Vienne feels like a small town in France but it was once a major Roman powerhouse. Back in the Roman period, Vienne was one of the most important cities in Gaul. Its position on the Rhône made it a key transport and trade route, effectively a Roman highway linking the Mediterranean to the interior. Goods,…
On a day of low cloud, drizzle, and biting cold we headed off on a coach to visit the famous Cluny Abbey, once one of the most powerful institutions in Europe. I remembered Cluny from my medieval history studies at university, half a century ago. I was expecting something along the lines of Melk Abbey…
Petrovaradin Fortress Novi Sad turned out to be a tale of two experiences. The much-touted Petrovaradin Fortress sounded impressive on paper, and its history is rich, but in practice it was a slow climb up a steep cobbled slope to… a view. A good view, yes, stretching across the Danube, but you work for it….
Another day, another stretch of the Danube, and this time we arrived in Vidin, in the far northwest of Bulgaria where we visited Baba Vida fortress. The area around Vidin is not wealthy. In fact, it’s considered one of the poorest in the country. Like so many of the other places we’ve visited, there are…
The trip to Arbanasi, a small village in the foothills of mid-Bulgaria, took a couple of hours from the ship, but the difference was obvious almost immediately. Where the Romanian countryside had felt flat and empty, Bulgaria rolled out green hills, patchwork fields, and cattle grazing as if they actually belonged there. It was alive…
Bucharest is often called the Paris of the Balkans, and you can see why. Wide boulevards, elegant facades, and flashes of faded grandeur hint at a past that once aspired to match the great cities of Europe. In places, it still works. There are buildings here that make you stop, look up, and imagine a…
Golubac Fortress The weather had been kind to us so far on this trip – blue skies and warm enough to take our coats off. That changed when we approached the Golubac Fortress. We finally had to put on our big red coats. The wind was brutal, strong enough to almost blow us off our…
Belgrade is the capital of Serbia and it has many buildings dating back to the late 18th-early 19th century, But I wouldn’t want to drive there. I thought the roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris was chaotic. Watching the drivers going through intersections in Belgrade was crazy. In fact, we had a very…
We left Budapest and headed down stream to a quiet little place on the banks of the Danube called Mohács in southern Hungary. Normally it’s just a peaceful riverside town, the sort of place where life moves at a relaxed pace and you expect to see fishermen, cyclists, and people strolling along the riverbank. But…