Sailing the Danube & Vidin, Bulgaria

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Last night about cocktail hour, we cast off from Rousse and started sailing upstream in earnest. Sebastian, the CD, made the announcement that it would be a nice time to get a drink and take it up to the sun deck. He was right. Clay got the only draft beer onboard, Bitberg. He pronounced it bad. The day's cocktail was cranberry juice and raspberry vodka. I thought just cran juice on the rocks would be good. I only drank half but it must have had citric acid because I was up about 5 times overnight.

Dinner was different last night but not necessarily better. We sat at the front of the room rather than the rear which precluded a table for 2 as they were actively recruiting people to fill up tables. That is understandable. The couple that joined order 3 and 4 courses, so we ordered 3 and it was still a shorter dinner than our 1st night's 2 course. It also helped that it started earlier.

When we got back to the cabin after dinner we got a rude reminder why we generally never book aft cabins. They were running at full engine from probably 8:30 pm to 8:30 am. Our cabin was shaking, rattling and vibrating! It went all night. We were waitlisted a long time to get out of the basement cabins and still count ourselves lucky to have gotten this one. Another reason why historically we've booked early or else last minute to get a better selection. We are still sailing now at 1:50 pm but our next port Vidin is in sight.

We had Sebastian's cruise/port overview talk this morning. He did it 2x. Once in English and once in French so it lasted half the time for each group. Good choice. Roman, the fitness director, gave a presentation about his services as well. I don't think I mentioned we are right beside the fitness room so we see a lot of him. He knows I like ice and don't exercise. We decided to keep all the excursions we'd already booked from home weeks ago.

We spent part of the morning on the sun deck because our breakfast cabin service girl was off duty or elsewhere this morning. We saw her after breakfast and she serviced our cabin right away for us. The late morning, we spent on our "balcony". It was very nice. Tomorrow we sail ALL day but it seems the important landmarks are on the starboard side so we'll have to move around. Sebastian promises to make announcements but so far he's not coming through our TVs on channel 1 as promised.

We are on a special interest tour this afternoon from 3 to 6 pm. It is Banitsa Pastry & Yogurt Making. Since I make my own yogurt and Lactobacillus bulgaricus is a key to that, I am pretty excited about being in the birthplace of yogurt. We had banitsa at lunch as a side dish, not a dessert. Interesting. I don't know if they make it sweet too.

I'm back between the excursion and dinner. So, either the name of the tour changed or I misunderstood. It was banitsa making and yogurt tasting (not making) with a 5-minute discussion of how to find the Bulgarian culture online. The guide said it would be your 1st Google search hit and I got it yesterday but can't find it at all today. Try your luck. She said it is available freeze-dried now, but in her demo she used and said to use existing yogurt. They served commercial cartons of cow's milk and sheep's milk for the banitsa tasting. It can be made sweet or savory and in different shapes. It is versatile. It was better than the one served at lunch. The private home were the cooking demo took place was a short drive east to a village called Ruptsi.

Last note. It must have been at least 6 years since AmaWaterways updated their cruise port information handouts because that is where I got the information about the Friendship Bridge at Giurgiu/Rousse being the only bridge across the Danube between Bulgaria and Romania. We can see a bridge across in front of us where we are docked in Vidin. Our guide today pointed it out as being opened 6 years ago as the 2nd bridge between Bulgaria & Romania. Now you know.

Vidin is our last Bulgarian port. We start cruising again about 11 pm tonight. Tomorrow we cruise all day between Serbia and Romania. It should be scenic. The Iron Gates between the Balkan and Carpathian mountain ranges.

Before dinner there was a loudspeaker announcement that the boat will move the clocks back by 1 hour at 3 am. So not only will tomorrow be a long leisurely sailing day, it will be 1 hour longer. Or as Sebastian suggested, you can sleep in. I'm always afraid of missing seeing something sailing on rivers. Which reminds me, we didn't pack compact binoculars and that was a huge mistake. We've really been wishing for them!

Dinner was a success tonight! The dining room seemed emptier tonight. Maybe because the most strenuous excursion today on our hottest day yet got back at 7pm and showered and changed before dinner. Who knows why. We had a table to ourselves. We ordered a main and dessert each and they were served promptly. We were out of the dining room within 1 hour! It was also the best meal we'd each had. Clay had John Dory fish and I had slow roasted ribeye steak.

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