Life on the High Plains

On our recent Danube cruise almost all the ports of call on our itinerary where thrown out due to the low water levels.  We could only be in dock in a port where the water was deep enough to accommodate the ship.  Viking did its best to find interesting sites along the way. One of these ports was Turnu Severin, Romania and the ancient Dacian and Roman settlement of Drobeta. Construction on the first phase of the Roman fort began in 101 AD.  The fort was built to protect the northern side of Trajan's Bridge across the Danube. By the 3rd century the settlement had grown to 40,000 inhabitants and covered 60 hectares (about 148 acres). I can't tell you what all these ruins were, but the fort consisted of barracks, baths, a church, hospital, amphitheater, and more.   The amphitheater was discovered in 2010 when the adjacent Museum of the Iron Gates Region was expanding. We were able to walk through the Museum. There's Irv reading the informational brochure on the mus...

On our recent Danube River cruise we made a brief stop in Golubac, Serbia where we disembarked and toured the Golubac fortress.  The blue sky made for a wonderful backdrop. It was built in the 14th century by Medieval Serbia.  It is comprised of three compounds built at different times and it has ten towers. Prior to its construction it was a Roman settlement.   Many battles occurred here between the Ottomans and the Kingdom of Hungary and it changed hands between the Turks, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Serbs and Austrians.  It was turned over to Serbia in 1867. In the 1930s a major roadway was built through the fortress which resulted in significant damage and a very tight squeeze through the gates for some vehicles.  Fortunately, the European Union stepped in and built a bypass tunnel outside the fortress walls and the renovation on the fortress started in 2005. One of the lower chambers has been made into a museum with lots of interesting artifacts. A beautif...

Last week I started documenting our recent journey to Eastern Europe with my Skywatch Friday post.  Now I want to dive deeper into our brief visit to Romania. First of all, I never in a million years thought I'd ever visit Romania.  It was a communist country until 1989 and was someplace that you'd never think to visit.  When choosing which river we wanted to cruise this summer we decided to go somewhere new and unexpected. After a long day of traveling Viking picked us up at the airport and took us to the J.W. Marriott in Bucharest.  Beautiful hotel!   The first order of business was dinner.  I usually go with an Aperol Spritz when in Europe, but on this night I decided to try an Elderflower spritz.  Delicious! Viking gave us two options for the following morning.  1) Load up on the bus at 8:00 and make the 5 1/2 hour journey to where the boat was docked; or 2) Load up on the buss at 8:00, take a tour of the city, have lunch and then make th...