In October, 2007, we took a cruise down the Danube River through Central and Eastern Europe to the Black Sea. Our 30 day trip took us from Prague, through the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. We went with Grand Circle Travel. This was our first trip with them and we found them to be an excellent tour company. We would definitely book with them again on other trips. The hotels for the land portion of the trip were very nice and picked to accommodate tour groups. Our home for the river portion was on the MS River Adagio. This is a 410 foot ship that was put in operation in 2003. It has 80 cabins, each with a window, a large dining room, lounge, library,exercise facility and, of course, a gift shop. Dining was open seating all at one time and the food, like most cruise ships, was fantastic.

We were divided into 4 groups of 40, given colored dots for our name tags to distinguish the groups, and assigned a program director who was ours for the whole trip. Balazs Kiss, our program director was from Hungary, and spoke perfect, clear English, as did all the other program directors. In each location that we toured, we also had a local guide who provided us with more detailed historical and cultural information about that area. Everyone was given a radio transmitter and headphones. The guides spoke into a microphone that transmitted to the channel that was unique for each color group. That way we could listen to our guide without interference from other groups and even wander around while they were talking.

In addition to city and attraction tours, we were given opportunities to learn more in depth about the culture and lifestyles of the country. Local bands, singers and dancers were brought in for entertainment. We had visits to private homes for meals and visits to local elementary schools. College students were brought in for question and answer sessions and there was a fascinating panel discussion of life under Communism. Since many of the countries we visited did not even exist when we went to school, it was very interesting to learn how they have evolved.

The remainder of this web site is organized by city. Each city has a description of what we did on the tour as well as a few photos. We have tried not to include too many historical details as you can always find that in a library! To see the list of cities, click here or on the Locations Visited button above. The photo pages have additional photos from the trip. We hope you enjoy reading about this fascinating area.

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