Passage To Eastern Europe Viking River Cruise
Day 7: Thursday, November 03, 2022 - Nikopol, Bulgaria
The day's statistics:
- Weather: upper 50s
- Steps: 6.236 Linda; 7,008 Steve
Since this is our first breakfast on ths ship, I'll go through the routine.
The one-page menu contains what is available from the waiter.
There is also a full buffet, with a made-to-order eggs chef, available if one prefers that. Plus it's faster.
Linda, five of the seven days we had breakfast on the ship, had egg benedict.
I always had the buffet, and the plate pretty much looked like this. Daily.
We ate with Teresa and Richard (previous MD residents now living in NM), and Heather and Dottie.
At 8:45 was the call to make our way to the buses, making sure we brought our room cards to scan out, tickets for the
excursion, and our QuietVoice® receivers.
We grabbed what we needed, the camera, and our jackets. Before heading out to the excursion, I captured this picture
of the shoreline showing how low the water line is. It is unusually low due to low rainfall in the region.
And this interesting cliff near the ship as well.
While we disembarked, we were given bottles of water.
There were three buses heading out and half were going to Veliko Tarnova and half to Arbanasi.
Our group's first sightseeing stop on our travels was to the Arbanasi village.
Todays guide was Lily, and Nicky was our driver.
We had a two hour drive ahead of us. Of course, there were some sights along the way, though mostly countryside.
These sites included the Balkin mountains.
A closer-up of the shepard in the second image above.
Continuing on.
It was cooler, and some houses had fires burning.
There is an old monestary at the foot of the cliff.
The oldest brewery in Bulgaria. Thankfully, we didn't stop.
Continuing on.
We had a convenience break. But this one was a little different than most as we stopped
at a restaurant for a snack. The location was called the "Baba Vida Fortress".
It was called such due to the fact that it... looked like a fortress. There is actually a foot wide by a couple
inches deep - sorry, a meter wide by 40-50 centimeter deep - along the front that was drained for the season.
We had a variety of four different cakes and cookies, and coffee.
The inside was a fairly large open space.
The light fixtures were interesting.
We had a few minutes to better inspect the outside, and walk around the grounds a little.
When we got off the bus, we were using our QuietVoice® devices to hear about the Fortress. At 11:30, when our
snack and visit to the Fortress Restaurant was over, I put my earpiece back in to get ready for the next stop.
But I couldn't hear anything. I asked Linda if she could, and she said "yes". Since she was sitting on the aisle,
she went to Lily to see if she had any batteries as we were in proximity to other guides and might be able to get
some from her. She did not, but also didn't get any from any other guide - maybe she didn't think of it.
More sights on our was to our next stop.
It was a short trip...
Since my QuietVoice® device was dead, and Lily had no replacement or batteries, that meant I needed to stay in
closer proximity to Lily.
This wasn't too big of a deal, except if I wanted to stay behind and get a picture with no one in it.
As said above, our first sightseeing stop was in Arbanasi.
The top of the Church of the Nativity of Arbanasi, built in 1596, was low due to laws in place at the time of construction that
churches could not be taller than the Islamic buildings in the town. Bell towers were even in their own building.
We rounded the corner, went through the gate, and were on the property of the church.
The threshhold to enter the church was rather low (this happened a few other times). But not because "the people
were shorter", but rather because "one should show reverence [especially when entering a church]".
We weren't supposed to take pictures while inside - probably a flash photo related sort of restriction (we did see
"no flash photography" restrictions at some locations), but that wasn't conveyed here.
So.... let's just say I got these shots from somewhere on the internet. (And you can say that too, if you want.)
Pretty much any and every wall and ceiling surface was painted with something.
The icons across the bottom of the altar wall, left to right, are (not completely visible as the person taking the
picture probably didn't know ) [probably]: John The Baptist; the Nativity (for which the church is named); Madonna and Jesus; Jesus; St, George. Saint Joseph, like in most - if not all -
of the Eastern Orthodox churches, is absent.
More images from inside.
The Joshua Tree.
We learned a decent amount about the church.
After being inside for almost a half hour, we stepped back outside.
There was an earthquake in the region that caused some minor damage to the church, which is why the side needed
to be reinforced.
We walked back out the gate, past a couple vendors selling some antiques and similar souveniers, and down the hill
a piece. At the fork in the road, we took the road less traveled. I mean we turned to the right. A couple houses
up was a house-museum.
The house was origianlly built in the 1680s.
Here is the side and some of the backyard.
The window with the bars was used as a look-out.
The wood is put into the wall to help protect the wall against earthquakes.
The original entry door. It was heavy and the iron helped protect it. The door was so heavy that when the
guide closed the door, she had a problem opening it again.
Sleeping quarters.
A tea serving set (repositioned for viewing).
The story is that a suitor can stop by for tea. If the daughter serves the tea bitter (sans sugar), she isn't
interested. If she serves it sweet, she is interested - the sweeter, the more interested.
Some artwork.
The yellow floor tile dates pre-1700.
A decorative ceiling.
Some artifacts.
Another bedroom / sleeping area.
The kitchen area.
A bedroom.
The confinement room (for new mothers).
Another sitting area with some artifacts, including an old sewing machine and yarn spinner.
We exited to home down a rear staircase.
Then walked around the home, out the front, and up a small hill.
We stopped at a small gift shop across the street. We were told that we were supposed to receive "Viking Preferred
Pricing". Upon inspection, it looked like we got regular pricing... further, prices at another stop later in the
afternoon were significantly lower than those at this location. So we think the preferred pricing this was, let's
say, hogwash.
We did get to sample some rose brandy. It actually wasn't that bad.
After a fifteen or so minute stop, we proceeded toward the restaurant where we were having lunch.
The facility was rather large - not as large as the restaurant in Bucharest, but still decent sized.
There was a waterway down the middle of the property, and a foot bridge over it.
We sat with Kathy and Jim from Sea Isle, NJ - sort of close to where we live, but not Newark close...
The napkin.
The menu was fixed, so we both had the same dishes.
The first course was a mixed vegetable salad.
Next was flat bread and and creamy vegetable soup.
We enjoyed a chopped cabbabge with meat stew.
Our dessert was Bulgarian yogurt.
And we had wine.
Once again, we had live entertainment.
Our meal and entertainment was over, and we headed out. On the property were some
cages with some livestock. It seemed they were more for show than consumption.
Also near the [mostly] fowl was a flower garden.
We left the property and found the bus just a bit up the road.
We were headed to Veliko Tarnova, while the other buses headed to Arbanasi.
We captured some sights on the way to Veliko Tarnova.
We passed by the Fortress Restaurant again.
We arrived in the heart of town. There was a statue that we breezed past so this was the best I could do.
We drove through town to get to the other side.
There were four horsemen stateus surrounding a 13 meter (about 43 feet) tall sword. On a moving bus with reflections,
sorry.
We stepped off the bus, crossed the street, and came across this dandelion sculpture - it was probably three to four
meters tall (for the metric challenged, that's about 10 to 14 feet).
Our next stop was at the end of town. The end of town overlooked the remains of a protective wall.
Beyond this portion of the wall are a number of small churches. In some areas, there are a number of little
churches rather than one larger church.
And the Assension of Christ church.
Travelers had the choice of either going to the church, or visiting the town. Only one person decided to visit the
church. Possibly because we were told that it was going to be 45 minutes of walking there and back.
Before we moved, we tried to take a selfie. Heather volunteered to take a picture of us for us.
To the east while looking at the church, there was another valley with this on top.
The visit to town was more of a shopping trip than sightseeing.
Some details metal work for sale by one of the shop owners.
We spent a total of a little more than an hour in town. We met at and boarded the bus at 5:00 to head to the ship.
On our trek back to the ship... including a cliffside cave near the monestary, and some farmland.
I was able to capture a sunset too (obviously, depending on topology and or vehicle altitude, it may seem that
the sun wasn't quite down - but these images are here in the order they were captured). The last couple include
fireplace smoke in the foreground. The last image also has the exposure turned way up so it looks a lot brighter
than it really is.
With the sunset, and the fact that we weren't that far from the ship, it wasn't long before we were back on board.
We headed to the lounge for the daily port talk.
Tonight was also the captain's welcome toast.
Additionally, most nights we were in the lounge for the port talk, the wait staff provided peanuts. There were three
flavors: plain roasted (not bad), wasabi (too hot [for us, for peanuts]), and those orange ones. The orange ones
were REALLY good. Too good, in fact... (is that even possible?)
Along with our champagne, we had a couple appitizers. Linda had an eggroll thing, and I had a ham and cheese bite.
The items on the mirror glass table reflect interesting patterns onto the ceiling.
After the snacks, drinks, toast, and port talk, it was time to head downstairs to the restaurant for dinner.
We sat with Marty and Michelle from South Salem, NY (who were very familiar with most of what we mentioned
during the time we lived in upper Westchester), and Linda and Mary Elise from the St. Louis, Missouri, area.
Linda had the Norwegian Gravlax, Gnocchi à la Niçoise, and Kadaif.
I had the Transylvania sour soup, Whole roasted sirloin of beef, and Balsamic pear cake.
After dinner and chatting with our fellow travelers, we returned to our cabin.
I tried to get another picture of the moon shining on the Danube River.