Geo: 43.787, 22.9175Today has been a slow day. I was ready for it after almost nonstop touring in the heat. We have gone through the locks at the Iron Gate, built when Yugoslavia and Romania were living with terrible dictators. One positive thing they did manage to do was to build the locks making the river a much safer place to navigate. Philip has finally gotten back on the Internet to teach, after a full day of no access. The system is very slow here, but it does work off and on. I'll wait to upload blog entries until the service is better.... read more

Geo: 45.2622, 19.8519We had two tours today. The morning tour is included in the price of the cruise, but the afternoon tour is one of the few optional tours offered. Every day we will have one included tour, except on Thursday when we are cruising all day through the Iron Gates region, including the locks that will take us down over 100 feet in elevation. Not knowing what to expect in the former Yugoslavia, we found a fairly typical small Eastern European city with old Orthodox and Catholic churches, statues and memorials to historic figures, modern shopping, and hard-working people. Our guides talked about the history of the area and the Serbian people who have been under rule from outside for most of the last millennium. The morning tour included a panoramic drive around the city, ... read more

Geo: 47.4984, 19.0408This morning we caught up on email and Phil caught up on school work before we checked out of the hotel. Over the next week we will have Internet access from the riverboat, but I don't know how reliable it will be since we will be traveling through some remote areas of Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. After checking out, we took a cab to the Intercontinental Hotel which is the meeting point for our cruise. The Avalon hosts were there and invited us to join an afternoon tour planned for the sister ship, the Imagery, since we had time to go. The lobby area was full of bags for people on the Imagery, but our two bags were the only ones going to the Tranquility. They looked pretty lonely sitting there, but we ... read more

Geo: 51.5002, -0.126236Since it took such a long time to get to the hotel from the airport, we planned plenty of time to get back there this morning. We had a friendly driver who talked about some of the sights along the way, but mostly he talked about his family and what it is like to live in London—all very interesting to us. He is a "proper Cockney" and, although he was happy to pick us up in the West End this trip, he was really glad to hear that we had stayed in Hoxton on our last trip. That is very close to his childhood home. The driver asked where we were going next, and then asked if we knew the languages in those places. He told us that when he was in school most ... read more

Geo: 51.1297, 1.31114This was the longest day with the most sightseeing we have planned for the entire trip. We started with a full day tour to the southeast of London with stops at Leeds Castle, the white cliffs of Dover, the towns of Canterbury and Greenwich, and a river cruise back to London. We took a bus with about 25 other people, which turned out to be a nice size group. Leeds Castle was the first stop today. It has been called the loveliest castle in the world. The setting is beautiful and it has a long history, but most recently it was owned by an American heiress who restored it and willed it to the British people after her death. Our guide pointed out one portrait of three women and told us that those three ... read more