Novi Sad, Serbia in the Morning

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Novi Sad means new plant. Now you know. We were here when we woke up around 6 am. We are the only riverboat docked here today. We have the riverview and can see 2 new bridges since 2000 as well as pylons from the destroyed bridges and the Petrovaradin Fortress across the Danube.

At 8:30 am we went on the "Gentle" Novi Sad Walking Tour. Today's tour was not as gentle as yesterday's. We walked fewer stairs and slopes today but we walked further and faster with a group of 7.  We started the walk on the side of the river where we docked. We walked down Danube Street, in Danube Park, through the pedestrian streets visiting St. George Orthodox and the square before St. Mary's Catholic, on to the bus waiting beyond the Serbian National Theater. The bus drove us across the Danube to Petrovaradin Fortress. We changed to 9-passenger vans for the drive to the top where we had another walking tour before returning by van to bus to boat. We turned in our passports as we leave Serbia later.

At 11:30 am we had our disembarkation talk. When we got back to the cabin, tip envelopes awaited. It has been a short cruise. You'd hate to fly all the way to Europe and back for 1 or 2 weeks of these river cruises! AmaWaterways wants 100 Euros each for the crew and 25 Euros each for the Cruise Manager. They've earned it. I feel like I can recommend AmaWaterways. The weakest part for us has been dinners but they have been responsive to our requests and that is the most we can expect.

We left Novi Sad about noon. Two hours after the scheduled time.We are to have lunch at 1 pm. We are scheduled for a wine tasting tour in Ilok this afternoon. The ship stops there to let the tours depart then sails on to Vukovar to pick us up again. The other tour option is about the Yugoslav civil war. We are still dithering about just staying aboard. Stay tuned. If we go, we should expect to be off the boat from 3:30 pm or so until 7:15 pm or so and dinner at 7:30 pm.

I'll try to come back and update this later depending on Internet access and timing. Otherwise check tomorrow.

I need to make a fact correction. I stated earlier that the km markers were only on our starboard side, but they are in fact on both sides. I don't know why I hadn't seen them on our port side view before. I saw 1282 over on port. Right after seeing 4 piglets running along the shore on the starboard side. We really wish we'd brought the binoculars!

We arrived at Ilok on schedule, the ship quickly cleared the border check and tours departed shortly after 3:30 pm. We had one full bus to the wine tasting tour. We drove about 5 minutes through Ilok to Iloki Podrumi where we toured their moldy cellar and then had a nice tasting. They offered 2 whites and a red. All were nice. They had bread, cheese and langos as snacks.  We drove maybe 15 minutes next to try a sparkling rose at a beautiful location. We drove maybe 40 minutes through farm land to arrive at Vukovar to see the devastation of war alongside the new construction. We found AmaCerto tied up as the 3rd ship at the Danube dock. We had to cross a Viking and a Grand Circle boat to get to ours. Sebastian bragged that we were the only one serving complimentary cocktails at 7 pm.

Photos