Friday, August 20, 2021
Breakfast is a buffet with an omelet cook, and one can also order from a menu. There is an Egg of the Day.
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| Egg of the Day: Spinach and bacon frittata |
Due to the cast-off delay last night, today's schedule was re-arranged as we instead spent the morning cruising on the Danube.
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The bow of Viking Ullur against the wide Danube River;
hey, it actually looks blue today! |
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On the stern the Viking Ullur flies the
Swiss flag of its registration, but on the
Sun Deck it flies the flag of the country
in which we are traveling: Bulgaria |
In the morning there was a
Cyrillic Alphabet Workshop (write your name in Cyrillic: Тамико and Кент) and a Nautical Talk, both given by our Energizer Bunny Program Director, Sonya. She also gave the presentation last evening on
Growing Up in Eastern Europe (Behind the Iron Curtain).
After lunch, having arrived in Vidin, Bulgaria, we took off once again in motorcoaches (apologies for the poor photos taken from the motorcoaches!) for a 50-km/30-mile ride to Belogradchik.
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Мемориал на жертвите на комунизма/
Memorial to the Victims of Communism (1999) |
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| Perhaps a spruced up Soviet-style residential block |
Vidin was once a thriving metropolis, with an industrial zone that manufactured all of the country's telephones and two-thirds of its tires. After the fall of Communism, the Bulgarian industry apparently could not compete globally. Vidin is now considered the poorest city in the European Union. Most of the younger population moved away to look for jobs, leaving the elderly, and often children were left with their grandparents.
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There is a story of an industrialist who tried
to invest in the city, but he also decided
to begin building a Roman Catholic Church
(Christ the Saviour, 2018-unfinished), before
learning there were no Roman Catholics
living in a city of Bulgarian Orthodox (KSS) |
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We begin to see the Balkan Mountains to the south,
which divide Bulgaria into north and south |
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View of Belogradchik, with a rock formation on the left
said to resemble a crouching bear |
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| A newer house with grape vines and roses |
This area located in the foothills of the Balkans, is known for the Belogradchik Rocks, a geological grouping of monoliths and hoodoos, one of the natural wonders of Bulgaria.
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Entering the first gate of Belogradchik Fortress
(c 100 CE by the Romans with later additions)
that takes advantage of the rock formations |
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