My review and trip report for the Avalon Luminary doing a fall 2014 Balkan Discovery

[xpcdoojk]

Where to begin, I suppose the beginning is as good as any place, and oddly enough the beginning was sometime in 2008 when we were planning a trip to Europe in conjunction with buying a car at a certain German Auto manufacturer near Stuttgart Germany for my wife’s 50th birthday. At the time, we planned on a trip from Germany, to Austria and a further loop around Europe to return to Frankfurt in order to have the early birthday present shipped home. Initially, I figured we would drive past Salzburg to Vienna, and researching things to see along the way, I kept reading horror stories of bad things happening to people’s cars who went beyond Austria into Hungary and the Czech republic. I was very interested in seeing the former Soviet bloc countries and it finally seemed like it was “safe”. After reading horror stories, I figured it was safe, but not personal unattended property “safe”.;) The trip in 2008 only went as far east as Salzburg, we decided instead to do a driving tour of several mountain passes, and left Salzburg and went on the Grossglockner High Alpine Road (spectacular especially the tiny town of Heiligenblut, Austria on a sunny summer day). Across the Alps into Italy, back over the Alps into Switzerland, amongst the alps and eventually back to Germany where I was able to enjoy the Autobahn in a car made for it. Ah, memories.

 

So now I return back to the nearer past with planning for a trip to Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Austria. I had started casually looking at river cruises about three years ago, but I was put off by the high prices relative to regular ocean cruises. We have been on (I think) 15 ocean cruises from a 5 day cruise to a 17 day cruise on 5 different cruise lines. I have a hard time admitting I am not as young as I used to be, I still had the impression that the age on a river cruise would be much older than we are, and I really do enjoy riding the Flowrider while on Royal Caribbean Cruises. In fact, I have a hard time booking a cruise that doesn’t have one now. So, the actually booking of a cruise took a while. Most of you are aware that 2008 was sort of an economic high water mark, and that for a while there was not a lot of cruise industry growth for any sector, and when I started looking at river cruises it seemed that a lot of ships doing the itinerary I was interested in were fairly old. I always prefer new ships with newer technology, and so that, too, was a bit off-putting. Finally, a couple of years ago, I started the research again, and it seemed to me that there were now better options than a few years earlier. The cruises were still over-priced comparatively, but at least they seemed to be offering a better product. So, in March 11, 2013 I placed a deposit on the Avalon Luminary sailing October 11, 2014. 19 months to the day before the sail date I was committed to doing a type of cruising that would be new to us, and to a part of the world to which we had never journeyed!

 

Since, we have travelled a lot I have discovered that I am not a good tour group tourist. I like to do my own thing, and make my own plans. I knew that I would be doing the tour group thing for the cruise, but I was not going to do that for the entire trip. So, the plan and the reality was that we flew into Bucharest Romania using frequent flyer miles with American Airlines which ended up routing on an American Airways flight to Chicago, then an Air Berlin flight from Chicago to Berlin, and finally an Air Berlin flight to Bucharest Romania arriving just after noon. Air Berlin was a nice surprise modern planes with ample overhead storage.

 

We had a long layover in Chicago and we took the L train from O’Hare to downtown Chicago for lunch and a bit of shopping. Despite having done this many times in the past we got a little lost and wandered the wrong way after we got off the train. Then I discovered that the recent Apple IOS upgrade that the map function didn’t work as well as the old version (probably just not familiar on my part), and we ended up losing most of our shopping time, but not our lunch time. Fortunately, we didn’t get lost going back to O’Hare and got there in plenty of time for our overnight flight. O’Hare seems to have a major electrical problem the entire waiting area for our flights had dead electrical outlets, so I was not able to fully charge all of my electronics. Air Berlin to the rescue as all the seats had USB outlets built into their entertainment system.

[xpcdoojk]

continued

 

The flights were pretty typical for economy class, with one major exception the plane was less than half full. We moved to a row of five seats, I set on the aisle and my wife promptly stretched out on the other four. She watched movies, but there wasn’t anything that really interested me, so I read, and listened to music from my Itunes library. When we arrived in Berlin it was raining and we got off the plane in the rain to board a shuttle bus to the terminal. We cleared customs and immigration and then waited for our next flight. The next flight was on schedule and we arrived in Bucharest safely. Before, the trip I had researched how to get a cab in Bucharest. There are several excellent descriptions on the internet including pictures which made this part of the trip a snap. Basically you go to a yellow machine after you get your luggage, and pick a cab company and it assigns you a ticket and a cab number. Then you go outside and wait for the cab with that number on the side and confirm with the driver the number. So, off we went to our hotel the Athenee Palace Hilton. We chose this hotel for a simple reason it was the meeting point for Avalon at noon on Saturday the 11th for the ride to Oltenita, Austria where we were to board the Luminary. The price booking on our own (not through Hilton) was significantly cheaper than thru Avalon.

 

After checking into the hotel we knew we needed to not succumb to the need of a nap, and we started walking towards the city center (which was not far from the hotel). We stopped at an ATM and got some Romanian currency. Grabbed a couple of coffees at a small sidewalk café, and took in the sites. On the way back to the hotel we got a little off course, but my skill at the new version of Apple’s maps was improving and we figured out how to get back to the hotel. Our taxi driver had recommended a place called Mama’s (which are all over Bucharest) near the hotel, so as we were walking back we happened by the restaurant and we went in and had dinner and wine. I had some sort of pork, sausage and chicken on a stick grilled with a salad that was full of cucumbers, tomatoes, and feta cheese. The pork and chicken were badly undercooked, but the sausages were awesome. The salad I soon discovered appeared in various forms for the next few days in Romania, Serbia, Hungary and Bulgaria. We were pretty tired by the end of the meal and we asked for the check. I gave her a credit card, she brought the little machine to the table and it was at that moment I realized I didn’t know what to tip in Romania. I signed the receipt and left some coins and small bills that I had from the coffee we had bought earlier. I made a mental note to check on the internet when I got back to the hotel so I would not make that mistake again. It seems that the amount should be 5 to 10%, but nothing of this nature is ever agreed upon anywhere.

 

The next morning we went to the lovely included breakfast, and we started the game of which people in the dining room are going to be on the cruise Saturday. It is, usually, pretty easy to spot fellow American’s, and we figured the odds that anyone in the hotel who was American probably was on the cruise with us. The only challenge with the otherwise excellent breakfast was the cappuccino machine that served wonderful Julius Meinl coffee (our favorite we order our coffee from Vienna from them and have done so for at least 15 years think Starbucks but actually good) frequently clogged ran out of coffee, water, milk or something. It was not a big problem on that Friday morning because the breakfast room was not packed.

 

After breakfast we had decided that we wanted to visit the Parliament building. We were told that we had to give them our passports so I loaded our documents in the secret pockets in my pants and off we walked. The standards for streets and sidewalks under repair are not designed with the same level of concern for pedestrian safety as most people are accustomed to. There were massive sidewalk repairs going on the streets near the hotel. So, you really had to keep your eyes on the ground or it would be very easy to trip, step in a hole or have some other vacation disaster. My wife probably saved me a couple of times as I was taking a few camera shots while walking the streets. When we got to the block where the Parliament building stands, we were amazed at the size and scope of the building. I knew it was a big building, but I was not prepared for the reality. We arrived in the lobby just as a group of English speaking tourists were going in. After surrendering our passports we went through a security screening comparable to TSA screening at the airports. The building was started back in the communist days when bread lines were common by Ceausescu. Who was executed when the building was about half finished when communism finally ended. The building sat empty and unfinished for a couple of years before it was finished to become the Parliament building for the new democratic Romania. The building is massive, but to say it is beautiful would be a stretch. The building is designed with hallways that appear to go on forever level after level. Clearly it was designed to impress anyone who would enter the building. That said, despite the sheer magnificence of the building in some ways it seems like it was cheaply built. Not cheap in materials, but lacking something that truly beautiful buildings possess. The views from the veranda of the building that looked over the grand boulevard are truly impressive. In order to create this boulevard, the local Romanian’s had to move any historic building or cathedral in order to save them. The tour guide said that a particular engineer created a kind of rail system that they utilized to move these historic buildings. Impressive.

 

After the tour we walked along the huge wide boulevard and eventually ended up in a new shopping mall. The mall was claustrophobic feeling compared to the malls we are used to in the states. We quickly left the mall, and then entered the historic old quarter with lots of ancient ruins that have been excavated and older buildings. The streets in the old quarter are lined with tons of sidewalk cafes and bars interspersed with shops selling just about everything you can imagine. We found a little Italian pizza place and had some wine, pizza and salad. While we were enjoying our lunch a couple of others from our English speaking tour group of the Parliament building stopped and ate lunch and drinks, too. We window shopped the rest of the afternoon wandering up and down all sorts of streets, and eventually got back to our hotel late Friday afternoon. We checked email, and I did some work on my Macbook Pro before deciding that we didn’t want to walk all the way to the old quarter for dinner and that we would eat at an Italian Tratatoria that was only a block from the hotel. It looked like they had an extensive menu with decent pricing.

 

We went to the restaurant a little after dark and sat outside on the patio. We ordered a bottle of wine, salads, and a couple of average entrees and enjoyed the evening. There were lots of kitties wandering under the tables looking for snacks. It was a very nice night, and we returned to the hotel to go to sleep before the day we embark on the Avalon Luminary.

[nana541]

Can't wait to hear what comes next!

 

 

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[Barrheadlass]

Me too!

[nana541]

Nothing yet :(

 

 

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[xpcdoojk]

Nothing yet :(

 

 

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It takes time:D

 

jc

[nana541]

Greedily awaiting your wonderful words 😎

 

 

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[Viv0828]

We were in Romania last year and the Balkans this year so looking forward to your review.

 

 

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[Gail & Marty sailing away]

It sound great ..

Edited November 1, 2014 by we're sailing away....

[nana541]

The suspense is killing me😉!

 

 

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[Familygoboston]

Anxious to hear more about your journey! We just did the same- in reverse and without the Mercedes! ;)

Edited November 3, 2014 by Familygoboston

[xpcdoojk]

Just rereading my posts. Oltenita is definitely not in Austria. It is in Romania on the Danube for sure.....:o

 

jc

[nana541]

Your teasing us :D

 

 

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[xpcdoojk]

Your teasing us :D

 

 

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Yes, but I am. That said I have written diarrhea and share way too much information which means it takes me a lot of time to do the review..... I am a pitiful self-editor.

 

jc

[xpcdoojk]

Day 3 embarkation....

 

We woke up around 7AM on Saturday morning, sailing day! We went down to breakfast after dressing for the day, and boy was there a massive change. The morning before the breakfast room was about half full, and today it was 95% full and there was a mass of people in the lobby. There was some sort of school fair going on at the hotel and the lobby was full of young Romanian students who were wanting to study abroad. The dining room was full of people booked on the Avalon Luminary and were scheduled for a city (Bucharest) tour with the cruise line pre cruise. We ended up sitting with a couple in their 80s because there were not a lot of empty tables. They were John and Lydia and we ended up spending a lot of time with them on the cruise for the following week. It is often those random meetings that lead to friendships. My wife was talking to them, while I was trying to get us a much needed cappuccino from the machines, and didn’t really get introduced right away. There were two machines and people were lined up 6 deep behind each. The machines are pretty finicky and you had to match the correct cup with the correct coffee product, or you could end up with a giant cup and a thimble full of coffee or the other which is really a mess! The day before it was not crowded and the wait staff was available to help people decipher the machines and even get a requested drink. Not so this morning. The people were exhibiting frustration, and rushing because they had a tour leaving shortly. I tried to help, but it was pretty hopeless. Finally I got a couple of coffees and went to join my wife and our soon to be new friends.

 

My wife quickly informed me that John and Lydia were going on the cruise with us. Breakfast was chaotic. I can imagine that it is like this every single ship day morning. The Hilton was a big hotel, but it is not a really big hotel, and ship day combined with other events make for a mob scene. After breakfast we wandered to the lobby where we found Käty (pronounced Kotty) the cruise director who was dealing with a million passenger needs. I mentioned that we were cruise only passengers, and were we supposed to meet at the hotel at noon in order to get to the river. She said, that the buses would be returning to the hotel between 2 and 2:30PM and that we should request a late checkout and be prepared to leave by 2:30PM. This was a nice surprise, and the lady at the hotel desk responded with a “no problem” reply. So, we went back to our room, and prepared for another walking around town day.

 

We decided when we went out for our walk about that we would start going the opposite direction from the old quarter. We discovered that the few luxury brand shops near the hotel were trebled with 3 or 4 more blocks of nice high end shops on the other side of the hotel. It was early still and most of them were not open, and we were not really interested in shopping (especially this early in the trip), but we did enjoy the window shopping opportunity. We continued in the opposite direction for about 20 blocks including a walk thru a nice park, until we eventually hit the big main boulevard that we came in on in the cab two days before. We stopped at an ATM to get a few more Romanian LEI. This was a mistake because once we sailed from Oltenita we never touched Romania again. Not a big deal as we traded the bills later at a currency exchange kiosk (where I am sure we didn’t get the best rate ;) ). We continued walking but now along the big boulevard back towards the old quarter of town. Something had changed though in the last 24 hours in the old quarter. The streets were not only full of cute sidewalk cafes, but with black armored combat police that my wife thought looked like teenage ninja turtles dressed in black battle armor instead of green turtle shells. I was thinking that surely there must be some politician or dignitary in town to do some political function. I didn’t really feel threatened by the presence street after street of armored police, regular police and police dogs actively patrolling the streets, and we found a particular little café that was already doing a booming business and settled in for a nice lunch. We decided to do a tapas style lunch. So we ordered 4 or 5 different items and shared them along with a lemonade for the DW and a local beer for me. Lunch was yummy, and we asked our waitress if she knew what was going on that there was such a police presence. She knew! Hungary was in town to play Romania in EUFA championship qualifying soccer match at noon at the National Arena. We later found out the match was played to a 1 to 1 tie.

 

We walked back to the hotel about 1:15PM, and the scene inside was even more chaotic, as the school age kids were blocking much of the hotel lobby, and occupying most of the comfortable sitting areas in the lobby. We went back to our room and finished organizing our suitcase and backpacks with our important documents readily at hand. We then checked out of the hotel at about a quarter until 2PM and went to the dining room where we were able to find a pair of comfortable chairs to wait for the bus ride to the harbor. When we walked into the lobby initially from our walk, there was an EMT/Fireman type talking to the hotel staff, but I didn’t really think much of it. After, waiting for about 30 minutes I walked back thru the lobby to see if any progress was being made. Käty was there and she said that the buses were not back yet, but should be in the next few minutes. So, I went back to where my wife was sitting and we both hit the restroom one more time and took our luggage and backpacks to the actual lobby and waited for buses to begin loading. The EMT person was still there, and it was clear that some sort of medical emergency had occurred sometime before our return to the hotel. Later we found out from people on the cruise that there had been at least two bad falls on the streets near the hotel. One person was reported having a broken hip, and was to be transported back to the USA, but his wife was still going on the cruise. I never met the “wife” with knowledge that this indeed transpired, and I am just not nosey enough to ask every single woman on the cruise if she was the “wife”. I am pretty certain, that if my wife had broken a hip and I went on the cruise, and I left her in a Romanian hospital to be transported when she was stable back to the USA that I would be a dead husband sooner than naturally. The other injury occurred to Roger who face planted on the sidewalk. We had a lot of fun with Roger and his partner on the trip. He was a real trooper because they had his face all covered with Steri-strips, and he had considerable bruising that made him look pretty awful.

[nana541]

Boy I am a thinking that we will forgo the "transfer to the ship" and avoid this whole mob scene. I can imagine (depending on which embarkation city) that a cab would be very inexpensive.

We embark in Amsterdam and will find our way to the ship. Thank you for this heads up.

 

Awaiting your return!

 

 

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Edited November 3, 2014 by nana541

[Got2Cruise]

Boy I am a thinking that we will forgo the "transfer to the ship" and avoid this whole mob scene. I can imagine (depending on which embarkation city) that a cab would be very inexpensive.

We embark in Amsterdam and will find our way to the ship. Thank you for this heads up.

 

Awaiting your return!

 

 

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We did two transfers to the ship with Avalon from a hotel. This is how they operate. It was easy peasy for us, both from Paris and from Zurich. Also there are tours you can take if you are early and then they bring you directly from the ship from the tour. Finding the ship in Amsterdam is easy though. It is right there. No need to go to the hotel which is two blocks away, literally from the ship in Amsterdam.:D

[amd1234]

I am addicted to your review. Especially like all the details. We were on our last River Cruise this past June and I enjoy reading this forum. I am in river cruise withdrawal no plans as yet. We have cruised two Uniworld cruises but are open to other River cruise companies.. Look forward to reading the rest of your review..:)

[xpcdoojk]

Day 3 continued...

 

Eventually the buses arrived and Käty told us to get on a certain color bus with a lady she introduced us to who had been the tour guide on that bus for the pre-cruise people that morning. We put our suitcase under the bus and settled in for the hour and one half ride to Oltenita. We were the second of the four buses to leave the hotel. As we were driving thru the city, the tour guide continued the lectures that she had been telling the other cruisers this morning. (This could be a reason to do the cruise pre and post with the cruise line you may get more information. Although, I have found I prefer to read it online or in a book). She described some of the sites we had walked to including the Parliament building. She talked about the apartments from the Soviet times. These buildings are everywhere in all of these countries. The ones in Romania are now privately owned, and the EU has offered to pay for half of the exterior renovation and insulation. Unfortunately, very few buildings have been updated because it is hard to get 24 individual owners (4 flats to the floor 6 floors to the apartment is the standard) to agree to spend the money. She pointed out an occasionally renovated building, they are still unattractive to me, but they are far more colorful and not gray when remodeled. I got the impression that they are reasonably nice inside. We drove by a large cemetery and memorial park to the memory of those who died in the revolution in 1989. As we reached the countryside the landscape changed to long rolling hills with lots of farm fields. We drove through some Roma villages (gypsy) and the roads had a lot of their little two wheeled carts pulled by a horse or oxen. When we reached Oltenita we were a bit underwhelmed by the city. It truly was a tiny village on the side of the river. There was one of the typical Soviet style television tower across the river in Bulgaria in a fairly large town. The dock was pretty shabby, but seemed solidly anchored to the shore.

 

We boarded the Avalon Luminary by walking through the dock which included a little bar and store. We went to our cabin to check it out. We were in cabin 221 which was a Cat B. It had a French balcony on the second level. The bathroom was at least as big as most similar ocean going cruise ships, and the room was attractive albeit small. We dropped our backpacks and got our cameras and walked up to the top deck to take in the scenery. On the shore there were several dogs hanging around. We watched them and thought of our own dogs who were in a new (to us) kennel, and we were hoping that they were fine. The other people on the deck were the 4 people who were amongst the total of about 15 people that were approximately our age. We talked to them and discovered that they were Canadian (we had previously identified them as American at the hotel for breakfast). One of the two couples had done a previous river cruise on the Yangtze River in China, and the other were like us on our first. We chatted with them for about 30 minutes. There were several small runabout boats going by on the river. There were some small yachts at another dock a few hundred feet from our dock.

After a bit the captain did the passenger safety demo, and we all assembled on the top deck and put on our lifejackets. If you think it is a lark on an ocean boat this might have been worse if that is possible. The sirens were sounded. It sounded more like a cheap car alarm than a distress call on a cruise ship. We, actually, started giggling. On the upside, the river is not very deep and within my swimming limits. ;-)

 

After the muster drill we were invited to the welcome aboard party where Käty introduced herself, her husband who joined her for her last cruise of the season (maybe last forever) and the captain. The German captain was a bit odd, and his speech was clearly something he delivers without being comfortable with public speaking. He spoke with a distinct German accent and with a lot of breathing, and he marched 3 steps in one direction before turning to repeat in the other directions. I was glad when he stopped and Käty took over. The forward portion of the ship had a lower level between cabin decks 1 and 2 that was the dining room and between decks 2 and 3 the bar and entertainment room with a piano player, Nicky. It was in this room where we were getting the announcements. Käty, told us about how the ship operates. She went into great detail about what not to put into the toilets, and all of the regular things. She gave us a port discussion about the stop in Bulgaria in the morning at Rousse. With the optional excursion to Veliko Tarnovo and Arbanassi then rejoining the ship in the town of Svistov. The other option was a walking tour of Rousse. Käty then told us a little bit about herself and her husband. She has a bed and breakfast in Malmedy, Belgium and her husband was German. I had not come to the conclusion at this point, but by the end of the cruise I was very impressed with her, and felt that we were extremely lucky to have her for our CD. There was champagne being offered, but by the time we toasted I had an empty glass.

[cruiseman_tx]

Very good job so far JC. Waiting for more. :)

[webfoot]

Did your bus guide discuss the gypsy population and speak about the gypsy village on the way to the ship?

 

Pat

 

 

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[xpcdoojk]

Did your bus guide discuss the gypsy population and speak about the gypsy village on the way to the ship?

 

Pat

 

 

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She told us to look for the Roma village (gypsy), and their carts. So, yes. I think, the population of about 20 million is about 90% Romanian, 6% Hungarian and 3% Roma (gypsy). The strange thing about all of these countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, and the other Former Yugoslavia countries is that the people who live in a country are not of that country. IE Romanians are Romanians, Hungarians living in Romania for centuries are still Hungarians, same with Gypsy people. It is crazy. Makes one understand what balkanization really means. This was a surprise to me.

 

jc

[webfoot]

Our cruise was the reverse of yours. We took a week and drove around Romania. We ran across a gypsy covered wagon and horses around a campfire. Very interesting.

 

Pat

 

 

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[xpcdoojk]

After the cruise director port talk and the painful captain’s welcome speech, we went down a level with the herd to the dining room. Since we were travelling as just a couple we didn’t have an already established group. Some of the pre-cruise people had obviously met others in Bucharest on some of the sightseeing tours and they were already paired up for dinner. Because we were sitting near the front of the ship for the port talk we were among the last to reach the dining room on the level before. Most of the tables were full, but John and Lydia were sitting by themselves so we asked if we might join them. The layout of the dining room was a long room split in the middle with a structural wall that was lined on both sides with a long bench seating with a 4-top tables in a row. There was a walkway then tables lined alongside the outside windows. Some of these were tables for six and some were tables for 8 in round. At the front of the room there was a serving area which doubled as the buffet and cook station for breakfast and lunch. The windows were not covered with closed curtains, and on many of the evenings it was a very noisy room. On at least one occasion we were at the loud table, but on the first night we were painfully aware of how loud the room was. This was because Lydia does not have a loud voice, but because I was facing her I could almost always understand what she said, but John, her poor husband, sitting beside her couldn’t. I can’t really remember which nights we had what meals, but I never had an awesome meal. I had some good meals and some good items, but the food was not off the charts. I was a little surprised since river cruises are very pricey compared to ocean cruises. That said, they don’t have the huge support structure that say a line like Royal Caribbean would have. I imagine that a lot of the stuff is sourced locally in various cities on the sailing routes. I do not know this it just seems likely to me.

 

Dinner was typically a four course affair. There were always certain items available. There was always a chicken dish, a beef filet and a salmon entrée. There was always a Caesar salad and an ice cream every night as well. Of course, there was a different menu each and every night. The foods mostly reflected the region of the world we were in, with a lot of the same offerings on the cruise ship that we got on the tours in the countryside from the ship. The wait staff did a nice job of keeping the local wine pouring, although once desserts came out the wine was taken away. Overall, I thought the dinners were good.

 

Typically after dinner we returned to our cabin to watch the Ebola crisis from one of the exciting options of SkyNews, CNNI, Al Jezeera, or CCTV (Chinese). There were a few other channels and every once in a while on the cruise there were interesting shows on one of those channels. That said the television offerings were abysmal. I was hopeful because we were sailing inland that internet that was advertised as being complimentary would be good, and I might even be able to watch my own TV shows from home on the internet. Alas, that was impossible, because 99% of the time while the ship was cruising up the Danube there was zero internet service. There were occasional ports where we would get internet. I believe this might be different if you are cruising in Germany or France, etc. I would have to defer to people who have taken a river cruise in those places. The beds on the cruise were made up in a typical German style. What does that mean you might ask? That means that the bed has a sheet over the mattress with a pillow in a pillow case then there is a down comforter with a duvet cover for each half of the bed and no top sheet. Every time I stay in this kind of bedding arrangement I think we should do it at home. The problem is my down comforter at home is too heavy. I need to find a lighter down comforter. Needless to say we were very happy with the bedding. We looked out of the window a bit as our cabin faced the Romanian side of the river. We would pass occasionally a small town with lights, but most nights we sailed for miles without seeing anything except the dark river side.

 

Day 4 of our trip Day 2 on the Avalon Luminary, and our introduction to Bulgaria.

 

We woke up docked in Rousse, Bulgaria. We were fairly acclimated to the time difference and our sleep cycles were pretty close to where we needed them to be. So, we were sleeping well. I started every day on the cruise the same way. Woke up, put on a shirt and shorts and wandered down the hall of deck two up the stairs to the lobby up the next flight of stairs to deck three and all the way to the aft of the ship to the reading room, smoking balcony, and the all-important expresso machine. Where I made two cappuccinos, and occasionally picked up a pastry, and then retraced that path to our cabin. We then returned to the Ebola crisis on the aforementioned television channels. Showers and dressing for the day followed, and then we returned to the dining room for breakfast. Completely open seating is the arrangement for all meals. Generally, I went to the omelet station and had an omelet prepared. The omelet chef made nice omelets, but they were very sparing on the ingredients tiny amounts of onion, ham, peppers, and cheese. Not quite sure why they made them in this fashion, as it differs from most omelets in hotels or cruise ships around the world. They were good though. I added some bacon and a croissant, and joined my wife and her plate of fruit. She, usually, steals at least half my omelet. After finishing the savory portion of my breakfast I then went back and got a low fat yogurt and some fruit of my own. There were open bottles of sparkling wine and various fruit juices which you could serve yourself. I can’t believe I didn’t make a mimosa even one time on the entire cruise.

 

After breakfast we returned to our cabin to get cameras and jackets for the excursion of the day. For us we were doing the day long excursion, and we would not see the ship again until we got to the town of Svistov. While we were at breakfast the Avalon Luminary had been joined at the dock in Rousse with another river cruise boat that was now tied to our ship. It was a bit odd looking out of our French balcony into another cabin. Guess you should not just assume that you will always park looking out at the river with pretty much complete privacy. We then headed back to the lobby where we grabbed a pair of green bus quiet boxes for the excursion. We forgot to request the shore card. On these cruises Avalon holds your passport most of the time, and they give you a small card that has your cabin number on it. This is their way to track who is and who isn’t on the ship. It was hours later when I was thinking, hmmm; I remember Käty mentioning something about a shore card I don’t think I have one of those. Then I remember thinking is this going to be a problem? Anyway, we exited the ship and saw the buses parked near the dock. Next to the buses there was a small local market set up with vendors selling handmade items and souvenirs. My wife saw some Bulgarian flags at one little booth and bought a flag for 6USD cash. We have friends that used to travel with us that love collecting flags, so a portion of a Christmas present was acquired. Shortly, we boarded the green bus and headed out of town on the road to Veliko Tarnovo, the Bulgarian capital.

[xpcdoojk]

At least Veliko Tarnovo was the Bulgarian capital when the old Bulgarian kings ruled the land.

 

Our tour guide on the green bus was Ferguson, who is from Dublin, Ireland and he is a composer, who married a Bulgarian musician he met in his orchestra, so he followed her home. He had been living in Bulgaria for about a decade. He said he can write music anywhere, and Bulgaria has the woman he loves. It was a really good perspective for us because he knew the questions that most people from the West would be interested in and he provided a great amount of insight into what it is like changing from living in the West to living in Eastern Europe. I really felt that we got really great guides on every single bus tour we did with Avalon. This was especially true compared to our European ocean cruises and the tour guides there. I definitely think those were not nearly as good as Avalon. I think the QuietVox radios make these tours much better. It has been a while since I have been on an ocean cruise tour so maybe the QuietVox has been incorporated on those? That said, it was important to stay fairly close to the guide or you can have the sound drop out.

 

Back to Ferguson, and our bus ride to Veliko Tarnovo. We arrived in town after about a 75 minute drive, and we walked out on a bridge that looked down on the river that surrounded the hill with the fort and church. The modern town lies mostly on the other side of the river and the hill from the river to the town and the old fort is lined with steep slopes and cliffs. Ferguson pointed out several sites before we walked into a hotel where we had lunch. The lunch included a giant tomato, cucumber and feta cheese salad followed by a course of meat and potatoes. We were offered up to two glasses of wine or beer along with regular non-alcoholic drinks. The meal was fairly good in a nice setting. After lunch, Ferguson took a count of those who wanted to go shopping on the shopping street near the hotel, or we could do the walk up to the fort and the church on the top of fairly significant hill. We, of course, chose the walk up to the fort.

 

The buses took about two thirds of the 3 buses that took the excursion back down to the bridge to the fort. The bridge across the Yanta River from the new town to the old fort was in very poor repair. At one point there was a 6 inch wide and 1 foot long hole in the bridge that was over a very significant drop. You couldn’t have fallen to your death, because the hole wasn’t that big, but it was a bit of a queasy moment as you looked down to the rocks in the river below. After passing through the gates we began the walk up the hill. Along the way there were elements of the ancient fort, along with modern recreations of what the ancient fort might have looked like. There were a couple of paths up to the top, and there were several things to see on the way up. One of our group, Ross an Australian in the film industry, was struggling in the heat and the sun. So, he stopped to rest, we were a bit concerned about him but he recovered and caught up with us later. Eventually, we entered a church that was built as a communist era idealistic view of an Orthodox church. Ferguson, told us that the church was not consecrated. The figures on the walls were down in a black and red social realism style that looked Christian but were really more workers ideals. I believe he told us the church was built as some sort of National celebration during the communist period in 1981. Parts of the fort, also, have been rebuilt and many parts are not truly ancient. That said when you are on the hill surrounded by the Yanta river there is no doubt as to why this hill would have been a very significant fortification during medieval times. We returned back down the hill and across the drawbridge and boarded the buses back to the hotel where we were able to shop for a few minutes for souvenirs and use the facilities before heading to the next stop Arbanassi.

 

During the ride to Arbanassi we were told by Ferguson that the town was allowed many privileges during the time the Ottoman Empire controlled the area. One of the notable privileges was that it was basically a tax free city, so it became very wealthy. The village is located in the hills near Veliko Tarnovo. We toured the Church of the Nativity which is a very interesting church. It is not a cathedral type structure, but a small stone and wood building with very small chapels, that are covered with fascinating paintings on the walls, ceilings, beams, and virtual everything that can be painted. It is a very modest building, part of this is due to the requirement that a Christian church can’t be taller than the height of a Turkish officer on a horse with his sword raised. Some of the paintings were crude and others were quite beautiful. After viewing the church we visited a museum house showing a traditional Arbanassi home from a few hundred years ago and we were given samples of the local alcohol some of which is from Rose oil, along with actual rose oil samples. Bulgaria and this region of Bulgaria in particular are famous for their rose oil. I wasn’t a big fan of the alcohol or the rose oil. After the tour of Arbanassi we reboarded the bus and drove to Svistov where we again boarded the Avalon Luminary.

 

We went happy hour near the end where we ordered very inexpensive beers prior to Käty’s port discussion for the next day. Käty explained to us that a few people who took their port card with them didn’t check in by returning their cards. We knew who it was because they had been paging the passengers in cabin 214. She said she didn’t want to embarrass them publicly, but since they were on our bus and just barely down the hall from us we teased them later. Then she scolded the rest of us, fortunately, we weren’t the only people who didn’t take their port card with them. I think she said that there were about 20 of us. She explained that because we didn’t have our passports and we are in a foreign country that we it was very serious that we have this card. My DW and I both carried a color photocopy of our passports. Since the port card simply said the Avalon Luminary and the cabin number, I am thinking my passport copy is more helpful than the laminated 2 x 2 card. The next scolding went to reinforce that we had to be careful what we flushed down the toilet. She again stated she wouldn’t embarrass the person flushing inappropriate items, but said it was a tampon and it caused several rooms to lose the toilet during the night. I immediately joked that there was nobody on the cruise that was young enough to need a tampon. Actually, there was a woman about 40 with her mother. That said, I am skeptical that the admonition was anything but a ploy to make sure we didn’t flush inappropriate items down the toilet because I didn’t hear anyone during the entire cruise complain about non-working toilets. Käty then began to tell us about tomorrow’s adventures in Vidin and Belogradchik, Bulgaria. She said we would tour a fort called Baba Vidin in Vidin, and we would see some impressive rock formations and a medieval fortress built on the western slopes of the Balkan Mountains.