Day
1
Embarkation on the vessel in Passau, the city where
three rivers meet. The ship leaves in the afternoon
and takes you
through a lovely stretch of the Danube known as the
Schloegener Schlinge. After these first scenic impressions
of the
Danube, our tour manager on board will welcome you
with a welcome cocktail and the official welcome dinner.
Day 2
At midday the vessel arrives in Vienna, the Austrian
capital. The city of music and joie de vivre where
Sachertorte and
Heuriger are just as famous as St. Stephen's Cathedral
and the Imperial Palace. See all the important sights
on our Vienna
sightseeing tour (€ 30) or explore this city full
of tradition on your own. The tour takes you along
the Ringstrasse,
Schwarzenbergplatz, passing by Charles church (Karlskirche)
as well as the stunning opera house. Last stop is the
well
known and one of kind, St. Stephan’s cathedral,
which you can admire from the inside. The vessel leaves
Vienna in the
evening and spends the night cruising east towards
Hungary.
Day 3
The vessel arrives in Esztergom early in the morning
and from here the excursion Esztergom-Szentendre (€ 35)
starts.
Esztergom, the former residence of the Hungarian kings
and seat of the Archbishop, is one of the highlights
of this excursion.
After visiting the impressive cathedral (Hungary’s
largest place of worship) the excursion continues along
the Danube to the
imposing ruined fortress of Visegrad from where you
have a glorious view of the „knee” of the
Danube. Then you drive along
the banks of the Danube to the artists’ village
of Szentendre. Following a stroll through this picturesque
village you drive to
Budapest to rejoin your ship at midday.
Budapest is a city made up of two parts: Buda and Pest,
built on opposite banks of the Danube. Buda is the
older and more
graceful part, with its cobbled streets and medieval
architecture, while Pest is the administrative and
commercial centre, with
wide avenues and impressive 19th-century public buildings.
East meets West in this fascinating city, and this
can be seen in
the variety of shops and restaurants. This afternoon
there is a city tour (€ 30) or you may look around
Budapest
independently. In the evening you can enjoy a cruise,
passing floodlit buildings on both sides of the river
and going under the
illuminated Chain Bridge. A gypsy band will be playing,
and there will also be a performance on board by a
Hungarian
folklore group, before the vessel leaves Budapest in
the evening and sails downstream overnight through
Hungary.
Day 4
Spend this morning cruising south from Hungary into
the former Yugoslavia, where the Danube now forms
the border
between Croatia on the west and Serbia on the east.
Apart from the occasional passage through a large
town or city, this
section of the Danube is broad with wide, green banks,
and you will sometimes pass long trains of barges
laden with goods.
Your vessel leaves the waters of the Danube and heads
along the River Drava, one of its more important
tributaries, to reach
Vukovar, where it moors at midday. In 1991 the name
of Vukovar became known throughout the world owing
to the savage
and bitter fighting that took place when the city
was besieged for three months during the Yugoslavian
Civil War. From
Vukovar you may join an optional excursion (€ 40)
that includes a tour of the city and a visit to Osijek.
Day 5
We reach Belgrade, capital of Serbia and Montenegro,
in the morning. This city is built at the junction
of the rivers Danube
and Save, and has been destroyed and rebuilt many
times during its 2,000-year history. A city tour
(€ 30) of Belgrade is
available this morning, including a visit to the
Kalemegdan fortress. First the tour takes you to
the Kalemegdan fortress,
where you visit the army museum as well as the Turkish
bath. Afterwards you can see the National Museum,
the parliament,
the Terazije square and the palace of princess Ljubica.
Another highlight is the St. Sava cathedral, the
largest orthodox
church in the world. After a refreshment break at
the Hotel Majestic our tour ends with a visit to
the pedestrian zone, where
you find many shops and art galleries. In the afternoon
you can join an excursion to Topola and Oplenac (€ 30).
In the heart
of Serbia you will see picturesque landscapes with
endless clearings and valleys that used to be holiday
resorts and the
place where the Serbian kings were being buried.
After dinner, the Belgrade evening excursion (€ 40)
takes you to Skadarlija, the well-known artists´quarter.
Before noon the
vessel leaves the port of Belgrade and speeds on
towards to Bulgaria.
Day 6
This morning we cruise along a particularly scenic
stretch of the river, as the Danube passes through
the Carpathians and
the foothills of the Balkans to the “Iron Gates”.
In ancient times the Iron Gates were a hazardous
part of the journey along
the Danube, as ships had to steer carefully through
a narrow gorge with high cliffs on either side. Today,
the water level has
been raised and the shipping hazards removed, but
the journey is still of interest, and you will be
able to watch the
manoeuvres as the ship passes through two locks by
the Djerdap power stations. A little further on,
the ship enters the
narrow Kazan Gorge. A tablet with a Latin inscription
commemorating the Roman Emperor Trajan can still
be seen etched
into the rock at this point. The vessel continues
cruising overnight towards Bulgaria and Romania.
Day 7
Early this morning the ship crosses the Wallachian
Plain, reaching the small Bulgarian port of Svistov
in the morning. It
stops here simply to allow participants to join
an excursion to Veliko Tarnovo (€ 40). With a comfortable
bus we’re hading
towards Veliko Tarnovo, which is located on the picturesque
setting of the two steep banks of the river Jantram
on the
bottom of the Balkan Mountains. The vessel then continues
from Svistov to Giurgiu. Those who have taken the
excursion
to Veliko Tarnovo rejoin the ship there. We sail
from the harbour in the afternoon, and continue downstream
towards the
Danube Delta.
Day 8
Today the vessel reaches the Danube Delta, which
covers an area of about 4,340 square kilometres.
It is famous for the
diversity of its wildlife, which includes 20 pairs
of white-tailed eagles and 3,000 meadow vipers. In
total, there are 5,140
species of flora and fauna residing in the delta,
including 300 species of birds and 30 of fish. We
continue along St George’s
Channel to the very first kilometre of the Danube,
almost to the point where it meets the Black Sea.
You will have some time
to enjoy a walk in St. Gheorge.
Day 9
This morning you arrive in the Danube port Chiciu.
From here our tour of Bucharest (€ 55) starts
this morning. The tour
shows you the main city centre sights, including
the parliament and the Memorial to Freedom, followed
by a highlight visit to
the open-air village and folk art displays in Herastrau
Park on the outskirts of Bucharest. Here you can
see reconstructions of
old farm houses from all over the country, complete
with their furniture and fittings, and other buildings
such as barns,
granaries and windmills. Also a typical lunch in
a local restaurant is included. The coach continues
to Giurgiu. This is where
excursion partcipants rejoin the ship. Giurgiu is
a busy industrial town directly opposite the Bulgarian
city of Rousse, and
takes its name from an old castle of St George, erected
in medieval times by Genoese merchants.
Day 10
We spend the day at leisure, cruising through Romania
and into the waters of Serbia and Montenegro. Some
450 kilometres
from Rousse our ship reaches the narrow Kazan Gorge,
where a tablet with a Latin inscription commemorating
the emperor
Trajan can still be seen etched in the rock. A little
further on, we reach the Iron Gates, which for centuries
constituted a
hazardous stretch of the Danube, as ships had to
steer carefully through a narrow gorge with high
cliffs on either side.
Today you can observe the various manoeuvres as the
ship passes through the two locks by the Djerdap
power stations. In
the afternoon the vessel passes a particularly scenic
stretch as the Danube flows through the Carpathians
and the foothills of
the Balkans.
Day 11
Cruise today through the Carpathians and the foothills
of the Balkans to reach Novi Sad, a garrison town
in Serbia, about 80
kilometres upstream from Belgrade. You moor here
during the afternoon. The chief attraction of Novi
Sad is Petrovaradin
Castle, and you may disembark and join a city sightseeing
tour (€ 30). A stroll through the city recalls
the time of the Austro-
Hungarian Danube monarchy. During the tour you will
see the catholic St. Mary's church, the orthodox
church of St. George
and the home of Albert Einstein. On the way to Sremski
Karlovci you pass by the fortress Peterwardein, which
was built as
one of Europe's largest defence objects in the 18th
century by the French architect Vauban. Sremski Karlovci
awaits you with
a series of cultural and historical monuments. Discover
during a tour in the baroque old town the cathedral,
as well as the
Patriarch’s Palace and the theological school.
You sail from Novi Sad during dinner.
Day 12
After lunch the vessel reaches the town of Fajsz.
From there you can start the optional Puszta-excursion
(€ 50). This
excursion takes you through the Hungarian lowlands
to a Csarda (a large kind of farm), where you witness
an unforgettable
Hungarian horsemanship performance. After tasting
some regional wines, the tour continues past the
famous red pepper
fields to the charming little town of Kalocsa, where
a short organ recital is scheduled in its cathedral.
Finally you visit the
world’s only red pepper museum and a folklore
museum, where you can buy among other things, items
from traditional
knitting handicraft. The ship sails from Fajsz and
moors in the evening in the small town of Ordas.
This stop is purely to allow
excursion participants to rejoin the ship. You spend
the rest of the evening cruising upstream through
Hungary.
Day 13
Before lunch you dock in the ‘divided’ town
of Komarno, which is Slovakian north of the river
and Hungarian to the south.
Customers may disembark here to join an excursion
by coach to Bratislava (€ 30), including a guided
tour of the city.
Participants in this excursion will rejoin the ship
in Bratislava. Your ship continues west through a
flat area that is known as
the Lesser Hungarian Plain. Here the river splits
into three branches, and there are two large islands
that are used as
farmland. In the evening you moor in the city of
Bratislava, which was founded over 2,000 years ago.
Now capital of
Slovakia, it was also capital of Hungary for a while
during the late Middle Ages, which is a good illustration
of how the
chequered histories of these central European countries
are inter-related. You will pass below the colossal
modern ‘SNP’ suspension
bridge that crosses the Danube. You sail from Bratislava
after dinner and continue overnight
from Slovakia to
Austria. A gala dinner and crew show is scheduled
on board. On the second-last evening of your Danube
cruise, the captain
will be delighted to welcome you to the Captain’s
Gala Dinner. The ship’s indefatigable orchestra
will make the final evening
one to treasure, with tunes and rhythms to suite
all tastes.
Day 14
You enjoy the beautiful stretch of the Wachau from
the sundeck this forenoon as the ship moors in Dürnstein.
An interesting
excursion through the Wachau (€ 45) is planned.
Dürnstein is one of the best-known wine villages
in the Wachau. A walk
through it allows you to appreciate its glorious
position. Thereafter you drive through the picturesque
landscape of this district
to the 900-year old Benedictine abbey of Melk. During
a guided tour you see the rooms of the prelature,
the emperor aisle,
the marble hall, the altars and the library. Afterwards
you can, depending on the availability, listen to
an organ concert at the
church. At the end of the tour we invite you for
a glass of wine at a local restaurant. You will join
ths ship again in
Melk/Emmersdorf, where it moors after midday. Later
this afternoon the ship continues the journey to
Passau.
Day 15
Arriving in Passau in the morning. Disembarkation
after breakfast. End of the program. |
