Wi Fi is back. 19th - 23rd June

Thursday 19^th June

It wasn’t raining early on this morning, but, it didn’t take too long for it to start, just after breakfast actually. It rained persistently all day, but luckily we were in the bus a lot of the time, so didn’t get too wet. We had another tour around the City but saw some different things this time. The City of Bucharest is so big and chocked with traffic, it often takes a long while to get anywhere, especially when it rains. We stopped at another Christian Orthodox Church which had paintings all over the ceiling and walls, this place a different style of paintings to the Church of the Nativity which we saw in Bulgaria. This Church actually had some paintings of the King and Queen and the communist ruler, as opposed to being all of a Biblical nature. We then visited the Art Gallery, which was very nice if you are interested in the many paintings and sculptures therein.

Around 1:50 we boarded the buses to take the trip to Fetesti where we were to board the River Boat. That trip took 2 ½ hours in the pouring rain, but we made it to the meeting place okay. The town of Fetesti is a rather run down place, no tarred roads and sad looking people. Boarding the ship, we were shown to our room. Our room is on the 2^nd floor and has a floor to ceiling double sliding window, so views are great from here. The room is a similar size to the Cruise Ships just a different configuration. Once the obligatory safety lesson was over, and all the crew had been introduced, we got a bit more information as to what to expect on the boat. Then it was time to unpack and get ready for dinner.  The dinner was held in the Restaurant downstairs and was very nice, lots of choices on the Menu.  There are 114 passengers on the boat and I suspect the number of Aussies outnumber any other group. There are a few Kiwi’s, Canadians, Americans, Poms and a couple from Mexico and another couple from Chile. Have met quite a few of the other passengers so far, but remembering everyone’s name is the challenge. It turns out that only 39 passengers are going the whole way to Amsterdam. The rest are getting off in Vienna and more passengers are getting on there.

Friday 20^th  June

We arrived in a small town of St Gheorghe around 7 am this morning. Unfortunately, it’s raining again/still. However, after breakfast it did stop long enough for half of the passengers to go for a small boat ride up the Danube Delta.  We nearly chickened out, but decided at the last minute to go, and we were pleased we did.  It was a nice trip, not unlike going up the corridors of the Everglades, only these passages were wider and the boats not as fast. The rain held off until the last 5 minutes, so that was good.  We saw, and heard, lots of different species of bird life whilst up the Delta, and we noticed that the Pelicans here don’t seem quite as big as ours in Oz.  We did go for a walk around the small (muddy) town, but that didn’t take too long. If we look out the back of the boat from where we are docked, we can see the Black Sea in the distance. That’s as close as we get I think. We are setting off again at midday. We did travel downstream a ways and stopped just before the Black Sea, so we were ‘that close’. The rain eased off as we approached a rather biggish town called Tulcea. There seemed to be a lot of barges and dredges around here. Most of the places we’ve seen along the river so far appear to be rather run down and deserted.

Saturday 21^st June

Today we docked in a town on the Black Sea-Danube Canal, called Cernavoda. This town appears to be another place where pride in one’s house is not a priority. They do however have a working Nuclear Plant on the edge of this town. This Canal reduces the former route from 400 km  to just 64kms, and is 64.2 kms long. We chose the ½ day tour to Constanta which is situated on the edge of the Black Sea about 1 hours drive from Cernavoda. The City of Constanta is making an effort to smarten itself up but there are lots of old disused and dilapidated buildings around. Apparently the Communists commandeered a lot of these buildings and now the original owners are either deceased or have no funds to restore the places, so they don’t claim them back. Whilst most of the group were in the Folk Art Museum, we walked all around the old town nearby. We paid a visit to the Sts Peter and Paul Christian Orthodox Church which had many colourful religious murals painted all over the walls and ceilings. We then proceeded to the Old Casino which sits on the edge of the Black Sea itself.  Quite a grand old Building in its day, but after 100 or so years, is showing its age.

Once back at the ship, we had lunch and then decided to walk into the town of Cernavoda. To our surprise the center of the town was quite attractive.  They had a wide, long pedestrian walkway going right through the middle of town with a quite nice park running parallel to this. We were glad we had taken the time to go and see this part of the town as it wasn’t as run down as the edges of town were.

Sunday 22^nd June

We have arrived in Ruse (Bulgaria) this morning.  This place is a major Danube Port and is the busiest place we have seen so far along the River. Our tour today was a ½ day trip into the town Center.  We drove all around the town at first, then stopped and went walking.  Our first stop was to The Church of the Trinity, another Christian Orthodox Church. Something like 81% of Romanians and Bulgarians are of this religion. There was a service being held when we arrived but we were able to enter. As with most of these Churches, the walls and ceilings are covered with religious icons. The choir were singing and the harmonious sounds were delightful. From here we walked to the Opera House, then on to the gardens/square in the center of town (Plostad Svoboda). This square is dominated by a massive Freedom Monument and numerous pedestrian walkways  fan out in all directions from this point. There were also a few nice fountains and monuments, and many families out enjoying the sunshine. This was great to see after all the downtrodden places we had seen in Romania and Bulgaria. Bulgaria has had a lot of rain this past week and there were floods in some areas which resulted in 11 people being killed at this time. Tomorrow has been declared a day of mourning in Bulgaria.

Still no internet or WiFi access, we’re hoping for some improvement in that situation within the next couple of days.

Monday 23^rd June

Still no internet or WIFI!  Today has been a ‘rest’ day for the most part.  We spent some time up on the Sun Deck watching the passing River trade and seeing some of the small towns along the way. Have to say the scenery is a little more interesting at the moment. We still have Bulgaria on the left of us and Romania on the right. We did stop off at a small settlement called Cetate which is right on the banks of the River, this afternoon. The fellow running this place is an artist, sculpture, TV star and a newspaper man. He speaks no English but has an interrupter for translating his spiel. This little settlement make and sell their own wine, 5 varieties of which we could taste today. They are a self sufficient settlement who make their own bread in a big brick oven (we tasted some- very nice and crispy) from the wheat which they grow on the property. They make jams etc from the fruit trees, ‘grow’ their own animals for meat and cheese as well as provide some of these products to nearby Bucharest. Of course, we could have purchased some of the wines, and a few people did. A nice little stopover to break up the day.