert was an apple.

A basket of decent bread and bottled water were on the table. Other drinks were not included in the tour price. The daily trip schedule AMA Waterways handed out noted "Other beverages must be purchased and are expensive: beer $5 for example". We found that beer and wine were very expensive in Turkey, thanks to the Muslim religious fanatics who run Turkey’s government. They set out to discourage drinking alcohol by raising taxes into the stratosphere. They succeeded. We passed on the wine list where the cheapest bottle was $26or more on every wine list we looked at, price gouging by government I’ve only seen equaled by Utah’s religious Mormon fanatics who share a hatred of alcohol with Osama bin Laden and other Muslin fanatics like Turkey’s government.

Keep in mind that if you order an alcoholic beverage, you will supporting these religious fanatics because most of the money goes to taxes, not to restaurant or brewery. For that reason, we bought no booze in Turkey. All in all, an OK meal but nothing special. The ambiance was typical of a small town western café in the USA, which is to say there wasn’t any, although there was a pleasant small garden out the back door of the dinning room that looked like a nice setting. Some of the ladies complained about the squat toilet on the main floor of the restaurant where our dinning room was located, but others who made the trip upstairs to avoid the line at the squat toilet said they found a satisfactory western style restroom.

Service was pretty good for a mass feed. My guess is that this place was a fairly typical example of a native dinning spot because Edirne didn’t seem to be a tourist hot spot. So, if you find yourself in Edirne and you feel like going native for a meal, this place is probably a good bet. There is a web site in Turkish, which Google will translate. See Google maps for location.

Two days in Istanbul is barley enough time to see the major sights and explore Turkish cuisine, but two days is better than no days. Although it has an impressive setting spreading across several hills on two continents straddling the Bosporus between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara (technically, Istanbul is not on the Mediterranean Sea but on the Sea of Marmara), I didn’t find old Istanbul to be an attractive city. However, it’s monumental sights– the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, the Harem in Topkapi Palace, and the mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent which dominates the skyline of the old city– should be on everyone’s do not miss list.

Western history is dominated by the great Empires of the Western World. The Egyptian Empire lasted 4,000 years. Rome lasted 1,600 years. Austria and the Ottoman Empires lasted 800 years. The British Empire, a mere 200 years, and the American Empire, about 100 so far. The dominant role these empires played throughout history makes their capital cites– Thebes (Luxor), Rome, Istanbul, Vienna, London, and Washington, DC-- the most important cites in history. Istanbul is doubly important, being the capitol of modern Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, and of the Roman Empire for a longer time than was Rome. Along with their historical, military, and political importance, the flow of wealth from the hinterland to these capitols made each of these cities the cultural wonders of their time.  Of these great capitals, London, Washington, DC, and Vienna retain the appearance of their heyday. So does what’s left of Thebes, but 6,000 years takes a toll. Rome and Istanbul suffer from the ravages of the more recent past– the destruction and rebuilding of the cites since their greatest days. All in all, Rome has fared better than Istanbul.  The capital of the Roman Empire for 1,000 years, Roman artifacts in modern Istanbul are limited– a section of aqueduct, the cisterns–underground water storage for the Roman city– parts of the city wall, a couple monuments in the Hippodrome, and the most impressive, the Hagia Sofia.

Visitors today are rightly impressed by the vast Topkapi Palace, but the palace of the Roman Emperor Constantine was vast compared to the Topkapi Palace. Our cruise on the lower Danube included three nights in Istanbul and two half day tours of the city. The highlight of the first tour was the visit to the Blue Mosque. The second tour went to Topkapi Palace. These were both morning trips. Optional afternoon tours were offered at additional expense. Think seriously about buying optional tours, for you can almost always do it yourself for much less. For example, one afternoon tour went the Hagia Sofia and the Spice Bazar. It cost $39, a low price compared to most optional tours. I did the same trip for $2.10 tram fare and the $14admission charge to Hagia Sofia, less than half the cost of the optional tour.

Istanbul’s great sights:

1] Hagia Sofia is improperly translated as St. Sofia Church. "Hagia Sofia" means ‘Divine Wisdom.’ It is truly, as the Eyewitness Guide puts it, "one of the world’s great feats of architecture." Built in 537 AD, Hagia Sofia is still with us in more or less its original state. Hagia Sofia impresses the visitor with its age, its size, and art. The dome rises 184 ft. above the floor. To call Hagia Sofia vast is an understatement. Hagia Sofia was the world’s largest building from the year 537 until St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome was completed, some 1,000 years later. The thing is so big that the Sultan Mahmut I built his private library inside Hagia Sofia and it is barely noticeable. Do not miss exploring the galleries which run around three sides of Hagia Sofia about 1/3 the way up to the ceiling. The galleries go around three sides of the church. The center of the rear gallery is where the Empress of Rome sat for services. Note that as early as the 6th Century AD, the Christian Church had relegated women to an inferior status– the Emperor sat on the main floor– and that discrimination carries over into modern Islam, as you can see in the Mosques of Istanbul where there is a section in the rear of the mosque blocked off by a balustrade which is where the women must pray while the men get to go out on the main floor of the mosque. Such was the power of Rome.

2] Topkapi Palace is a huge thing, surrounding four courtyards. The guidebooks correctly say it takes at least a full day to see all there is to see in Topkapi. We had three hours, which was enough to see the highlights. Hands down, the star of the show, if not the star of Istanbul, is the Harem (pronounced hah-reem), which, our guide said,translates best as ‘home’. The harem was where the Sultan, his mother, and his wives and children lived.

The Treasury Museum, which contains the famous jewel encrusted dagger that was the target of the thieves in the Movie "Topkapi" is on display here. I found the costume museum to be of only moderate interest. There were several other museums we did not have time to visit. Upon entering the Second (of four) Courtyard, take the path branching offat about 11:00 o’clock. The building with two doorways on the left is the Divan, the chambers where the Sultan’s advisors met. The Divan is grandly decorated. Note the gold screen in the upper part of the rear wall of the room closest to the entrance to the Second Courtyard. Behind this screenis where the Sultan could listen in on the discussion of the advisors, which he did not attend. After the advisors reached a decision, the Grand Vizier would meet with the Sultan in the Throne Room, directly opposite the gateway inside the Third Courtyard, to inform the Sultan of the advice of his counselors. Compared to the Divan, the Throne Room is rather modest.

3] The Blue Mosque, built in 1609, stands directly across a small park from Hagia Sofia (Topkapi Palace is behind Hagia Sofia). The exterior of the Blue Mosque is impressive. The interior, covered almost wall to wall and floor to ceiling with ceramic tiles is spectacular. The electric lights hanging from the dome spoil the scene.  An interesting contrast to the splendid Islamic facilities in Istanbul is the sorry state of the small brick compound that is the Vatican equivalent of the Orthodox Church, the home of the Orthodox Patriarch.

4] The city walls. The Roman builders of Byzantium Constantinople ringed the city with walls. The land wall, about four miles long is in impressive condition, including one intact city gate from the Roman era.  The Sea Wall is only found in spotty remains, but a trip around the Roman periphery of the City is most impressive.

5] There is a spectacular view of one of the Roman aqueducts that brought water to the city where it crosses the highway to the airport. For the dry season, water brought in by the aqueducts during the rainy season was stored in underground cisterns, several of which can be visited today.

6] The Cisterns. The Basilica Cistern is the largest of the three Roman underground water storage facilities open to visitors. The roof of this man made underground lake is supported by 336 columns. The most impressive cistern is the Cistern of 1001 Columns (in fact, there are 264 columns, but their colorful marble columns make them the winner.) A famous scene in a James Bond movie took place in the Cistern of 1001 Columns. The first two cisterns have a fee. The much smaller third cistern, located in the basement of rug store, is free to visit.

7] The Other Palaces. The Sultans built a number of palaces in Istanbul which we did not have time to visit. Of these, Dolmabahce Palace is byall accounts the winner. The Dolmabahce Palace has spectacular facade on the Bosporus which can only be seen from the water.

8] The other Mosques. I visited a couple other mosques, but, the Blue Mosque is such a triumph that the others are but pale imitations. If you want to be impressed by a bunch of mosques, save the Blue Mosque for last. If time is short, see the Blue Mosque and forget the rest.

9] The Grand Bazar and the Spice Bazar. We didn’t have time for the Grand Bazar, but I did pay a brief visit to the 17tth Century Spice Bazar. It is old and it is packed with people, beyond crowded. I don’t like crowds(except in Prague where I don’t mind them), so my visit lasted about three minutes. I was not impressed.

10] The view of the Istanbul skyline from the Galata Bridge is one of the world’s greatest cityscapes. Because of the angle of the sun, it is a must see in the morning, never in the late afternoon.

Except for the city wall and the Roman aqueduct, all these sights are easily accessible from Istanbul’s very modern tram line.