Cruising the Lower Danube River, incongruities from Bucharest to Budapest

 On Emerald Waterways' Emerald Dawn

 

The stone church at Snagov Monastery, in Romania, dates from the 15th century. It sits on a small lake island that has held a church since the 11th century. (Photos by David G. Molyneaux, TheTravelMavens.com)

Despite the familiar credit card labels pasted on shop doors and ATMs, none of my American cards worked in modern Bucharest, Romania. Across the Danube River, in Bulgaria, crumbling factories and houses remain eerily empty more than 25 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Up the river toward Hungary, Serbia’s capital city of Belgrade is bustling with thriving businesses that sit next door to jagged metal and concrete hulks of bombed out buildings from war with NATO in 1999. “We call them tourist attractions,” said a resident.

If you cruise the Lower Danube River between Bucharest and Budapest, be prepared for such incongruousness.

 

Budapest glows at night from the Danube River