But it was the many surprises surrounding the experiences on the ship that truly enhanced the trip. Because this was our first river cruise, my husband and I had many apprehensions ahead of time. The tiny stateroom? Check. But somehow it had more drawers, shelves and hangers than I have at home and was surprisingly comfortable.

Too sedentary? Check. Being a particularly active person — the have-every-minute-programmed kind of active — although at a senior citizen level — I feared the shortish daily tour would not be sufficient. After all, the 182-passenger MS River Aria Is not one of those cruise ships boasting round the clock activities. However, opportunities abounded to explore every city as much — or as little — as you want.

Having primarily traveled with Overseas Adventure Travel, the much smaller, younger tour group under the auspices of Grand Circle, we also worried about traveling in a large group of older folk. And yes, GC caters to those needs. There is a slower paced tour option available for those who feel they cannot keep up with the group. Portable light-weight seats are available for those unable to stand in one spot during long explanations. An electric chair is attached to the stairs on the ship. Electric bikes are available on board for very easy peddling along some of the most beautiful bike paths in Europe.

There is little that Grand Circle hasn’t thought of to accommodate a somewhat older clientele.  But for the most part, that older clientele is a feisty group of fun-loving, adventurous travelers who are loathe to slow down.

Worried about needing to swarm around our guide in order to hear what was being said? Check. Each person, however, has his own individual listening device so that you can hear the tour guide as you walk through the cities, even if you’re a block away. At this point, we stopped worrying.

The boat passengers are divided into four color-coded groups each led by a program director. Stefan was ours, but all four participate in the ongoing upkeep of the troops. Everyone associated with Grand Circle and the ship is, well, friendly doesn’t do them justice: funny, accommodating, out-sized personalities all eager to please — and despite my husband’s cynicism, I don’t think it’s just because of the tip…

Most mornings we’re out and about by 9 — but one sailing day, we instead were on a deck chaise, Bloody Mary in hand, listening to commentary about the surrounding topography — wooded treetops, rolling green countryside, rural villages, terraced vineyards and an occasional abbey or castle. Life doesn’t get much better than that! My concern about filling every hour with activity dissipated.

I was pried from my reading revelry as my fellow passengers hustled to the sides of the ship as we went through our first of nine locks, a feat that if you haven’t experienced is worth the effort of rising from the comfort of your chaise lounge. The ship narrowly goes between barriers on both sides and is then lowered so as to access the water level on the other side. By the time we hit lock #6, no one moved. Another Bloody Mary anyone?

Because it’s lunchtime, I should pause here to talk a bit about the meals — which deserve an article of their own. From creativity to inventiveness to presentation and oh, yes — deliciousness, the food merits its own Michelin star.  I looked forward to every meal knowing it was going to be surprising, lovely and scrumptious. And the service? Suffice it to say, not only are the waiters attentive and accommodating, most of them are stand-up comedians.

I was finishing my soup when Vladimer walked by with a bottle of Amaretto, obviously requested by another table. “Where are you going with that?” I lustily inquired. Without skipping a beat, he poured some into my soup bowl and moved on. How can you not love that?

Afternoon option? Go back to town — or have a massage. Okay. A massage. And then some Learning and Discovery onboard, a philosophy Grand Circle takes very seriously.  A discussion of Eastern European traditions and cultures from our four Program Directors, all of who hail from neighboring countries — Stefan — Romania; Igor — Slovakia; Jirka — Czech Republic and Milan, Serbia. The Four Musketeers, or court jesters depending upon your loving point of view, explained their local costumes and then proceeded to present their own holidays, wedding or religious celebrations in their own very entertaining styles.  Not much is taken seriously on board.

Ah, the night-time entertainment — corny, yes; fun, more so. I usually avoid karaoke but here, it’s just another excuse to laugh yourself silly. Rather than a contest to judge the best singers, it instead — intended or not — became an exercise in which group sounded the most hilariously awful. And the crew talent show?  Okay, so maybe it looked like a bunch of 10-year-olds in their first school production. Suffice it to say that when the kitchen staff did Swan Lake, it was downhill from there, prompting the ship’s captain to implore, “Whatever happens on board, stays on board!” And then there were the horse races. Don’t even ask. Let’s just say that it involved a lot of shots. So another boring night.

And when we weren’t laughing, we were learning something. “Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain,” conducted by our Four Musketeers, revealed personal experiences from their teen-age years: how their families were impacted by the Soviet domination of their countries until the end of Communism there in 1989. Homes confiscated, fortunes lost, food rationed, travel prohibited, spies in communities, labor camps. Their schoolbooks were the same as had been used for generations, and they didn’t discover until later how much misinformation they contained. Again — eye-opening.

A talk from an everyday Budapest accountant regaled us with a tale of how he once saw a needy family on the sidewalk, stopped to help and ended up saving 6000 refugees, with an organization of volunteers he compiled, over the next two years. Until stopped by the very hostile Hungarian government. I doubt there was a dry eye in the house. Grand Circle does not shy away from controversy.

When at trip’s end, we were told we had to be out of our stateroom by 8 a.m. because another tour was coming aboard, the communal reaction seemed to be: WHAT? Other people in OUR cabins? With OUR crew? It seemed so wrong — but it sure says a lot about how Grand Circle makes its clients feel.

Yes, I know, I promised to tell you all about the magnificent cities we visited. Immersive history, architectural grandeur, every city an open-air museum of stunning edifices spanning multiple centuries. But I lied.

For more information, visit https://www.gct.com/trips/river-cruises/europe/romantic-blue-danube-budapest-to-prague/2021/itineraries?icid=global:itineraries:europe-by-river-cruise:edr

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By way of a little background, as a teenager I had my first visual exposure to the horrors of the Holocaust in some newsreel depictions of the liberation of some camps after the war – the emaciated survivors with their sunken eyes, gaunt bodies and harrowed auras. I called my mother, who had told me of the Holocaust my whole life, and said: “Mom, I finally understand.” Now six decades later, I came to understand even more.

Mauthausen, one of the largest of the camps, was built high upon a hill in Linz, where Hitler was once a resident, near a large quarry. The rationale behind concentration camps evolved over the war years from imprisoning people, enslaving them and engendering fear among the general populace to simply one of extermination. And that was carried out in so many ways. Mauthausen was considered a Level 3 Camp where the guiding principle was that no one left – everyone was to be killed in some way or other. The SS excelled at very efficient methods of mutilation and annihilation.

The roots of genocide, according to our guide, were fostered in anti-Semitism, an us vs. them mentality, a de-humanization of others who are seen as “less.” It was hard not to draw some parallels to today’s world…

Many bodies engulfed “the stairs of death” leading to and from the quarry where malnourished and mistreated prisoners were forced to carry very heavy stones up very high stairs and often died in the process. Others were simply pushed down the steps. It becomes difficult to hear the stories as they became so visually enshrined.

Other cases involved prisoners forced outside during winter over whom cold water was poured – a particularly appealing entertainment for the SS guards who delighted in “showering” people to death – outside the actual gas chamber showers, that is…. Because any SS who shot an inmate trying to escape got extra days off, a favorite party trick was to entice prisoners into situations where they might appear to be escaping – and then shoot them. Stomach cringing continues.

Others, sick and beaten, simply died during daily roll call, a grueling process of standing in the heat or cold for 4-5 hours at a time, and being forced to do exercises when most of them could no longer stand. It is hard to hear all of this – and my stomach clenched and my eyes teared and I was overcome by a sense of helplessness and disbelief that these things actually happened – and no one cared.

In the barracks hundreds were housed in such horrendous conditions the term unsanitary does not begin to describe the degradation. On the wall is a quote depicting the “wheezing, hissing, moaning, sobbing, snoring” that filled the night-time air in 20 languages. “The noise fused into a single, terrible sound produced as if by a giant monstrous being that had holed up in the dark.” Another quote:”Anyone who hadn’t been brutal when they entered the world became brutal here.” More gut-wrenching stomach-churning.

And then we went through the gas chambers where thousands were killed and then the ovens where their remains were buried, with a side visit to the infirmary where unspeakable “experiments” were carried out.

And yet the neighbors and surrounding community ostensibly didn’t know what was happening, despite being within earshot of the thousands of prisoners suffering and screaming. In fact, some complained about the noise – but not about why it was occurring. The grandmother of our guide, who was seven at the time, said she could smell the stench of the burning bodies; she knew something bad was happening but nobody talked about it.

Of the 200,000 prisoners who occupied Mauthausen from 1938-1945, about half were killed. There were only 20,000 survivors when liberation finally came on May 5, 1945, with another 80,000 already too ill to benefit from the end of the war. Not surprisingly, the liberators were shocked at the condition of the prisoners. I imagine so too were the community members when they were finally exposed to what was really happening in their backyard. At this point, my stomach was in perpetual decompression mode.

There were signs on walls from visitors in multiple languages: RIP, Never Again, and You won’t be forgotten. A simple drawing of an eye with a tear coming down was the one I most related to.

Most of the guards went home after the war suffering no consequences and little was said about what they had done. No one talked about it. According to our guide, it took Austria four decades to acknowledge its part in the Holocaust.

There were multiple school groups of teenagers at the camp and I felt thankful they were learning of the atrocities they otherwise would probably have no knowledge of. I wished I could understand what they were saying about their experience. History will now change as there soon will be no survivors, no one to say this is what actually happened, and the Holocaust will be relegated to the status of other historical occurrences which the young will learn about in school but will not relate to. Who really cares about the Crusades? There will be no visceral understanding. It will have nothing to do with them. There will be nothing to keep it from happening again. I only wish I could call my mother and tell her once again, that now I REALLY understand…

For more information, visit the Danube River Cruise Tour page.

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Fields still laced with land mines. Rampant unemployment. Young people fleeing to bigger cities to find a better life. Suzi Petrijevcanin wasn’t complaining, just telling it like it is to passengers on Viking River Cruises who’d booked a visit to her home as part of their shore excursion.

“We call you the boat people,” she laughs.

The Lower Danube flows through Eastern Europe’s former Communist countries. Bookended by beauty spots in Budapest and Bucharest, the stretch of river is short on fairy-tale castles and romantic vistas, long on buildings pockmarked by bullet holes, ugly Communist-era housing projects, monstrous people palaces built by egomaniacal tyrants.

Passengers who book this itinerary tend to have an intellectual bent; well-traveled lifelong learners who’ve been to other countries in Europe and want to satisfy their curiosity about this part of the world. Eastern Europe’s complicated history unravels in on-board lectures, walking tours, motor coach excursions and visits to the homes of people like Suzi.

Viking’s Eastern Europe itinerary takes in Croatia and Serbia — formerly parts of Yugoslavia — as well as Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, once all but closed to the West by the Iron Curtain. It combines a cruise on the Lower Danube with nights in upscale hotels before and after. My ship, the Lif, served as a comfortable base for exploring present-day life in the countries of Eastern Europe as it relates to their dark history.

City and Country Life in Hungary

The Danube divides Buda and Pest, two sections of the Hungarian capital. We began in Buda with a walking tour around Trinity Square and gothic Matthias Church with its eye-catching Zsolnay tile roof. Behind it the white turrets of Fisherman’s Bastion rise above the Danube. Named for the fishermen who defended this stretch of the city walls in medieval times, it now serves as a viewing terrace.

From this perch, we had a great view of the Pest side of the city and the massive neo-gothic Parliament building reflected in the river. A funicular leads down to the riverfront and the Chain Bridge, the oldest of Budapest’s seven spans. Damaged by the Nazis, the unusual suspension bridge was rebuilt in its 1840 design, though enlarged for vehicle traffic.

Crossing over to the Pest side, we came to one of the most haunting displays of the city’s tragic history: row after row of shoes, replicated in bronze, lining the riverfront. This sculpture, “Shoes on the Danube,” memorializes Jews forced to remove their footwear here before they were executed by fascists, their bodies dumped in the river. Visitors place stones and flowers in the shoes, silently snapping photos.

During World War II, more than 80 percent of the city’s buildings were damaged before forces of the Soviet Union pushed out the Nazis. Then, in 1956, the Soviets crushed a revolt, sending 40,000 Hungarians to camps for “re-education.” Another 300,000 fled the country.

Cruise passengers have several opportunities to visit the Hungarian countryside. Godollo Royal Palace and Gardens, largest palace in Hungary, lies just 40 minutes from the capital. An excursion to a farm and equestrian show taught us about Hungary’s tradition of horsemanship that began when nomadic warriors thundered across the steppes from Asia.

Conflict Between Croats and Serbs

Tour guides in Croatia and Serbia, home visits and on-board lectures help passengers wrap their heads around the complicated struggles between Croats, who are mostly Catholic, and Serbs, mostly Eastern Orthodox. But the conflict isn’t so much over religion as it is over territory and resentments rooted in struggles centuries old.

En route to Suzi’s house in Croatia, our tour guide took us through the Danube port of Vukovar, 90 percent destroyed in the 1990s during what Croatia calls the Homeland War (in Serbia it’s the Civil War). It started when Croatia declared independence from Serbian majority Yugoslavia. In Vukovar, more than 200 Croats who had taken refuge in a hospital were executed.

After listening to such tales of inhumanity, it was a comfort to sit in Suzi’s warm home and talk about life in Croatia today. While western Croatia thrives from tourism along the Adriatic Coast, eastern Croatia along the Danube still struggles. Once the nation’s breadbasket, Suzi said landmines left over from the war make tilling the fertile soil a challenge.

We learn the Serbian side of the story in Belgrade, capital of Serbia. Unlike most of Eastern Europe, Serbia does not belong to the European Union so has not benefited from its economic assistance. Ugly Soviet-era apartment buildings blight the skyline. Other buildings still bear bombed-out walls.

Our tour guide gave us an overview of Serbian conflicts. A Serbian nationalist assassinated an Austro-Hungarian archduke, causing Austria to declare war on Serbia and starting World War I. During World War II, Josip Broz Tito led Yugoslav guerrillas, and later became leader of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, holding together a coalition of non-aligned nations during the Cold War. The breakup of Yugoslavia began after his death in 1980.

But as in Croatia, Serbia’s struggles began much earlier. Situated at the confluence of the Danube and Sawa rivers, Belgrade is at the crossroads of Eastern and Western Europe and has been destroyed and rebuilt 20 times.

A bright spot in Belgrade is the Church of St. Sava, one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world. Begun in 1935, construction halted during World War II and under Communism. Work resumed in the 1980s, with funds largely from Serbians living abroad. Inside under its 100-foot diameter dome, visitors learn some of the practices of the Serbian Orthodox religion: only human voices are allowed (chants, no organ), the altar must face east, worshippers stand (no pews) during services and the church follows the Julian calendar so Christmas comes on January 7.

Iron Gates to Bulgaria and Romania

The Danube continues east toward the Black Sea passing through the Iron Gates, a gorge between Romania on the north, Serbia on the south.

We pass an onion-domed monastery, now a convent, poking from shore. On the public address system, our cruise director tells us to watch for a nun on the balcony. If she waves to a passenger, legend has it the passenger will find enduring love within a year. A woman veiled in black appears, raising a hand in greeting.

A few minutes later we cruise by a Mount Rushmore-like head of King Decebalus who battled the Romans for freedom for what is now Romania. Carved into the limestone cliffs, it measures more than 140 feet high.

We journey through a lock and dam and the Danube widens. Kayakers skim the surface and fishermen cast lines into the river. Cottages and campgrounds line the shore where people are picnicking and sunbathing on beaches. The red-tile roofs of villages add color to the riverbank. A plume of smoke from a tractor rises from a field.

In Vidin, Bulgaria, passengers make another home visit, this time to learn how to make banitsa, a pastry that’s a staple in every household. Ramona Mihaylova lays out bowls and pans on the granite countertop in the kitchen of her modern home, which could have been plucked from the suburbs of Cincinnati where she and her husband lived for many years before she retired from teaching and they returned to their homeland.

On our last morning on the river, we boarded a motor coach for Bucharest, capital of Romania and “Paris of the East” for its wide boulevards, parks and mix of architecture styles and grand monuments, including an Arch of Triumph.

The night before, our cruise director gave us his story of life in Bucharest under Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. He told us he grew up with anti-Western propaganda meant to explain away harsh economic conditions. Teachers told him blue jeans cause skin cancer and the Western diet was unhealthy, all while food shortages were rampant. Electricity was shut down for an hour every night and apartments could not be heated to more than 57 degrees.

We saw the main reason for these restrictions when we toured the Palace of Parliament, a permanent example of Ceausescu’s megalomania. He bankrupted his country to build this ostentatious people palace, the biggest administration building in the world after the Pentagon. Covering nearly 4 million square feet, marble-clad rooms drip with gold leaf. Our one-hour tour covered just 3 percent of them.

Ceausescu never got to enjoy his palace. Before it was completed, a wave of revolutions swept across Eastern Europe in 1989. In December that year, Romania’s military sided with protesters, arrested the tyrant who, after a quick trial, was executed on Christmas Day.

A few months later the Berlin Wall came down in Germany.

The Iron Curtain had fallen.

For further information, visit Viking River Cruises or call, 800-706-1483

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