Category: Europe

Eastern Europe – Day 9

Written on August 30, 2018 in Romania

Sadly, the river cruise portion of our journey ended this morning.  At the port of Oltenita, Romania we bid a fond farewell to the Avalon Passion and its crew members and headed for the next leg of our adventure. The bus ride from Oltenita to Bucharest offered the opportunity for us to see day-to-day life...

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Eastern Europe – Day 8

Written on August 29, 2018 in Bulgaria

Last day in Bulgaria!  (for now) Today was an all day excursion to Veliko Tarnovo and Arbanassi, two towns/villages in Bulgaria.  The drive to these locations took us through the Danube Plains, which is mostly farmland peppered here and there by villages. Most of the harvesting has been finished for the year but crops of...

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Eastern Europe – Day 7

Written on August 28, 2018 in Bulgaria

Our first slow morning!  We arrived in Cetate, Romania and had the opportunity to visit the Cetate Cultural Center, including a wine tasting but we didn’t go.  Did we mention that it was at 8:30 in the morning?!  The thought of tasting wine (and whatever other nasty brandy/moonshine stuff) that early in the day was...

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Eastern Europe – Day 6

Written on August 27, 2018 in Serbia

Greetings, Today’s blog will likely be more pictures than description, as most of the day was spent sailing. We did start the day docking in Serbia at a little town, where we were bussed several miles to a cool, Danube side archeological site. The site was called Lepenski Vir, and it was a site that...

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Eastern Europe – Day 5

Written on August 26, 2018 in Serbia

One day in Belgrade, Serbia! Our morning started with a panoramic tour of Belgrade – capital of Serbia, former capital of Yugoslvaia.  Our first stop was at the Fortress of Belgrade which offered breathtaking views over the city. The color of the bricks in the fortress walls indicated the century in which they were constructed….wal...

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Eastern Europe – Day 4

Written on August 25, 2018 in Hungary

Last day in Hungary! Our last excursion in Hungary was a bus trip to a town with medieval origins – Pecs. Arriving in the port of Mohacs, we were to be transferred by bus to Pecs. However, due to the low water conditions mentioned previously, our disembarkation process was not as easy as “hey, walk...

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Eastern Europe – Day 3

Written on August 24, 2018 in Hungary

Day 3 is the day we will be boarding our boat, although with the drought and very low water levels, our boat is unable to come to Budapest.  (There are several boats docked, that have been stuck in the dock for 10 to 14 days.)  Therefore, we’ll be shuttled to our boat via bus (about...

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Eastern Europe – Day 2

Written on August 23, 2018 in Hungary

Day 2 started with a really over-booked breakfast.  It was so over-booked, they opened up the bar downstairs, and moved us (and everyone after us) down to the second location. After breakfast we had a City Tour where we got to see quite a bit of the City, starting on the Pest side which included...

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Eastern Europe – Day 1

Written on August 22, 2018 in Hungary

Embarking on yet another adventure!  Our first flight – Kansas City to Chicago – was uneventful.  Rushed through Chicago due to our 53 minute layover only to find that our plane was delayed by 1:10.  No worries, right?!  We had a 4 hour layover in Toronto anyway. Wellllll…   as we stopped moving on the ta...

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Day 2 – Thanksgiving in Rome

Written on November 24, 2017 in Italy

This is an “After-the-Fact” post. Our first full day in Rome, started with one of the most unique experiences we’ve had to date – we visited the Necropoli of the Vatican!  This is a very limited tour (they only let a small number of people in per day), so we had made our reservations /...

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