Monday, Oct 9, 2023

Today it’s rise and shine at 7AM. We watch some lights of the city as it is dawn here at 7AM. Breakfast and on the buses by 9AM to visit the capitol of Serbia! We first visit the Fortress at the top of the hill. We learn about the ancient history of this area. Once a part of Yugoslavia, our Guide, Pavlo, tells us he is 34 years old and this is his birthplace. He has lived in 4 different countries in the same place during his life! He says he wants to die in Serbia and we get his drift!

We get some panoramic views from the fort and head back to the bus. Next we visit the Belgrade Temple. More amazing architecture both inside and out. We watch as patrons of the church come and go, digilently kissing all the alters. There is a lot of gold leaf and gold plating and the lights twinkle and shine!

Back on the bus we then visit a museum and mausoleum to an interesting dictator whom the people didn’t like but the government built a memorial to. Tito. I get some of the history of this dictator that murdered many people and it is a very poignant history. The interesting part is that our guide gets the museum to open just for us!

Then we go back to the ship and kick back for the afternoon. We turn down the opportunity to visit the places connected to Nicola Tesla who lived here. We are able to walk about town on our own but choose not to. We feel we have seen Belgrade, the “White City”. Originally called Beograd, Beo meaning ‘White’ and Grad meaning ‘City’. I do not understand why it is the White City, not much is white. Not like Amman Jordan where all the buildings are pretty much white marble and the city looks ‘White’ from a distance.

The internet is down on the ship and I have to wonder if it has something to do with our location. The general feeling we get here is that the people wish we weren’t here. It is sad and strange at the same time. We will be in Serbia again tomorrow so we will find out. In two days we will be in Bulgaria.

We have dinner and then it is upstairs to the lounge for a local dancers show that does not disappoint! Fun night in Belgrade!

See you all tomorrow!

Sunday, Oct 8, 2023 Vukovar to Osijek

We arise and have breakfast around 8 AM. At 9:30 AM we get on buses that take us into Vukovar, Croatia. We get off and walk around the city center. and our cameras are happy. A visit into a local church produces some fun photos! We see one of my nemesis restaurants and, against my best desires, I take a pic, LOL We take a short break and i try a local IPA. It’s just okay. But refreshing! We are making friends on the ship and another couple sits with us. Welcome Lee and Pam!

Shortly, we get back on the buses and head to Osijek about 20 minutes away. We tour the old armaments and other buildings and entertain our cameras!

After a tour of the old retired military armaments there, we then get dropped off at a private home where we meet the mother and daughter and they make us a fabulous lunch, consisting of salad, a rice dish and meatloaf made with local paprika. We are served a walnut liquor that is divine! I ask for the recipe to make it since I am currently making Brandy myself. She gives me the basic recipe and I am excited to try it when I get home! The meal is finished with a Apple Strudel and everyone is happy!

Back on the bus, we ride the hour or so back to the ship. I decide to stay on the ship and Elee joins a group that takes a hike to a local water tower with a view. She comes back with stories of climbing the tower with her bad knee! And scoring a glass of wine for the equivalent of $1.50! Then we have a local music group entertain us onboard with local music again!

We attend the itinerary meeting and then to dinner. After dinner we go to a show in the lounge where a local group of stringed instruments serenades us for an hour and a half and it is fun! Then it’s off to bed to refresh for tomorrow’s new day in Serbia!

See you then!

Sat., Oct 7, 2023 Kalocsa, Hungary

Today we arise for our first full day on the riverboat. 145 meters long and 9 meters wide. Interesting ship! Our Panorama Stateroom is on the 2 floor but the first floor above water. The side of the room that faces the water is a floor to ceiling window where the top half drops open to create a ‘Balcony’! We watch the sunrise as we leisurely cruise down the Danube. Breakfast is a buffet and very filling!

We take part in a morning trivia game and come in 3^rd Place with a Team we put together and we call ourselved “Dazed and Confused”. Fun general knowledge questions and we get 12 out of 20 to finish in 3^rd Place. 2^nd Place had 13 and 1^st had 14!

Then lunch is had as we arrive in Kalocsa. At 1:30, we board buses to go into town. We learn some history about this town of 15,000 people that used to be 30,000. But children grow and move away now and they didn’t a couple generations ago. After the tour of the town, we get back on the buses.

We travel to Pueszta in the Great Hungarian Plain and arrive at a horse ranch, Putsca, where we are treated to the exceptional equestrian skills of the Magyar Cowboys in classic costumes. Some really fun demonstrations as you will see in the photos! Then we take a wagon ride around the farm. After we purchase some Paprika as this is the home of the best Paprika in the World! We are in the Hungarian Paprika Capital! We buy Sweet, Savory and Spicy Paprika and I know our kitchen will thank us!

The wagon ride around the farm…

Back on the buses and we head back to the ship. An hour’s nap is refreshing! We go up on deck and play a game of Corn Hole! Neither of us wins, but fun and camaraderie is had by all!

On our time on top of the ship, we are passing under a bridge being built! Such an interesting thing to watch!

Then it’s off to the Daily Briefing where we learn about tomorrow’s excursion in Croatia! At dinner we are given a menu similar to last night where several options are offered on one page and the Chef’s Selection is on the second page! Like last night, we choose the Chef’s Selection! It is a 5 course delicious meal! We meet new friends that join us at our table and all is good conversation. We meet new friends from the UK and another couple from New York!

After dinner there is a “Name That Tune” game in the lounge but I am tired and choose to retire and write this Blog. See you all tomorrow!

Oct 06, 2023, Cruise starts today…

Today we arise a bit early and get packed up for we will leave this apartment behind and start our River Cruise tonight on Emerald Cruise Lines. We walk to the end of the block and buy coffee and gluten free apple pie pastries to bring back the the apartment for breakfast. Man, I hope I never have to go gluten free! While somewhat interesting, the gluten free aspect of dough and pastry has a weird texture!

But it fills the tummies and satiates us for the morning. We call a cab and find it surprisingly easy. Only 5 minutes later the cab is here! The driver takes us and our luggage to the ship and we turn it in even though it is not time to check in! The ship is on the Buda side of the river which we have not explored much as of yet.

We have 8 or more hours before we need to be on the ship. They have gladly taken our luggage so that is taken care of! We walk away from the ship and head for the heart of Buda. We buy a 24 hour Travel Pass for the city and it lets us ride trains, buses and all transportation for the day! We jump on the first train that shows up to find it doesn’t go where we want to go! But hey, this is an adventure, right? So we start trying to read the train maps and with not much luck, we jump on the next train to find it is not the right one either! Elee is more bothered by this than I am and I convince her to follow my sense of direction.

With some chatting with locals in the area, we find that we need to pay close attention to the number of each train which is hard to read in the bright sunlight! But it soon becomes a bit easier and we find the correct train! We are looking to arrive at the “Funicular”, a vertical train up the side of a hill to the Buda Castle.

Once we finally get to the Funicular, we cue up for tickets. The cue is about a hundred people long! A savvy Vendor selling tickets to an enhanced golf cart ride up instead of the Funicular sells us on a golf cart ride that includes a Hop On Hop Off feature at all the stops! And we know that the Castle and Palace are on steep hillsides so we go for it. As fun as a Funicular is, we have ridden Funiculars in many places around the world. So we opt for the easier walking routes!

I even find my own personal car! Check it out! I never do find out what it is!

The Castle, Palace, Cathedrals and even the Fisherman’s Bastion are sights for sore camera lenses and we have a blast, especially because we don’t have to wear out our legs as much! We put in almost 14,000 steps yesterday and todays total will be near 10,000. A good goal for every day of the week! At the Fisherman’s Bastion, there is a restaurant inside the stone structures where we sit and split a Toasted Goat Cheese Burger and a couple glasses of wine and look out and down on the city! The sights from the top of the hill are breathtaking!

We get back on the ‘Castle Bus’ and ride down to the bottom. We then ride a train tram for a mile or so along the river. We get off when the tram starts to turn in and up the hill of the city. We need to travel 2-3 more miles along the river to get to our Ship. We start walking with neither of us looking forward to an hour plus hike. But public transportation here is prevalent and cheap. So we call out at a bus stop, “Do you speak English?” And a young guy says, “I do!” (people here are all friendly and helpful) So we describe our dilemma and where we need to go and he explains to us that we need to take the 107 Bus and it will take us right by our ship! I look over and see a blue bus pulling up to the stop (that has ‘107’ on the marquee) and say, “Like That one?” And he says, “Yes, that one!”

So we jog for 5 seconds and jump on the bus. Sure enough, the bus takes us within walking distance of our ship! Bless that young man’s heart! We make it to the ship and concierge shows us to our room. We take a couple hour nap and then attend an orientation meeting on the ship! We have logged almost 10,000 steps today and are glad to be “home” for the next 8 days!

After the orientation meeting where the Captain and Crew introduce themselves along with the Cruise Director, we go to the Dining Room for dinner where we choose the Chef’s Recommendations for the meal and are not disappointed. We start to get to know our table mates for the evening, a couple from south of London and a couple from Colorado. Some Art Deco decorations in the stairwell catch my camera’s attention!

The ship tours up and down the Danube through Budapest and we get to see the infamous Parliament Building that we saw last night and all of the river sights again. What a great place to visit! The ship stops and we start to take on water. No, relax, not what you are thinking! We are taking on drinking water! We walk around the decks and marvel at the sights. Then we go into the lounge and meet back up with our dinner mates from Colorado and chat for a bit. But now it’s back to our room to wind down (and get this Blog written!)

Good night all! Tomorrow is coming soon!

Oct 5, 2023, Budapest

This morning, we get up around 9 AM after some much needed sleep. Elee has heard of a famous pastry shop called Gerbaud and we head out in search of it. We go the wrong way and stop to ask a few people and we still don’t find it. So I opt to activate my phone’s GPS (I have several days saved up on my phone plan) and it leads us straight to the place. So we have around 5000 steps in before breakfast!

I order bacon and eggs and Elee orders a custom layer cake that is decadent and delicious! We look up the local Hop On, Hop Off Bus and buy tickets online. We see there is a bus stop at St. Stevens Basilica and we walk there. It is a half mile away or around 8-10 minutes. The Basilica is fantastic and we buy tickets to go inside and even ride the elevators to the top! Maximum of 4 persons in the elevator!

I love plays on words and this is no exception! The elevators can only carry 4 persons at a time! As the sign says, “4 Smelly Persons”, LOL

We photograph the city from the top and marvel at the architecture of the city. It is simply stunning! we get back in line to ride the elevators down. There are two sets of elevators, the top set only takes 4 people at a time and the lower elevators take 6. So we cue up and make our way down and out. We inquire and are told where the Hop On Hop Off Bus stops and we make our way to that spot.

Our legs and feet thank us for the break and we ride around the city on the top, open air deck of the bus. We notice that this bus is very similar to the buses around different cities in the world and we are wise to stay seated! This city is the same as others in the fact that they trim the trees so these buses barely fit under them! At one point a branch even smacks me in the head! Keep your arms and body inside the bus at all times!

The bus mainly tours the Pest (pronounced Pesht) side of the river but eventually goes over a bridge to the Buda side for a while. Yes, you heard me correctly. How many of you knew that Budapest (pronounced Boo-da-pesht) is made up of two cities, Buda and Pest? And did you know the original city was called Pestbuda (Pesht-boo-da)? Interesting what you find out when you travel! We get many photos of different parts of both cities including daytime shots of the famous Parliament Building on the Pest side of the river. We are staying in an apartment about 8 blocks from Parliament, about a ten minute walk!

We get off the bus at the river and walk about a quarter mile to find the famous Shoe Memorial that remembers the 3,500 people, 800 of them Jews, who were shot into the Danube during the time of the Arrow Cross terror that occurred in late 1944 and early 1945, shortly before Russia liberated Hungary from the Nazis. The sculptor created sixty pairs of period-appropriate shoes out of iron. The shoes are attached to the stone embankment, and behind them lies a 40 meter long, 70 cm high stone bench. At three points are cast iron signs, with the following text in Hungarian, English, and Hebrew: “To the memory of the victims shot into the Danube by Arrow Cross militiamen in 1944–45”. People com along and put different flowers, flags, colored shoelaces and other decorations on them!

We walk from the shoes about 10 blocks to our apartment and lie down and rest for an hour or so. One and a half hours later we head out in search of dinner. Elee has spotted a specific restaurant she would like to check out and I put it into my GPS. 8 or 9 minutes later, the GPS says we have arrived. we are in front of a bank. We walk into another nearby restaurant and they direct us a couple blocks away. The place we are looking for is called ‘Corso’. What we are directed to is called ‘DomoCorso’. We figure it is one and the same so we get seated and have dinner. We are a little disappointed because the menu is not the same as what Elee saw online. But the food is good and there are a couple live musicians to entertain us and we enjoy!

We then walk across the street to the river Danube and we board a riverboat that was included in our Hop On Hop Off Bus from earlier in the day. So it is after dark and we get to take photos of the lit up buildings on the river! Including the famous Parliament Building that is so famously photographed! A narrator gives us background on the buildings and their significance to society.

As we are finishing our hour and a half tour, a full size River Boat comes powering up the river and we turn to take photos of it. Suddenly Elee exclaims, “Look, it is our cruise ship!”. Sure enough, it is the Emerald Sun, the ship we will board tomorrow for our 8 day River Cruise! We get several photos of the ship and our river tour ends.

We head back towards our apartment and agree to stop for a glass of wine. Suddenly, we find ourselves in front of ‘Corso’, the restaurant we looked for earlier! We check the menu and sure enough it is the one Elee saw on line! We get seated and decide to at least have a glass of wine here. Oh well, we’ll have to get a taste of Foie Gras somewhere else!

We take a couple selfie photos with the illuminated buildings in the background before arriving back at our apartment and turn in for the night.

See you all tomorrow!