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Current Events 86: A Farewell Toast
November 17, 2022 - For our final evening in Bucharest, Simona invited us to dinner at her home. Her house was far from the city center, in...
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Current Events 85: A Rehearsal
November 10, 2022 - We were rather downcast as we left the Great Snagogue museum and returned to the Choral Temple. It was such a fine, bree...
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Current Events 84: The Great Synagogue/Sinagoga Mare Part 2
November 03, 2022 - After the Allies defeated the Nazis, over a hundred thousand Jews poured into Bucharest. Many were survivors of the camp...
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Current Events 83: The Great Synagogue/ Sinagoga Mare, Part 1
October 27, 2022 - The Great Synagogue was doubly hidden. Its plain plaster walls masked a sumptuous interior. The ceiling was gorgeous, pa...
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Current Events 82: Bucharest's Choral Temple/ Templul Coral, Part 2
October 20, 2022 - The money and time for the synagogue's renovation were well spent, as the results were spectacular. The ceiling and wall...
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Current Events 81: The Choral Temple (Templul Coral), Bucharest, Part I
October 12, 2022 - Our levity yielded to solemnity when we met Simona and our Israeli friends at the Choral Temple, Templul Coral in Romani...
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Current Events 80: From Luxury to Whimsy
October 06, 2022 - After a lengthy dinner with Simona and our friends from Israel, Miri, Petra, HL and I took a costly taxi ride back to ou...
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Current Events 79: Caru' Cu Bere
September 28, 2022 - For our first dinner together, our friends and we went by taxi to Bucharest's central historic district of Lipscani. Sim...
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Current Events 78: The Village Museum
September 20, 2022 - It was late afternoon when we arrived at one of Bucharest's premier tourist attractions, The Village Museum. It was situ...
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Current Events 77: The People's Palace
September 14, 2022 - While everyone was questioning Egmund, the hero of the Revolution, HL took pictures of the Kretzulescu Church. The Ortho...
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Current Events 76: The Romanian Revolutionary
September 07, 2022 - Whatever its artistic or civic merits, the Impaled Potato was an incongruous addition to Bucharest's central plaza. The...
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Current Events 75: The Impaled Potato
September 01, 2022 - Bucharest was the largest, most densely populated city on our tour, with more than two million people. It had the fastes...
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Current Events 74: Very Little Paris
August 24, 2022 - As we approached Bucharest, the countryside yielded abruptly to equipment yards, truck depots and exurban excrescences f...
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Current Events 73: The Crossing
August 18, 2022 - We reurned to Ruse for our last night aboard the M/S River Aria. Towards the end of our farewell dinner, the chefs and t...
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Current Events 72: The Black Sea
August 10, 2022 - Our final stop in Varna was at the Sunny Days resort complex, where at last I could gaze upon the Black Sea. I looked ac...
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Current Events 71: Rosh HaShanah in Varna
August 04, 2022 - Varna's population had increased steadily in the post-Communist era, and exceeded 330,000 by the time that we arrived. U...
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Current Events 70: Lola
July 28, 2022 - Radi enticed her husband, Nenad, to come to the Thermae to meet the members of her group. He brought their black and whi...
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Current Events 69: The Thermae
July 21, 2022 - In Classical times, Varna was a Greek trading colony called Odessos. Successive empires realized the value of the Black...
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Current Events 68: The Gold of Varna
July 12, 2022 - Our bus halted at Varna's Archeological Museum. The museum was in a Neoclassical building from the 1880's that had been...
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Current Events 67: The Martenitsa
July 06, 2022 - Though there was an excellent highway from Ruse to Varna, two hundred kilometers was a long ride in a bus. Radi's spirit...
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Current Events 66: Changing Course
June 29, 2022 - From Arbanassi, the bus did not return us to Nikopol, where we had breakfasted. Instead, we went to a berth downriver, a...
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Current Events 65: More Oddities of Arbanassi
June 22, 2022 - We ended our afternoon in Arbanassi on a steep street where artisans produced jewelry, pottery, and embroidered linens f...
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Current Events 64: Archangels in Arbanassi
June 15, 2022 - Our guide, Radi, introduced the next attraction as remarkable, and advised us to have our cameras ready. We filed into a...
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Current Events 63: Arbanassi
June 09, 2022 - Velikovo Tarnovo's population was close to 70,000. Velikovo, meaning "great", had been added to the name in 1908, when i...
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Current Events 62: Velikovo Tarnovo
June 02, 2022 - I was feeling ill when I awoke on the morning that we docked in Nikopol. The Aria had sailed there from Vidin while I sl...
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Current Events 61: Roofless in Vidin
May 27, 2022 - After the Jews' departure from Vidin, the vacant synagogue deteriorated. In the 1970's, the Ministry of Culture drew up...
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Current Events 60: A Dubious Heroism
May 19, 2022 - Radi was pleased to disclose the reason for the Bulgarian Jews' escape from the Nazis' extermination camps. Though his c...
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Current Events 59: The Abandoned Synagogue
May 12, 2022 - As we walked from Baba Vida back towards the town center, I heard a riot of barking and growling. Suddenly, a pack of do...
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Current Events 58: Baba Vida
May 05, 2022 - Bulgaria had been a formidable kingdom during the early Middle Ages. A remnant of Bulgaria's former might was the fortre...
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Current Events 57: The Faces of the Dead
April 27, 2022 - The Bulgarians have a custom that I had never encountered anywhere else, and it was in Vidin that I was introduced to it...
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Current Events 56: A Mosque in Vidin
April 21, 2022 - The mosque was not much larger than a private house. A black-bearded man of perhaps forty ushered our group into a room...
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Current Events 55: Vidin, Bulgaria, Part 2
April 13, 2022 - Vidin had a modern central plaza with marble and bronze monuments to soldiers who had died in a plethora of wars. Even w...
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Current Events 54: Vidin, Bulgaria, Part 1
April 07, 2022 - On the morning after our passage through the Iron Gates, the ship docked in Bulgaria. The river port of Vidin was in the...
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Current Events 53: Through the Locks
March 31, 2022 - Our ship entered the first lock at noon. Iron Gates I was the site of the first hydroelectric dam to supply power to bot...
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Current Events 52: Decebalus the King
March 23, 2022 - On the Romanian shore was another monument, the titanic head of the Dacian ruler, Decebalus. Decebalus fought a series o...
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Current Events 51: Trajan's Tablet
March 17, 2022 - The Danube River carried our ship through the deepest gorge in Europe. Aside from a few craft sailing upriver, there wer...
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Current Events 50: Approaching the Iron Gates
March 09, 2022 - Next on our itinerary was a full day of sailing, which had given me pause before we booked the cruise. I had thought tha...
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Current Events 49: The Talija Troupe
March 02, 2022 - On our last night docked in Belgrade, we were treated to a performance by the Talija Folklore Dance Ensemble. I am givin...
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Current Events 48: Emanuela
February 24, 2022 - That night, there were two programs on the ship. The first was a presentation by Emanuela, a young Roma woman. The Roma,...
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Current Events 47: In the White City, Part 2
February 17, 2022 - The middle of the promenade was practically paved with café tables, Belgradians were sitting with friends, drinking, eat...
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Current Events 46: In the White City, Part 1
February 10, 2022 - After having breathed the elegaic atmosphere of the synagogue, we were ready to stroll along Knez Mihailov, or Prince Mi...
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Current Events 45: The Belgrade Synagogue, Part 2/ Sukkat Shalom
February 02, 2022 - The synagogue was grey and three stories high, with a facade that was bland at first glance, but then resolved itself in...
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Current Events 44: The Belgrade Synagogue, Part 1/ Sukkat Shalom
January 27, 2022 - I was doubly an outsider, a tourist who was also a Jew. Serbia had been declared Judenfrei by the Nazis and their collab...
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Current Events 43: The Cathedral of Saint Sava/ Hram Svetog Save, Part 2
June 11, 2021 - The secular creed of Communism had not eradicated Serbian Orthodoxy; rather, it was Communism that had been a temporary...
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Current Events 42: The Cathedral of Saint Sava/ Hram Svetog Save, Part 1
June 04, 2021 - One might have thought that Tito's memorial would be Belgrade's premier tourist attraction. That distinction, however, b...
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Current Events 41: The Veterans
May 27, 2021 - Radi, our guide, was determined that her tour group should have contact with natives wherever we went. She had arranged...
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Current Events 40: The House of Flowers
April 08, 2021 - Nowhere was the Serbian nation's devotion to its former leader more evident than at Marshal Tito's tomb. Tito was releas...
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Current Events 39: Cramped Quarters
October 17, 2019 - Belgrade had the worst traffic that we had encountered. The city's population was over a million and a half, and there s...
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Current Events 38: The City of Dogs
October 10, 2019 - Belgrade is a city of dogs. In Kalemegdan Park, they were everywhere we went. Some were leashed, while others trotted, u...
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Current Events 37: The Victor
October 03, 2019 - Exploring beautiful Kalemegdan Park in its entirety would have taken all of the time that our tour had allotted for Belg...
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Current Events 36: The Fortress of Kalemegdan, Belgrade
September 26, 2019 - No one is certain how much of the Kalemegdan fortress is below ground, as the network of tunnels has not been mapped com...
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Current Events 35: Entering the White City
September 19, 2019 - We docked at Belgrade after cruising overnight from Novi Sad. We were in Serbia's capital for the hottest day of our jou...
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Current Events 34: Vegetarians at Salas 137
September 12, 2019 - I suppose that HL and I could not have been the first vegetarians to dine at Salas 137, but there cannot have been many.
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Current Events 33: Salas 137
September 05, 2019 - From Novi Sad, the tour group traveled by bus to a traditional Serbian restaurant for dinner. During the ride, there was...
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Current Events 32: Beneath Petrovaradin
August 29, 2019 - After the guides from our ship gave us our tickets, they delivered us into the care of an official Petrovaradin tour gui...
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Current Events 31: The Eyes of Petrovaradin
August 22, 2019 - We were given a choice of activities in Novi Sad, and we elected to ascend the hill to Petrovaradin. Two of the guides,...
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Current Events 30: The Synagogue in Novi Sad
August 15, 2019 - Thanks to our guide Radi's accurate directions, we were able to find the main synagogue in Novi Sad. In 1905, the Jewish...
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Current Events 29: Novi Sad, Past and Future Cultural Capital
August 08, 2019 - From the park we progressed to Novi Sad's historic main street. It was closed to vehicular traffic. The dock was at the...
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Current Events 28: The Bridges of Novi Sad
July 31, 2019 - In Danube Park, Novi Sad
Our guide Milena directed us through Danube Park as she explained the history of Novi Sad. We...
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Current Events 27: Novi Sad, Serbia
July 25, 2019 - The ship sailed while we slept and we awoke in Serbia, we passengers having been spared the attentions of border control...
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Current Events 26: A Rally in Vukovar
July 18, 2019 - The liveliest area of Vukovar was a paved strip near the Vuka River channel. There we encountered a gaggle of several do...
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Current Events 25: Vukovar, its Swings and Arrows
July 11, 2019 - It was early evening when HL and I decided to stroll through Vukovar. Adjacent to the dock was a lawn where what appeare...
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Current Events 24: Vukovar, Croatia
July 04, 2019 - We met our ship at Vukovar, Croatia's largest river port, where The Danube joins The Vuka. Osijek bore signs of shelling...
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Current Events 23: Lunch with Rejna, continued.
June 27, 2019 - Seated at the head of the table, Rejna described her labors. She was quite an industrious young woman. Earning one's liv...
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Current Events 22: Lunch with Rejna
June 20, 2019 - The tour company touted a home-hosted (sic) lunch as a special feature. HL and I had been apprehensive about this lunch...
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Current Events 21: No Lack of Monuments (After the Children's Concert in Osijek)
June 13, 2019 - I was touched by the children's buoyant mood, though I should not have minded in the slightest if the stop at the school...
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Current Events 20: A Concert in Osijek
June 06, 2019 - One of our destinations in Osijek was an elementary school, where the students regaled us with a concert. The tour compa...
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Current Events 19: Osijek, Croatia
May 30, 2019 - We docked in Batina, a tiny river port in eastern Croatia. Eastern Croatia is the section that does not include the Dalm...
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Current Events 18: Pajama Party on The Danube
May 23, 2019 - I wished that we could spend another week in Budapest, but we had to return to the ship on our second night there to beg...
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Current Events 17: The Alexandra Bookstore
May 16, 2019 - I have to thank our guide from the boat, Radi, for suggesting that we repair to the Alexandra Bookstore after the Opera...
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Current Events 16: The Hungarian State Opera House
May 09, 2019 - While the guide explained the history and design of the three-tiered Opera House, he had us sit in the plush chairs in t...
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Current Events 15: A Walk on Andrassy Avenue
May 02, 2019 - We consulted a map before setting out for the Opera House, a landmark that we had glimpsed during the previous day's cit...
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Current Events 14: Mystery Lunch in the Jewish Quarter
April 25, 2019 - We ate in a ramshackle falafel joint where we could not tell what we had ordered, owing to the girl cashier's limited En...
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Current Events 13: The Synagogue on Kazinczy Street
April 18, 2019 - Near the Great Synagogue on Dohany was a much smaller, Orthodox one on Kazinczy Street. It was about a century old. The...
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Current Events 12: The Tree's Testimony
April 11, 2019 - In the synagogue courtyard stands a monument to the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. It acknowledges Wallenberg's cour...
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Current Events 11: Cries from the Stones
April 04, 2019 - The most unusual feature of the Dohany was not the pipe organ nor the cathedral-like construction, but its graveyard. Sy...
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Current Events 10: The Phoenix
March 28, 2019 - The Great Synagogue of Budapest opened in 1859, during a period of official toleration. The Moorish style was in vogue a...
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Current Events 9: The Great Synagogue on Dohany Street
March 21, 2019 - The tour of the Jewish Quarter was an optional one, that is, available for an additional fee. There was no question that...
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Current Events 8: Between Buda and Pest by Night
June 21, 2018 - My second night aboard ship provided me with my first unique cruising memory, Budapest by Night. At the beginning of the...
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Current Events 7: Budapest's Great Market Hall
June 14, 2018 - The guides procured tram tickets for us so that we could explore some of Budapest on our own, and HL and I were among th...
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Current Events 6: Iron Shoes
June 06, 2018 - Our ship was docked very close to Budapest's most original memorial sculpture, Shoes on the Danube Promenade. Af ter a s...
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Current Events 5: The Humanitarian
January 30, 2018 - Fisherman's Bastion is a Neo-Gothic terrace affording views of The Danube. Its turrets and archways are ideal backdrops...
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Current Events 4: Castle Hill, Budapest
January 25, 2018 - There were other tourists milling around the royal palace enclosure, but not masses of them. Much of Buda Castle now hou...
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Current Events 3: Captain and Crew
January 24, 2018 - Peter, the ship's captain, was a Hungarian who looked younger than his years, despite the weight of responsibility for t...
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Current Events 2: The Ship
January 19, 2018 - It was in Budapest that HL and I met our ship, the M/S River Aria. HL had arranged in advance for a cab to convey us fro...
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Current Events: My Cruise on the Lower Danube River
January 16, 2018 - I made my first trip to Europe with Miri, when she and I were still in our teens. We worked and wheedled to get the fund...
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