Amazingly, this is a view of the boat on which we sailed.  The Avalon Passion. I had tried all trip to get a photo of it but could not.  It was actually taken in Hungary, the last day we were on the boat. I had not been able to get a good photo of the boat because we were usually tied up at the dock with other boats.  When we were moving, we were in the boat, so I could not photograph it. This photo was taken when I went for a long walk down the Danube all by myself. Christiane was sick with a very bad cold. I was surprised to find an Avalon boat was sailing past the Parliament building of Hungary and thought I could take the photo and pretend it was our boat. WE had sailed with Avalon on the Passion, Well, I was even more surprised when it turned around and went back right in front of me and I was able to see it up close and saw it was the same boat we had travelled on. A weird coincidence.

I called this series of posts. “202525 A Cruise up the Danube”.  Well, it has taken me a while to get to the cruise part of the trip. I know one person for whom it has been too long. Sorry. But I have already warned everybody that I meander. And I won’t stop meandering just yet.

 

Our cruise really started with a visit to Romania, with which I fell in love. That surprised me and I never expected that. After that was over, we were brought to Oltenita Romania on the shores of the Danube River. There we boarded the  Avalon Passion  which would be our home nearly 2 weeks.

This was the second river cruise we had taken. The first one was a cruise down the Rhine river in 2017. [see my post 2017 European River Cruise at https://themeanderer.ca/category/2017-european-river-cruise/]

 

We loved that earlier cruise and hoped we would love this one too. That earlier trip was also with Avalon and we thought they were really good. This one we signed up for on a whim, without much thought.  Frankly, after we had committed we realized this trip was very expensive.  We thought it was maybe not worth what we had to pay. But we were committed. Life is hard when you are stupid. I have to keep saying that.

 

What happened was that 3 of our friends, including Christiane’s sister, were going on this cruise and a year ago told us there were 3 rooms left and why didn’t we come too? We hardly thought this out at all. We got excited and signed up.  They picked the trip and we followed.  Then a couple of weeks later, I started reviewing the itinerary. We would be travelling to Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, and Hungary. I have never had a burning desire to go to any of these countries. So why was I going?  Good question?

 

I decided to look into these countries a bit more. I quickly realized this could be a great easy trip. The cruise company does all the work.  It is the lazy man’s way to travel. Or an old man’s way to travel. Well guess what?

 

The countries looked fascinating. What would there be not to like?

 

What stood out on the last river cruise was the people with whom we traveled.  Every night, at the end of excursion, or walks through towns on our own, we would meet in the bar of the boat, have a couple of drinks, and discuss all kinds of things, including of course what we had seen and learned. The People were great. And we had a great time.

 

This trip the people were great fun to be around  as well.  We had decided that although we loved our friends we were travelling with, we did not want to confine our visits to them. After all, this little boat had people from around the world. We could see our friends when we got back home. Of course, we were often with them as well. We just wanted to see other people too.

 

Now it would have been great to meet other people. But really, unfortunately, that did not happen much. We had local guides every day and got to know them really well. They were great. We learned a lot from them. A little interaction with locals would have been wonderful however.

 

So, on the boat, we met people from around the world. France, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada.  There were 147 passengers on the vessels, plus a lot of staff. We met all kinds of people. The biggest group was from Canada. From Canada the largest group by far, came from Manitoba. Weird.  But there was an explanation. A keen CAA travel representative in Winnipeg sold a lot of trips. And she was good.

 

Amazingly, we met another couple from Steinbach whom we did not really know. We had seen the husband before as he used to own and operate the local A & W franchise. We had some great discussions with them and their friends from Kenora. We met a woman, travelling alone, from Ste. Anne. 18 km away from home. And another couple from the same small town. The rest were from all over Manitoba. Great people and we had great fun with them. The best part of the trip was time spent with people on the boat. And we learned a lot off the boat.

 

Some of the Americans were Trumpsters. Very nice people.  They loved what Trump was doing for their country.  We quietly disagreed. The large majority of Americans were not Trumpsters. I had a theory that was reinforced by the people we met.  Most Trumpsters don’t have passports.  They like it at home. Foreign lands are not for them. People who travel on river boats have passports, and in my biased view, have more open minds than most Trumpsters. But we enjoyed our time with all of them.

 

Everyone talks about the food on ocean cruises.  We have only been on two and agree the food is pretty good. However, the food on both cruises, but particularly this one, was outstanding. The chef was a magician. Second only to Christiane. The servers were outstanding.

 

The boat was very modern and cruising was very relaxing. Smooth as silk. Or as a curler of note one said, “as smooth as a baby’s ass at teething time.” You could barely notice  if we were moving, unless you looked outside.

 

Most travelling was done at night. That is weird. You go to sleep in Romania and wake ups in Bulgaria and never noticed you were moving. You missed the entire slog of traveling. This is a strange and disorienting feeling. And very artificial.

 

But it was not perfect. If you asked Christiane, she might say it was horrible. At least some of it. If you asked me, I loved it.  Lawyers would say, “we were not ad idem.” [Lawyers love to use Latin to confuse people into thinking they know something when they don’t] The expression means ‘our minds have not met’. More on this later. I will explain.