Day 10-Vukovar, Croatia 8/26/10 We woke this morning docked in the city of Vukovar. Like most Americans, I don’t think I have ever heard of this town. But it was significant in the early days of the split up of Yugoslavia. As I mentioned in the previous blog, the communist leader Tito died in 1980. Over the next ten years Yugoslavia continued to exist but the old divisions grew each year. By 1989 some of the parts, like Slovenia, started to declare their independence. By now, Serbia was controlling the military and made it a mostly Serb army. Many Serbs were living in Croatia and when they started a move towards independence the military was ordered into the country to “protect” them. Only, it seems that it was only about power and control. Anyway, this little ... read more

Day 8-Sailing Day 8/24/10 Ditto on the weather. How long can this last? Today we sailed all day without stop. There were two river locks, known here as the Iron Gates, that we passed through. This, I guess was the technical highlight of the day. I missed the second as I chose to get a massage. We passed through the lock as I was getting my back rubbed down. I did not see a thing but Jackie said it was interesting as there was a large hydro power plant at the site and the lock bypassed the dam. The most scenic highlight was area known as Danube’s Gorges. These were impressive. We were also surprised to find their version of Mount Rushmore. I can’t remember who was the face carved into the mountain side but it ... read more

Day 6-Ruse, Bulgaria to the Black Sea 8/22/10 Today, another perfect weather day, was a road trip. We were bussed about 120 miles southeast to Varna, a seaside village on the Black Sea, a trip of 2.5 hours. We discovered that Bulgaria is a very agricultural country. The communist leader here was not as ruthless as Ceausescu was in Romania. As a result, he was not executed when communism was ended here. But there still remains many examples of the difficulties of their lives under communist rule. And the rule afterwards, which was led by many of the former communist leaders. There was also growing problems with the mafia. Examples include the shoddy housing built on the Soviet model of apartments. People still live in them although they appear to be collapsing. The average size for ... read more

Day 4-Royal Palace & Brasov 20 August 2010 Yet another perfect weather day. It is no wonder why this village was picked for summer get-a-ways from the heat in Bucharest. Before reporting on today, Jackie just reminded me to tell about the dogs. We were warned before arriving in Sinaia that there was no air conditioning in the hotel. But as nights were cool, it would be fine as you could just open the windows and get a cool breeze in the room. “You might hear some dogs during the night but nothing to worry about,” said our guide. If it troubled you then you could just close the windows. Right! On the first night we were still recovering from jet lag. So, while traveling in the bus we would nap. That meant that sleeping soundly ... read more

Day 2- Bucharest, Romania Another beautiful day. We have been fortunate with the weather. Let’s hope it stays that way. As you could see by our itinerary, we are seeing many of the Soviet Bloc or as they say here, Eastern Bloc countries on this vacation. We will not visit Russia but we will see the Soviet influence all around. We started today with a tour of Bucharest, capital of Romania with a population of 2.5 million. The ride yesterday from the airport came through many industrial areas and soviet-style housing and gave me a negative first impression. Today was much different. Yes, we saw many shocking housing units but we also got to see some of the post-communist development. But the most impressive sight of all was an incredible building that was undertaken by the ... read more