Walking Club
Trip Report - Sept. 2004
© by
Sue Kuuskmae
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Our Walking Club Danube trip from September 7th to 23rd, 2004
Our flight to Munich was
uneventful, and we made our connection there to Bucharest with about 20 minutes
to spare. A representative from
Grand Circle met us at the airport and bused us to our Hotel Sofitel, which was
quite a pleasant, new hotel. We
were treated to a so-so dinner (lots of cabbage which we would encounter at
practically all meals during the trip) and then a group of Romanian dancers
entertained. Of course, this was
the beginning of our problems with sleeping; we both took our Ambien but still
woke up at 4:00 a.m.
The next morning was our
Bucharest tour, so called “Paris of Eastern
Europe.” We had a wonderful tour guide named Danielle (right) who catered to our
group’s needs. She was very happy
that we formed such a large group of 12, and it gave us a little more clout.
The city tour showed us many
of those ugly, block-style, concrete
buildings (left) put up by the Soviets; but the large Victory Square sports the largest
building in Europe built by the late dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu.
It certainly is striking in its immensity, but one wonders what purpose
it now serves.
After lunch, we were dropped
at the train station for our pleasant, three-hour ride to Constanta
where we spent the afternoon getting familiar with the ship
Adagio (left
below).
This is a quite new vessel having good size rooms, bathrooms, large
dining area with huge windows looking out on the river, and we were able to seat
all of our group plus the roommates of both Bob Lynn and Barbara Shortwell.
Our table was right in the front spot giving us the best views during our
quite satisfying meals. I must say the food was well presented, nice small portions,
and delicious.
Following breakfast we joined
our yellow bus group for a tour of Constanta, Romania’s second largest city,
and an ancient crossroads where people from many of the Eastern European
cultures and religions mixed together. It was also an ancient Roman city, and
the Romanian language is a romance language closest to the old Latin and easily
recognizable by speakers of French, Spanish or Italian. 
The church we visited was Orthodox and had beautiful frescos, lots of
gold trim, no seats, and no statues as one would see in a Catholic Church.
I guess everyone had to stand for the three-hour service.
A highlight was a visit to
Mamaia, a nearby resort town with a seaside amusement park quality.
We sampled one of the local junk food items….a huge tower of donut type
dough that is wrapped around a cylinder form
and baked over a bed of coals. It
is covered in sugar and eaten warm. One
of the local people gave us a bite as it was a huge confection that none of us
wanted to tackle on our own.
The
weather was a bit on the chilly side, so we all had our sweaters, scarves, and
jackets on. We visited the site of a huge Byzantine-style casino (left), built
in the Art Nouveau style around 1900, that is going to be turned into a 4 star
resort by a group of investors.
Since it overlooks the working harbor with all its cranes and rusting ships, not to mention the ubiquitous Romanian stray dog (the national animal?) it is not placed in the most attractive place.
The
most interesting thing happened to me while having a cup of coffee to wash down
the huge donut-like bread that we consumed.
Another couple came in, and we asked them to sit with us.
In discussion, it turned out that the woman
(right) was an old friend of mine
from St. Elizabeth Academy (New Jersey) days where we both attended high school.
It almost blew us both away when we realized that we had known each other
so well but had lost track of each other while attending University of
Vermont…her family had been the ones who had driven me up to college; that’s
how close we were. It was certainly
strange to experience that shift in the brain that happens when you suddenly
realize that you are looking at someone from 50 years in the past who minutes
before was a total stranger.
When our ship, M/S Adagio, sailed
the next morning it went through the Black Sea-Danube Canal built by Communist
slave labor in the 1950s and 1960s.
Thousands of dissidents and intellectuals
and members of the Hungarian minority were sent to their deaths in digging the
40-mile long canal. We stopped at Ruse in Bulgaria where we took a bus to Veliko
Tarnovo the old capital of Bulgaria from 1186 to 1394 which sits on a hill
overlooking the Yantra River. We
toured the fortified wall of Zarevez Hill, the old city, and then motored to the
quaint village of Arbanassi for a family lunch (right).
Our host was fairly prosperous because she had a very large house and
swimming pool. Our kuuskmae family
of 13 sat at two tables on her
porch and ate a very nice lunch of cabbage and beef pot roast.
We did not get to talk to the hostess very much because she couldn’t
speak English; and we certainly couldn’t speak Bulgarian, but there was a
young girl there who did some translating.
The following day was spent entirely on board cruising through a series of hydroelectric dams called the Iron Gates that were developed in order to tame a portion of the Danube that once was a raging river pounding through deep gorges. These gates raised the level of the Danube so that ships could pass. We did our walking laps around the upper deck. Again, after a really good dinner we listened a bit to the musical duo, and then went back to our stateroom to consume our dose of Ambien so we were able to sleep. The beds we found quite comfortable, so nights passed easily.
The next day was spent touring
Belgrade, Serbia. Most of the
cities are full of huge buildings some of which are the cement variety, and not
too many attractive ones. We are really enjoying the ship, the great food, lots
of talks about the politics here, walking on the deck to get exercise, and
playing a bit of bridge. We had a few lessons for beginners by yours truly the
past few days. We did not have any access to
e-mail until Belgrade, but we finally made it to an
internet café.
Belgrade is a city that NATO, with the US doing most of the work, bombed
in precision strikes in 1999. The
destroyed buildings were all ones that housed the government, police or army.
It did look as though individual buildings were singled out for
destruction. We wondered what the
local people felt about this but were assured that the
population blamed our
government under Clinton not Americans individually. Belgrade is full of people bustling around, and in the center
of the city there are many buildings in the art nouveau style from the early 20th
century. The internet café was in
the lively student center where for 55 cents an hour one could view and send
e-mail. Guides did not mention
their attack on Croatia.
Poor Mati has a huge allergy
attack going, as do some others on the trip, and we are sleeping with the aid of
our Ambien. The crew of the ship
are really
nice and are going out of their way to make us happy.
Our next stop was war torn Croatia with hundreds of bombed out buildings
in Vukovar and horrible tales from our local guide about thousands murdered,
including women and children, in 1998 by Serbian attackers.
It is interesting how the local tour
guides have such a different view of what the recent history of each area has been.
This guide was quite articulate, and we all sympathized with her story
about how evil the Serbians were. They
were well set up in this town to entertain tourists.
We visited a Catholic Church (right) where the padre gave
each of us a blessing
as we filed by the Sanctuary…of course, he had his basket in his hand as well,
but we gladly donated to the church. There
was a specially prepared store where one could purchase the local products such
as rose water perfume, plum brandy, pottery items, and tons of paprika packages.
We all happily participated and were glad to see such an entrepreneurial
spirit thriving there in Croatia. Certainly
heading in this direction, towns are getting better look
ing all the time.
Here we had another
home-hosted lunch for 12 at a local restaurant.
We ate outside next to this fantastic oven that was constructed of cement
and brick with a tray like area set aside for
hot coals, and on which huge clay pots were cooking.
The entire chicken
meal, bread and dessert too, were cooked in this oven.
We got a chance to visit with the local tour guide and talked with him
about his good business sense in setting up this portion of the tour.
We also consumed some local wine
and Slivowitz, the deadly local plum
brandy. As our ship left Croatia,
bribes in the form of cigarettes, red wine, and ice cream had to be paid to the
police. We found that quite
amusing. It became more and more
apparent that these allergy symptoms that we all thought we had were really some
kind of viral infection. Eventually 10 out of our 13 comrades came down with it to one
degree or another.
The last night on board we had
the Captain’s Farewell Dinner and following this the show put on by the
passengers. I got roped into
performing with a group who sang a song written by one of the others kind of
spoofing some of the 
characters on the staff and our group color identities.
We had been put into four groups initially and stayed on all tours with
that group of people; we were in the yellow group.
Our buddy Bruce Berman from NY did a hilarious imitation of one of our
guides Dan who spoke in his heavy Romanian accent
and was hard to understand sometimes because he spoke so dramatically.
The cruise into port in Budapest early the next morning was a sight I will not forget. All the spectacular buildings, bridges, forts, churches, and castle looming on top of the Buda hillside of the river. After docking, we had a tour of Castle Hill, Heroes Square (we had missed this site on our previous visit), Fisherman’s Bastion, Matthias Church, and Parliament Building. There is a blue and gold stained glass window done by Mucha in the Church as well as one that had intense tones of yellow and red shining out on the adjacent walls….inspiring. Mati has been pretty successful at getting the Herald Tribune in larger cities, so he had no trouble buying it here as well as the abililty to get cappuchino, which made him a happy camper. The internet café cost was $1 or 200 forints an hour, so we got caught up on that right away too.
There was an optional tour of the elegant, neo-Renaissance-styled Opera House. The façade of the building is decorated with statues of 16 of the world’s greatest composers, and the interior is equally lavish. More than 15 pounds of gold were used to decorate the auditorium which seats 1,200 people. The frescoed ceiling depicts Olympus, home of the Gods, in breathtaking detail. Under each seat was a grate under which a block of ice was placed thus giving the first attempt at cooling the air. After the tour, we had a surprise concert given by two artists from the Opera staff that was most enjoyable.
We had a large meal in the middle of the day, so we took a group of us walking to find the famous Café Gerbeaud where the most sinfully delicious, exquisite cakes are found. The coffee costs about $2 and cake $3; not an exorbitant cost. It felt good to take this hike back and forth to the hotel in light of our cake dinner.
The next day continued the beautiful, sunny weather we had come to expect as we drove off to visit the old village of Szentandre (St. Andrew), which is really quaint but more of an excuse to buy handicrafts and other souvenirs. On the way (and this was irksome) we were taken to a lecture/film on diamond jewelry production finally being ushered into a large salesroom where some of us bought diamonds and other jewelry. Mati and I ate lunch at a restaurant we had visited a few years back - some bean soup and chicken paprikash…yummy! Back in Budapest we got dropped off at the Central Market, an iron and brick edifice built in 1896 by Eiffel of Parisian fame. On the first level is a hall featuring the best fruits, vegetables, meats, and paprika products. On the upper level are souvenirs ranging from, fine tablecloths to tacky things like the Russian marushka nesting dolls painted with pictures of Bush, Kerry and Bin Laden. Margo and Bette opted for a swim in the curative waters and massage at the famous Gellert Baths. Mati decided to skip that as he chose not to get naked in Hungary. The experience did not get rave reviews, so readers may want to skip it or try one of the other spas in Budapest.
We mastered all 3 subway lines the next day, including the no. 1, yellow line, which was built in 1896 and had the most beautiful tiled stations with wooden token booths. Our first stop was the Café Gerbeaud for morning coffee and cake. We then visited the Museum of Applied Arts to see pottery, the National Museum to see some Impressionists, and St. Stephen’s Cathedral to take a look. The church, the largest in Hungary, was shutting down early as Sophia Loren’s son was marrying a Hungarian model later in the day. When our small group visited the nearby Gresham Palace, a 1906 art nouveau restored masterpiece (formerly a British insurance company and then a Soviet Army barracks) now a Four Seasons hotel just opened three months ago, and the most expensive hotel in Hungary the papparazzi were buzzing about. When Mati and Lou came out the front door the flash bulbs were popping. I guess many of the guests for the upcoming Loren wedding were staying at this hotel. The stained glass, tile work, fixtures were magnificent.
After this tour the men got tired, but Barbara, Val and I walked down to the Museum of Terror for a look see. It was focused on the Nazi and Communist terror in Hungary and most informative but not uplifting. We took the street car back to the hotel, which gave us another look at the city.
We arranged our own farewell dinner to Budapest at the Kisippa Restaurant…this means little pipe. Dinner for 15 was wonderful with some having wild boar stew, paprikash, or wiener schnitzel. The whole tab came to about $300 plus and 10% tip. There was a friendly tipsy piano player to boot. This was the first place we did not get the big sell to buy a homemade CD. The piano man informed me that he once had a girl friend in Chicago that he went to visit but that she had dumped him so he was now free! He was the first musician who did not play Fiddler on the Roof; they must think it is our second national anthem.
Our farewell drink with the cruise directors, who accompanied our four groups, included the payment of tips with color-coded envelopes. We had a genial Romanian guide named Daniella, and we tipped her generously. She was from a country where the average salary is $150 a month. She has a university education, is a linguist, and works three jobs. Now we are off to Prague; hopefully we can adjust to Czech beer, the finest in the world we are told.
After breakfast, we had a long, tortured bus ride of almost 11 hours from Budapest to Prague. We drove along a Hungarian super highway towards Vienna and two hours into the trip we stopped at a gas station for fuel and rest stop. Soon we came to the Hungarian border where police came on board to see our passports, which they inspected and stamped. Then we rolled another 500 yards to the Slovakian border where the procedure was repeated.
Another hour down the road, we stopped in a Slovakian village for a home-hosted lunch. We had about 32 people on our bus, so we were split into four groups and dropped off in various parts of this small village not far from the Danube for lunch. Our group was hosted by Antonia, a 60ish Slovak widow, who served us beer, cabbage salad, some roast veal and pork along with a potato dumpling of some kind. The food was delicious so we gobbled it up. Then we retreated to her living room for coffee and homemade plumcake. Antonia did not speak English but we all some how managed to communicate as she showed us pictures of her children, grandchildren, and in return Bette showed her pictures of her pet cat…who knew that it would be good to bring family pictures? The house was made of stucco with a shiny tile roof and was modest but comfortable. In the backyard we visited all sorts of fruit trees, flowers, and chickens. Antonia then invited us into her bedroom to look at the table placemats that she had crocheted, which we all bought for $10; mine looks great on my dresser beside two previous purchases in Budapest.
Once on the road, we noticed that every large town (Bratislava and Brno) that we passed had dozens of blocks of drab, gray high rise buildings of the Soviet era. Our guide mentioned that in the first of these, built in the 1950’s there was not even running water. So if you lived in a 12 story building, you went out to the communal well and outhouses for your needs. We crossed the Slovakian border into Czech Republic; this time we did not have to stop for formalities as the border guards just waved us through.
After another 40 minute stop at a gas station/Mac Donalds (yes the worst of American fast food along with Burger King is all over the place here) we carried on towards Prague only to get stuck in Sunday afternoon traffic coming back from the country. For you Californians, this is sort of like getting stuck in the Sepulveda Pass coming back to LA from points north.
Finally at 7:30 we rolled up to the Don Giovanni Hotel (quite attractive inside and specializing in large tour groups), but it was located about six subway stops from the center of the Old Town. This was a minor annoyance, but we quickly got used to taking the subway. This is the sixth and last currency we have to exchange dollars for. Mati used the ATM to get local currency debited from our checking account, usually getting the rate advertised in the Wall Street Journal. Some of our group who changed money were taken by poor exchange rates and commissions. Prague is the most beautiful city spreading on both sides of the winding Vltava River, connected by 10 picturesque bridges. Like Rome and San Francisco, the city is built over a series of hills, and its varied architecture spans many centuries. There is much of the art nouveau style here.
In the morning, we rolled out
for our last day of guided touring as the rest of our time is on our own unless
one signs up for an optional tour. We
did not do either of these and preferred to get about town on our own.
The bus took us to the castle district where there was a tour of the
spectacular 14th century Gothic St. Vitus Cathedral.
Here Mati and I left the group and went off on our own walking up and
down the street near the Castle to see the many antique shops found there.
We had been here before, so we visited old haunts
ate our sandwiches from breakfast then ventured down to the Charles
Bridge (built by Charles IV in 1357),
then further to the 15th
century astronomical clock square to see the small display at the striking of
the hour (this clock is nothing compared with the one in Munich).
Then we walked over to the beautiful Art Nouveau style Municipal Building
(left)
where we got tickets for the next night’s concert, and back towards the square
we found some of our group standing on the corner.(small world)
We had to get back to the hotel by 4:00 because we had our Farewell Dinner at a restaurant selected by the tour group. It turned out to be a pretty awful meal because it was doused with salt, and the musicians were a bit on the over zealous side for those sitting just under where they were playing. Mati paid them $5 to play a piece from Fiddler on the Roof (we wanted to end our trip properly), but this group really did not seem to know it surprisingly!
The next morning we all got
free passage for the subway to attend a lecture on economic changes in the Czech
Republic and a short stroll around the old city center. 
I found the lecture fascinating, and as is the case many times in Prague,
I spent lots of time looking up at the beautifully painted ceiling of the hall
we were sitting in. It did rain a
bit outside, but as we had been so lucky about weather on this trip, everyone
seemed glad to see the rain drops. Mati
and Lou skipped the lecture and went over to the Smetana Music Hall (left) to get
tickets to a second concert for the whole group of 13.
We were in the habit of taking sandwiches from breakfast with us, so we
all met up again at the
Old Town Square (right) where we dodged the rain drops eating
our lunch on damp benches. Then
Barbara, Louise, Bruce, Bette and I walked over to the Jewish quarter where we
took the entire tour of six or so synagogues.
The Spanish Synagogue was quite spectacular in its Moorish decoration,
and the Old New Synagogue dating from the mid-`13th century is one of the most
important works of early Gothic in Prague.
The legend is that the synagogue was built on the site of an ancient
Jewish temple and that stones from the temple were used to build the present
structure. There was a very
knowledgeable guide who gave us the history, showed us where women sat in an
adjoining room, the seats all along the wall were for the men, and he told us
about the ancient banner holder that was resting against the caged center area
where the torah would be placed. The
Old Jewish Cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in Europe, was filled with
tombstones. Due to space
limitations, and the Jewish tradition that graves never be disturbed, thousands
of people are buried in a dozen layers and all the tombstones are amazingly
crowded together.
Some of our group took both
optional tours to Sychrov Castle and to Terezin, site of the World War II
concentration camp. As we had
tickets to the Municipal Hall, we gathered our group for an early dinner in the
tiled, art nouveau style basement restaurant (Left) where we had a really good meal.
The chance to see the inside of the concert hall and to experience the
wonderful musical program of Carmina Burana was quite a joy to all of us.
We took the subway back to the hotel.
The following day some of us visited the Mucha Museum where we saw a documentary on his life, we hiked around Wenceslas Square ( a rallying point for protests against the government) and then went over to the pedestrian street off Old Town square where we had our sandwiches in between the raindrops as we leaned against a shop building. Since we were chilled by the rain, we went in and had tea and lattes at a café before heading to a crystal store to buy a few odds and ends as souvenirs. We Then returned to the hotel to prepare for our last dinner at a restaurant Mati had arranged.
The restaurant, twenty feet below street level, was named after the Knights of Malta who used it as their headquarters for 3 centuries from 13th to 16th C. It even had a long, secret passageway (blocked up now) that connected to a nearby church. There were 13 of us for dinner, our original group, the South Bay Walkers, plus Bob’s roommate Bill. Dinner consisted of a wonderful salad, followed by platters of pork, wild boar,duck and cabbage all served with wonderful Czech style gnocchi. This was of course washed down with smooth Czech beer, wine and for dessert, cappucinos with apple strudel made with apples from the owner’s garden. With tip, the meal came to $22 per person. Afterwards the funny scene of Mati counting stacks of different colored Czech bills (korunas), reminiscent of our last dinner in Budapest was fun to catch on film . The woman who owned the restaurant gave us a few talks about the historical significance of the building and was quite an amusing character. She told us that she found it really annoying to have to listen to her husband’s advice about running the place and felt she could do it very well without his interference.
We got all our bags packed in anticipation of our 7:00 deadline to have our suitcases outside our doors for airport transport. After breakfast we said our goodbyes boarding the bus for the long ride through traffic to the airport. Once there we discovered that the Lufthansa computers were down world wide, so we had an hour or more in line as we got checked in by hand. Some lines were slower than others and coach passengers seemed to get checked it faster than business class. There was about a two hour wait as the flight was holding for delayed passengers but finally we took off for the short hop over to Frankfurt. Once there we had another long delay as we had no boarding passes. Luckily I heard an announcement that all passengers going to LA should go directly to the gate, so I went up to check this out. All the rest of the group followed along and we lined up in front of the man who was checking in passengers who already had a boarding pass. As there were very few of these, he agreed to take care of us thus we avoided about another hour waiting in a huge line in front of one check in person. We played a bit of bridge, did last minute shopping and eventually were called for the flight and all boarded helter skelter; it seems there is no calling of rows in an orderly fashion on this airline. The flight back was very long and tedious with two crying babies sitting in front of Joyce and a huge, smelly man next to Louise who couldn’t keep his limbs to himself. We all made it home and after a week have recovered from our stimulating and enjoyable trip together.
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