Today was sad as it was our last morning on the ship. We did our usual of eating early but then we came back and pushed our suitcases out into the hall. Around 8:30 we boarded our bus. The ship was docked in Giurgu, Romania but we were traveling to Bucharest. This was about an hour drive. The bus drove thru a bit of Giurgu and the got on the road to Bucharest. They did a bathroom stop at a filling station since there is nothing like a rest stop around here. Our guide told us a lot of Romanian history during the trip. The first thing Susan and I noticed was that we could read the signs again. We were back where they used the Latin letters, plus, we could understand a bit of the ... read more

We woke up in Vidin (Veeden) Bulgaria; actually, when we went to bed, we were already there. Guess what, we woke up early like we do every day and headed to breakfast right as it opened. Our tour didn’t start until 9am so we checked news and email then boarded the bus to the Belogradchik Rocks, one of the natural wonders of Bulgaria. Vidin is the poorest city in the EU and you could tell it. After the fall of communism, a ton of the factories in this area closed. We drove by factory after factory that looked like it was from an apocalyptic movie. They could surely film one here. Some factories looked like they had been agricultural based, others more manufacturing based and then others looked like office buildings. Wow. We then drove out ... read more

We woke up early again so that we could eat and join the tour for the day. Today’s tour was the Best of Belgrade. The ship is docked on the Sava River. The Sava joins the Danube in Belgrade which is why this area is so important and has be fought over for so many years. Cargo ships dock on the Danube while passenger ships dock on the Sava. The two rivers were both major water highways, plus there were several overland pathways connecting east and west; Belgrade was where all the action was. Last night we learned a little history of Belgrade and it turns out there have been 115 wars in the area over the last couple of thousand years. The city has been destroyed 44 times and rebuilt 45. In one 3-year period, ... read more

It wasn’t a good night for sleep there were AC problems plus emails and texts that came in from the East coast. The phone had to remain on for the alarm plus we wanted to make sure the kids arrived back in New York safely. We woke up and our ship was tied to another ship. Our window looked into the side of the other boat. We got ready and headed to breakfast. They had champagne, but I didn’t indulge this morning. The ship was docked in Kalocsa Hungry (pronounced - Ka low cha). We boarded the bus and headed out on our adventure. The bus trip took about 20 minutes and we passed several corn fields and fields full of sun flowers. KK, I thought of you. We arrived at the horse farm and they ... read more

Went downstairs to eat breakfast and there were 200 people in line. It pays to be gold. We went back upstairs to the executive lounge and had breakfast there, no wait, good food. After breakfast we went in search of the Viking representative and located them on floor -1. We told them we weren’t going on the included tour since we had done it last year, instead we asked them about the hop on/off tour. He explained we could get the tour along with the optional tour down the side of the mountain (where we were). We choose that option as I was NOT going to hike up and down this mountain. We met the electric car in old town and enjoyed our ride down the mountain. At the bottom we transferred to the hop on/off ... read more