Night in Budapest

View from Sofitel Hotel Room across Danube to Buda side:

Final day: Budapest

Tomorrow we fly back to MD, and today was a fitting end to the trip. It was really like three trips, with part one Istanbul, part two the cities in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia,  and Croatia in cloudy cold weather, and Budapest on a sunny warmish day.

Having been to Budapest several years ago, day we toured on our own, and with the gorgeous weather it was the right choice. We hiked up the steep hill on the Buda side of the chain bridge (named for the look of the main suspension cables: they are basically bike chain links) beside the closed funicular and spent into the afternoon in the streets, restaurants and museums.

Returning after a nice lunch, sans wine this time, I walked Judy, the other Judy (Paul) and Melinda to the Budapest "eye", a large Ferris Wheel that they had been admiring since we came here. A ride was in order for them, to keep up their string since Singapore and Bangkok (as I recall), but I had no interest so I went on to a coffee shop and explored more of the area around the Cathedral.

Chain Bridge and Pest side of Danube from Funicular:

Looking up Danube from Chain bridge, Parliament House:

Cute kids on outing:

Cold lady fountain:

From path by broken funicular:

Cathedral on top of Buda hill:

Tipping

Tipping was the bane of my existance. I neglected to bring lots of small denomination bills, and the boat was short too, so tips were a never ending panic and sometimes embarrassment.  It's not that they amounted to much, but without small denomination bills they were always too big or small. Today I spent $35 in tips to four separate people: the wagon driver at the horse farm, the musicians at lunch and the bellman at the hotel. That was exceptional, but what you get when you don't know what to expect and plan accordingly.

European guides in eastern Europe don't get too much, 1€ per day per person for a half day guide is recommended. But the driver also gets that amount too, so for a half day for Judy and I it would amount to 4€.

On our Asian trips I always took a big wad of $1 US and was fine.

Budapest: driving horse farm and show

Arrived on the Pest side of the Danube river at 4 am and left boat for last time at 9:45 am. We check into the Sofitel later, but first we visited a horse farm to the east about 45 minutes.

I was skeptical at first about visiting a horse farm since we live next to ( Sagamore), but this was a warm blooded ( as opposed to cold blooded like draft horses, and hot blooded like Arabians, driving horse farm (4 in hand and 2 in hand), and we had a great show and lunch featuring the Hungarian favorite goulash soup, wine, meats and desert, accompanied by music.

The horse demonstrations included driving, riding, ox cart pulling, and what I can best describe as a circus act with a guy standing on a team of 5 horses as they ran around the track. Then there was the "who can spill less beer while racing around the track" competition, which was exactly what it is named: each rider held a mug of beer in one hand while controlling his horse with the other. One enterprising guy held a tray with the beer on it, and simply poured the spilled beer from the tray to the mug as he finished, winning the competition.

Turned into a nice afternoon, improved by the second day of sun in the last two weeks.

The beautiful ox team:

Well appointed stables:

Lunch:

Four in hand team:

Pecs: beautiful Hungarian town

On our ultimate tour today we visited the  beautiful town of Pecs. The features we saw included a second-century Christian burial site from the timne of Roman rule under the present cathedral and a square with a mosque turned church turned mosque turned cathedral... well you get the idea. Plus a large statue of a horse designed by Davinci.

The burial site predated the use of a cross as a Christian symbol, bringing up the question of how it was so identified. Well they used a circular christogram in early Christianity.

The burial site, with circula s christogram:

Croatia on November 1

We did a second tour after Novi Sad around 3 pm. We sailed to a port in Croatia and visited a winery in the nearby town of Lloc, then met the boat in a sad little town called Vukovar which had seen devastation during the 1990's war when Yougoslavia broke up. The village is still recovering and great gashes and bullet holes can still be seen. A massacre occurred in 1991 where 250 hospital inmates were slaughtered by Serbian paramilitary and buried. Our guide lived in the town and describes her year underground in terms that made me want to cry. What a violent history this beautiful part of the world has seen.

Anyway, the wine tour/tasting was fine. The wine tasting and subsequent town tour were in the dark, but some pictures came out.

Novi Sad, Serbia: Albert Einstein and Monica Seles

Novi Sad (Serbia) is a pleasant city, the second largest in Serbia, behind Belgrade, but much lower key with a spectacular fort and wide pedestrian streets, where the shopping is promising, if the excitement of the female sector of our walking tour is any indication  (and their disappointment at not having time to shop.)

It is flat, making it ideal for bike transportation. It is home to the Serbian tennis player, Monica Seles, and where Albert Einstein's first wife,  Mileva Marić, was from. Einstein lived here from 1905-1907, and worked on relativity with Mileva, who was a mathematician.

Me window shopping, for electronic gadgets:

Town hall square:

Orthodox Cathedral:

Religious practices in the cathedral were idiosyncratic, to my eye. Women faced the virgin Mary, while men faced Christ when saying their prayers. They ate small morsels of bread in the church.  There are no seats, except for a few for old people around the edges, much like mosques in Islam. There is no organ, and the only music would be choir singing. People crossed themselves using there fingers, and did it in a n-s-e-w pattern, kissing pictures of biblical p characters. These differences seem incapable of sparking splits in the christian community I recall happening. That's religion.

Catching up: Tesla Museum Picture

Some pics, if we can keep to connection.

Tesla Museum yesterday. Demonstrating induction motors:

Belgrade, Serbia

Who would have thought Belgrade, Serbia would be such an interesting city?

We walked through a fort consisting of concentric walls dating from the 14th century through the 18th, all on  a peninsula jutting out into the Danube, where it meets its main tributary, the Sava river. The fort makes up a large, pleasant park, one of many in the city. The views North across the Danube were magnificent. This is a jewel!

Dogs run free here, all well cared for, some dressed in coats and with harnesses. Some on leashes. Don't walk on the grass, we were warned, without looking since it seems the dogs have no sense of decency when it comes to natural urges.

We ate lunch back at the boat around noon. I overheard Michele and Chris ( a couple on the trip with their father) mention the Nikola Tesla museum at lunch, and that seemed a worthy goal for the afternoon, so I joined them and walked the 2 km to see it.  It was not much more than an exhibit of Tesla's induction motors, still in use today, and a demonstration of Tesla coils we used to toy with as kids, but made more interesting by a very cute engineering student. Anyway, for about $5 what was the downside? The papers and some models were supplied from Tesla's New York museum around 1955, and had been damaged by water, creating some disputes about the legitimacy of the entire endeavor.

This evening was capped by a dance performance by energetic Serbian youths aboard the river boat. It was very good, in spite of the feeling I get that the relationship between them and us passengers is more like that between a hired dance troop and nursing home residents. Anyway, I guess you just have to ignore the feeling and enjoy the entertainment. I'm thankful they did not try to involve us "residents" in the performance, as actually happened a couple of nights ago.

We stop in two towns tomorrow, so to sleep!

Iron Gates Dam and Locks

The big event today is passing through the "Iron Gates I" locks and 2000 MW hydro electric dam separating Romania and Serbia, named after the iron ore mined in the surrounding mountains. It and the downriver iron gates II, which we passed through in darkness (except for the lock lights that woke me) at 3:00 AM this morning, are what allows boat traffic to go both ways on the river with minimal energy expenditure. Previously locomotives were required to go upriver, and water was more shallow. Interestingly, only 5-10% of the river's shipping capacity is currently used.

We are using the left (looking up stream on the Danube) locks, the first of which which seems to be opening as we approach it. The locks are significantly wider (100 feet) than our 40 foot wide river boat, meant to accommodate larger freight-carrying boats it appears. The total lift is about 100 feet in two lock stages. Each lock is about 1000 feet in length.

The iron gates cost of construction was shared between Romania and Serbia, whose boundary bisects it.

Note on weather: it has been cold and grey since we left Istanbul, with deep snow in the Balkan mountain passes. Some rain, fog. The Danube is cold, brown. You would not come for the fall climate, if our trip is any example.

At 11 AM we are just rising in the second of the two 50 foot lift locks. Through at 11:15 AM.

After being lifted a total of 100 feet by locks, we entered a very long section of river between steep cliffs for some distance upriver, passing a Romanian version of Mt. Rushmore, with a single giant face carved into the cliff. It was carved from 1994 to 2004.

This is described on the wonderful-romania web site as follows, in slightly damaged English:

"The narrowest sector of the Danube River on Romanian territory, the place where it cuts through the rocky mountain, has determined many tourists to rank it in the first place among other natural wonders of Romania. Here lays the largest sculpture in Europe, the doughty sculpture of Decebal, the mighty Dacian king. Both a monument created by nature and a man-made monument."

Wikipedia is better ( http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_sculpture_of_Decebalus):

"The rock sculpture of Decebalus is a 40-m high carving in rock of the face of Decebalus, the last king of Dacia, who fought against the Roman emperors Domitian and Trajan to preserve the independence of his country, which corresponded to modern Romania. The sculpture is on a rocky outcrop on the river Danube, at the Iron Gates, which form the border between Romania and Serbia. It is located near the city of Orşova in Romania.

It is the tallest rock sculpture in Europe."

Cruise from Romania to Vidin, Bulgaria

10/29/2014: still not enough internet for blog

Today the boat traveled from Guirgui in Romania (across The Danube from Ruse) to the Bulgarian town of Vidin, and  we had a late tour of the castle Baba Vida there, followed by trip to an old Roman fort in  Belogradochic  in the Stara Planina mountains about 40 km away.

In the Baba Vida we were treated (?) to a surprise stage performance in a tunnel under the fort. I'm usually against this sort of amateurish tourist thing, but it was just offbeat enough to be entertaining, and the tunnel was heated and subtilty lit. The play told the story of Bulgaria from when it had a access to three seas (Black, White, Adriatic) thru Ottoman attacks, then Roman rule (they attacked Ottomans for women), up to the 1878 establishment of current territory.

Then the bus to Belogradochic and the Roman fort set among a rock formation resembling Bryce Canyon in Utah, but on a very much smaller scale. We saw Communist-era apartments on way out of town. Ugly grey concrete, but nice inside according to guide.

Big letdown at destination: fog, rocks not spectacular, long drive. But there was a nice hotel.

We did get to hike to the top of the old Roman fort, up all the 100's stairs. No view thru fog (Balkan Mtns are said to be visible on clear day, but we had already seen them on the snowy bus trip after Plovdiv anyway) but good exercise! Judy bought a bottle of grape brandy.

Bucharest, Romania

Bucharest day, Romania (named after Romans), north edge of empire, Bram Stoker (Dracula) country

9:00 am departure via bus

Driver got out map....

Transition from communism in 1990s was big problem, will be for decades to come

Oil and gold chief resources

Universal education, gypsy problems

Ceausescu! Executed in 1989

Village Museum very good visit. On own. Reconstructed from actual homesteads. See pics.

Parliament: Ceausescu built, never saw, strands for futility of communism, but also what Romianians could do. 2nd largest administration bldg in world. Didn't go but saw from street: too touristy.

Great music at lunch, violin, piano, singing. Great art, antiques, big hall.

Old town tour PM: time filler.

Bucharest after the south part seems pretty nice, if a little in disrepair. Great lunch spot.

1.25 hours, 3:45 bus leaves.

Back at boat 5PM.

Snow on way from Plovdiv, Bulgaria to boat on Danube

To Ruse 10/27/2014

As exciting as a bus trip gets! Over frozen passes, thru deep snow ..

Cold: 8:00 am, 1deg C

Balkan Mountains ahead, high, snow capped! We will divert route to lower elev. to avoid snow.

Geothermal heated vegetable gardens.

Rose gardens produce oil. Pick before sunrise; need dew.

6500€ per kgram.

Heavy snow in pass: 1-2 meters!

Delicious lunch w/ good wine in alpine village.

Velika Tarnovo: shop near lunch

Remember: roses, crylic lang. developed in Bulgaria, yougert, folk music

Spectacular gorge going out of town, caves on cliff, houses set at foot

Land flattened out near Ruse

Ship!

Plovdiv, Bulgaria: an unexpected nugget on a cold, rainy day

I can't get on the internet reliably from our hotel (a Ramada) here in Plovdiv, so I'm writing this using notepad, hopefully to be posted tomorrow.

After coming in to town in darkness after a full day drive from Istanbul, in increasingly nasty weather in the rain and cold, past run down Soviet era apartment buildings, and checking in at our hotel, we did a walk in the rain around town with our tour guide. In spite of the weather, we discovered what on a nice day would have been a most charming and delightful place. Built on partially excavated  ancient Roman ruins, of what was a hippodrome and very large theatre, seating thousands, with coble streets and pleasant restaurants (and stores, which were thankfully closed at the time), this place should not be overlooked if you happen to be in the area (which may be unlikely since I don't think Bulgaria is on anyone's bucket list.) It was to be just an overnight stop on the way to Ruse and our boat, but could reasonably be a good full day or two side trip.

We had a delicious meal in a comfortable side street restaurant, with good wine and food. Now in our hotel, which does not measure up to the Intercontinental Ceylan in Istanbul but probably is excellent in a country where the average monthly wage is 400 €, we are just now trying to see if we should drink the tap water... Judy just managed to google it, and the prognosis is not good: there is a pollution alert, so I will be getting bottles H2O in the lobby.

Anyway, no pics due to the late hour of our tour.

Last day in Istanbul

This AM we took the tour included in our trip, to the Blue Mosque, mainly because it included the entrance fee, along with much unnecessary verbiage.

The wait to get in was long enough to almost guarantee an anti-climax, but the structure was impressive, with four massive pillars holding up tiers of hemispherical domes, stacked on each other and culminating in a large dome 170 feet high at its peak (if I recall correctly.) The decorations were quartz tile (Iznik, which is the modern name for Nicea of creed fame) up to a cornice below the first windows, then painted to the top of the dome. The geometry that allowed this structure is very interesting.

I suppose it was worth seeing, but my ambivalence regarding tourist attractions led me to skip the nearby cisterns, where there was another line. (We had seen cisterns yesterday below the rug store, so I rationalized if you had seen one you'd seen them all, much like Mosques. Hope I don't insult cistern lovers. I think your tolerance for a given thing is proportional to your knowledge and interests, and mine are minimal here, and small differences are just not as fascinating as, say, programming languages, which would bore non-geeks equally.)

Here's an overview of the inlet off the Bosphorus called the golden horn separating the Istanbul old town (previously Constantinople) from the new town:

Entrance (actually exit) of Blue Mosque:

Domes in Mosque:

Dick Sanders (the husband of an old friend of Judy's and mine) and I spent a pleasant hour and a half drinking coffee and eating calamari at a street cafe watching passers by before wandering some back allies to the tram that took us back to the funicular up to the hotel. Nice to just forget sight-seeing (and shopping) and enjoy being there.

Tomorrow we transit in a bus to Bulgeria for our second leg. Reminds me of our trip to Africa in the early 1990's when we had three totally separate experiences camping near the Ngorngoro crater, then visiting totally different wildlife camping in the Serengeti, and then a four-day climb of Killamanjaro. This kind of varied activities in a single trip really keeps things interesting.

Long ride early tomorrow, so I'll sign off.

Guided Topkali tour, rugs, walk

We spent from 9:30 AM until around 3:00 PM getting a guided tour of Topkapi followed by refreshments and a long infomercial about rugs at a nearby rug store.I left the group shopping in the store, and strolled back to the meeting point.

The guide, but none of my immediate group showed up, and after waiting a decent 1/2 hour I decided they either had continued shopping or gone in a different direction. After backtracking to find them without success, even wandering through the "Blue Mosque" courtyards, I took off on my own and wandered back streets of old town, passing through an arts area which seemed to be selling paints, frames, paper, etc.

Every possible location is taken by vendors, and covered areas like road underpasses are especially in demand. Istanbul is very crowded today and the walk (and funicular ride) back to the hotel were jammed with people.

Topkapi was to me a crowded, touristy letdown. Most Asian palaces (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand) impressed me much more from an art and architecture standpoint.

Topkapi entrance:

Compare to Cambodian version:

Rug:

Washing prior to prayer time at Mosque:

Science museum, Topkapi, tram, spice market and lots of walking

Today started with Judy and Prudence hotfooting it to the the Grand Bazaar to meet Richard, Melinda and JP to buy gifts etc. I went as far as the Galatan bridge, then broke off to do my own thing for the rest of the day, since I fervently wanted to avoid that place.

Instead I visited the spice market, the museum of Islamic science and technology and the Topkapi palace grounds.

The spice market seemed to me to be as a tourist attraction, very over rated, like the grand bazaar. Mostly, it was just like all the other markets, with spice stalls thrown in. I walked through, then hit the street.

Representative stall:

The science museum was next to the Topkapi palace: 

It contained many models of Islamic (?) Scientific instruments, but would be difficult to appreciate without prior knowledge of the place of Muslim science in history (very important both in original work and in preserving older knowledge), and more detailed descriptions of the instruments themselves and their uses and contributions to our knowledge. A video basically encouraged Muslims to learn both science and their forefather's contributions to it. It looks like the encouragement will have little effect since I saw few people in the mostly deserted building.

Lunch, $7.00:

Great view from Topkapi palace grounds:

Galatan bridge on way home, via another funicular (note fishing poles that required fancy footwork to avoid tripping and being hooked by back casts):

Day One Pics

Finally got these over. First day in town, Istiklal street.

Happy cat near St. Anthony's Church near Istiklal:

Goodies:

Flowers:

Prince Islands, funicular and vegamatic

Today we decided to take a boat south out of the Bosphorus to some islands called collectively and colloquially the Princess Islands, and spend most of a day on one of them: Buyakada. The ride was an amazingly cheap 6 lira (less than $3) each way per person for the 1 and a quarter hour ride. It seems like the Turks have a great way to spend an inexpensive day out on a beautiful island.

Pics from trip out:

Judy:

On the trip out we got a great look at the extent of the Asian mainland side of Turkey. The city seemed to go on forever down the coast, out of sight, with  tall skyscrapers everywhere.

We walked around the island town looking at houses and hotels in conditions ranging from pristine to run down, beach front and further up the hill with great views. Restaurants galore, and thankfully few shops (I am already out of patience with shopping after the Grand Bazaar yesterday.)

All motorbikes and many 4 wheeled vehicles we saw are electric, which was both very interesting and encouraging. Whether out of legislation or economic necessity, the effect on noise and odor was welcome: we could smell all the other things associated with an ocean- oriented town, like dead fish, the horses they use to pull carts as taxis and various things associated with the large cat and dog population.

On the trip back to Istanbul we were treated to a live performance of the vegamatic man, if you are old enough to recall him. A guy with a piercing voice stood on deck and entertained the croud demonstrated a gadget he used to do everything from pealing a tomato to making cabbage salad. When he finished he must have sold 50 to 75 to people right there for around $4 per gadget. Judy bought two.

Arriving back at our dock, we decided to take the funicular back up to our hotel on Taksim square, instead of climbing the rather steep hill. It's always interesting to use local public transportation systems, and this was no exception. We had to find it, which was not trivial (for us anyway) since the station was in the train station. Then we had to figure out how to use the machine to buy a token resembling a plastic Parcheesi piece, which we fed a turn style, to enter the dock where several cars with tilted floors waited. It took us effortlessly up to the square from which we managed to walk to the hotel.

Taksim Square, where our hotel is

A little refresher on Taksim Square:

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has reportedly labelled Istanbul's Taksim Square, which was rocked by deadly anti-government protests last year, "as the ugliest square in the world".

"If anyone tells me that Taksim is a perfect square, then I would tell him that it is the ugliest square in the world," Davutoglu told reporters.

"I have seen the squares in Venice and Isfahan," he said, referring to St Mark's Square and the immense Naqsh-e Jahan Square in the historic Iranian city.

"After seeing them, you feel yourself sucked into a vacuum on Taksim Square," he was quoted as saying by Milliyet newspaper on Monday. 

A small campaign to save Istanbul's Gezi Park, adjacent to Taksim, in May-June 2013 eventually drew an estimated three million protesters in an outpouring of anger at the perceived authoritarian tendencies of the Islamic-rooted government.

Eight people died and thousands were injured in the ensuing violence as police launched a brutal crackdown, frequently employing tear gas and water cannon.

Taksim Square, Grand Bazaar

Short post today since we got in late. We left the hotel, which is right on Taksim Square, at the crack of noon and walked the length of Istiklal avenue (translation of cadissi) across the Galata bridge, dodging fishing poles, to the Grand Bazaar.

Took all afternoon what with frequent stops for sights and shopping, finishing with a slow cab ride through heavy traffic back to the hotel. Finally dinner at the Faro Restaurant across the street. Very nice food there. I had sea bass, which was excellent.

My pics are all via iPhone and not transferred yet to this tablet, so, sorry, no pics here today. Plans tomorrow call for a boat ride to the Price Islands. Rough location of islands, relative to hotel, shown as checkered flag:

Arrival, quick pic

After our spring trip to Bangkok I thought the trip to Istanbul would be a piece of cake. I was wrong: the flight seemed interminable in seats that were too cramped. Then, Judy sat next to a man from Niger (not Nigeria, which it borders to the south) in west Africa. He seemed asymptomatic so we are hoping for the best.

Anyway, enough complaining. Here we are all checked in at the hotel (the Intercontental Ceylan) after a long taxi ride from the AP, which cost a surprisingly cheap 60 lira (2.2/$) or around $27. Istanbul is an immense, sprauling city, clean and with lovely views of the Bosperous with its heavy shipping traffic.

We plan to walk around (in a fog due to no sleep; hope we find our way back) the area a little to keep away temptations of serious napping, which would throw off our adjustment even more.

Hotel room view:

Departure Day

In outline our trip will take us to Istanbul for 6 days and then on a 7 day trip on the Danube from Plovdiv to Budapest, ending with a couple days in Budapest.

The trip begins today with a 6:10 pm Lufthansa flight to Istanbul via Frankfurt, GE. I know some have and will be thinking "ISIS!" and "Ebola!" Ebola is the bigger threat in our minds, but probably not an actual big risk.  Anyway the alternative is cancellation which would cost big bucks.

I'll try to post regularly and hope to be able to include pictures. Here's our itinerary, not including a few days more in Istanbul: