Sidetrip to Varna

We got on the river cruiser Avalon Imagery in the evening, and after casting off we were treated to a four course dinner.  We left Romania, turned downstream for a couple of hours and docked at the Bulgarian port of Silistra.

When we got up in the morning, after a buffet breakfast, we boarded another tour bus and headed further southeast to the shore of the Black Sea, to Varna. The countryside south of the Danube in Bulgaria is very flat, rolling hills, river delta land.

Varna is a popular spot for all Europeans to vacation because it's warm and sunny, very cosmopolitan, and cheap. We got a tour of the archaeological museum which contains artifacts dating back to the 7th century, including the oldest gold relics in Europe. Maggie and I are having fun trying to read the signs in the Cyrillic alphabet.

My travel companions rest in the shade in a park near the beach. Interestingly, we learned that yogurt was invented in Bulgaria.

In the afternoon as we drove back to the river, we passed some apartment buildings left over from the "communist times".  Actually we saw many examples of this fine style of architecture in and around Bucharest, on our previous drives through towns, and elsewhere in Romania and Bulgaria.  At least many people can own their own flats now.

We reboarded our ship and sailed upstream  to our next port just as the sun was going down.  The cruise director tries to keep people occupied most of the time, and believe me, many of these people need it. We had a Bulgarian folk dance show and there is an on-board keyboard player. We sailed all night until we docked the next morniing at Svistov.