Revealing a lesser known stretch of the Danube

West Australian

5 hours ago

Most river cruises in Europe focus on the Upper Danube — Amsterdam to Budapest — but I'm joining the Travelmarvel Capella on a seven-night, eight-day journey down the Lower Danube from Budapest to Romania.
It's a Balkan adventure which covers 1150km, five countries, and two time zones.
It is a great way to see a part of the world that is unfamiliar to many people.
A Travelmarvel spokesperson says the Balkan Adventure itinerary has been part of the program for several years, but its popularity has grown recently because of increased interest in 'less touristed' regions of Eastern Europe.
Budapest is a blur, transferring by coach from airport to ship; a mix of elegant 19th-century mansions, churches, and drab 'panel buildings' constructed from prefabricated concrete slabs in the drive for large-scale industrial housing that started at the end of the 1950s led by Big Brother, the Soviet Union. They're an eyesore.
A representative meets me — and others joining the cruise — at the airport, so it's an easy transfer.
The river ship is docked at passenger cruise port Mahart 2, which is on the Pest (mind your pronunciation, it's 'pesht') side of the city — I'll explain in a moment — in between the Elizabeth and Liberty bridges.
It turns out the name Budapest is a compilation of previously separate settlements either side of the Danube — Obuda, Buda and Pest — first joined by the Chain (Szechenyi) Bridge that opened in 1849 (and had to be rebuilt after World War II because it was bombed by the Germans) before it became a single city in 1873.
Buda refers to the hilly part with the castle, which houses the Hungarian National Gallery and Budapest History Museum; and Pest to the flat part.
'Careful you only hold on to the silver railings if you have to, not the green ones because they're gates and they will move,' a crew member tells us as we board the ship.
Not that you'd know it's a ship when you step inside. The reception area where we're allocated our cabins looks more like a luxury hotel foyer. Check-in time is 3pm.
I'm in a 15.5sqm French balcony suite on the upper deck. It has a queen-size bed, a small sitting area, separate bathroom, toilet, wardrobe, full-length mirror, lots of drawers (not that I use them) and kettle with selection of teas. There's no iron, for safety reasons.
A shower is in order after more than 20 hours in transit, then it's off to a mandatory safety briefing followed by a four-course Hungarian dinner with matched wines and Hungarian musicians.
The dining room downstairs is a sea of faces, with people talking and laughing like they've known each other for years.
Some, it turns out, have — and this is their second, third, or fourth river cruise. As soon as they finish one, they book the next.
'We'd never go on ocean cruises; the ships are huge and there are too many passengers,' several people tell me.
I don't know anyone on the first night, and feel like a fish out of water.
Wandering around, I spot a vacant space next to two women who are happy to have me join them.
What are the odds they would live just a couple of streets from me in the same suburb back home?
Yes, it's a small world.
Most passengers are from Australia (they're certainly very vocal); a handful from New Zealand, and some from Britain. Most are doing a 14-day return trip to Budapest.
The menu is a feast — every night — with a choice of 'chef's selection', so you don't have to think, or a la carte.
There's always an entree, soup, main and dessert, with accompanying red and white wines.
Likewise, lunch, which also includes a buffet selection — and there's always a queue for ice-cream.
It's fine dining, but more casual buffet meals are available most evenings at McGeary's, an Irish-style bar.
'The beer's barely cold,' an Aussie shrugs, halfway into the trip. No problem — it's whisked away and a chilled one comes out a few minutes later.
By the third night, I've joined a raucous group, and we finish the cruise together.
No request is too much for the waitstaff, with one surprised to see me eating a plate of sliced tomatoes for lunch and bringing out a menu so I can choose some 'proper' food.
I'm really not hungry. You get three square meals, pastries in the lounge for 'early' and 'late' risers, as well as late-night snacks (10pm) in the lounge.
Most passengers are in their 70s, and there are no children. It makes me wonder if these cruises cater to specific age groups, but apparently they don't. The only requirement is that guests are over 12.
There are plenty of activities on board, including origami, painting classes, and book club for anyone who wants to spend an afternoon relaxing on the ship.
Likewise, there are optional half-day tours — in Hungary, to a wine tasting in Villany; in Serbia, to a family farm — in addition to the town and city tours on the itinerary.
Room staff are friendly and meticulous, commenting I must miss my 'fur baby' because I've got dogs all over my pyjamas, and arranging them like a butterfly on the bed, which is turned down each evening.
We spend the first night in port, with an organised tour through the city the next morning.
There's the option of heading back to the ship for lunch, but I prefer to wander off to visit:
+
New York Cafe
Totally opulent, with prices to match, and a haunt for artists and writers over the years — though you're likely to see more influencers today. It opened in the mid-1890s as the European headquarters for the New York Life Insurance Company. Today, it's part luxury hotel, part coffee house, spread over several levels. My 24-carat gold New York 'cortado' — equal ratio of espresso to steamed milk — is $19.50.
+ Ruin Bars
A mish-mash of quirky drinking holes that emerged in post-communist Budapest's abandoned buildings in the heart of the Jewish Quarter. If you like shabby without the chic, you'll love spending a couple of hours here. There's a kitchen upstairs. Most places are open from 3pm-4am on weekdays, noon-4am on Saturdays, and 9am-4am on Sundays.
+ Shoes on the Danube Promenade
Sixty pairs of rusted iron shoes set into the concrete embankment of the Danube, on the Pest side, not far from the Parliament building. It's a monument and memorial conceptualised by film director Can Togay and created by sculptor Gyula Pauer to Hungarian Jews, including children, shot dead on the banks of the Danube in the winter of 1944-45 by members of the fascist Arrow Cross Party. The idea was the bodies would fall into the water and be carried away. Often, victims would be forced first to remove their shoes — in short supply during WWII — so they could be used or traded on the black market. If the shoes were worn out, they were killed with them on.
The captain's 'welcome cocktail' is on the second night — and we leave Budapest, illuminated and radiant at night.
Standing alone on the upper deck, looking at the magnificent neo Gothic-style Parliament building, the person I miss most is my late mother. She would love this. The Danube, the history, the sound of languages she could speak.
For a quiet, aching second, I want to trade places — just to let her have it all. To see the lights. To feel the wind. To be here instead of me. No photo can ever capture this moment.
I don't even notice the ship is moving — which is something to consider if you get seasick, because there's no chance of this happening on a cruise like this.
It's totally silent, apart from the sound of frogs and birds on riverbanks past midnight a couple of hours out of Budapest, and the only noise I hear is an occasional rumbling, which is the ship's hull scraping the bottom of the riverbed.
All shipping communication downstream from Budapest is in Russian as we head to the sleepy port town of Mohacs and travel by coach to Pecs, Hungary's fifth-largest city, where the World Heritage-listed burial chambers and memorial chapels of Sopianae, the Roman predecessor of Pecs, are located.
A more recent landmark is the Pecs 'padlock wall', a myriad of padlocks inscribed with lovers' names in a pledge to undying love and devotion. The idea is you throw away the keys if you're sure it will last; otherwise maybe hang on to them, just in case. . . One is inscribed 'Olgi & Laci 26.10.2015.'
I wonder if they're still together.
Suddenly, our tour guide bursts into the national anthem, Himnusz, on the coach and shares her family recipe for Hungarian chicken paprikash with dumplings.
Oh, by the way, each Hungarian consumes 3kg of sweet paprika a year.
Next, down the Danube, there's Osijek and Vukovar (Croatia); Belgade (Serbia); Ruse (Bulgaria), which is actually closer to Bucharest than Sofia and, finally, Giurgiu (Romania) for a coach transfer to Bucharest with a walking tour of the old town before airport transfers for people heading home.
'Romania was a kingdom; then the communists came and destroyed everything,' I overhear a tour guide say.
It's a similar sentiment in Hungary and Bulgaria.
There are still scars of war in Osijek and Vukovar, which has been largely rebuilt after most of it was destroyed during the Croatian War of Independence (1991-1995), otherwise called the Homeland War.
And given what tour guides say in each city, animosity towards Serbs still runs deep. We're told schools in Vukovar remain mostly segregated, and the first 'mixed' marriages took place only in 2006.
Along the way, we sail through Djerdap Gorge and the Kazan — the narrowest and deepest part of the Danube — before passing through the monumental Iron Gates lock system with its massive hydroelectric power station, a joint project between Romania and the former Yugoslavia (now Serbia). The first stage was completed in 1972, and the second in 1984.
It has not come without environmental or social cost. Villages were submerged in the process.
I've never seen so much concrete.
There's a glitch docking at Osijek because the Drava River, a tributary of the Danube, is too low, so the Capella diverts to Aljmas and we bus it.
At each port, there's a coach tour of the town with extensive historical and political commentary, followed by lunch back at the ship — though there's always the option to skip this and go exploring on your own.
I make the most of it in Belgrade with several spare hours, visiting:
Hotel Moskva
Built in the Russian Succession style, it opened in 1908 on Terazije Square in the centre of Belgrade, inaugurated by King Peter Karadjordjevic, father of Alexander I who proclaimed the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 and changed the name of the country to Yugoslavia in 1929. There's an outdoor cafe with a good selection of cakes.
Eternal Flame
Located in the Park of Friendship, the 27m-high concrete obelisk topped with a bronze fire sculpture originally conceived with a gas-lit flame was unveiled in 2000 as a memorial to the victims of the 78-day NATO bombing of Serbia — without UN Security Council approval — in 1999 during the Kosovo War. It's been shrouded in controversy from the start, graffitied, vandalised and renovated — but the flame remains unlit.
Our guide tells us earlier in the day the Monument of Gratitude to France — a symbol of friendship and co-operation between Serbia and France during World War I — erected in Kalemegdan Park in 1930 was covered in black cloth during the NATO bombing in a symbolic gesture of mourning for the perceived betrayal by France, a NATO member.
Clearly, people in Belgrade love their dogs. I've never seen so many pampered pooches paraded on city streets, but why do so many young Serbian men walk around shirtless? One even catches my eye in the centre of Stari Grad (Old Town).
It's 34C. Maybe he's hot.
I get up at 5.30am as the ship's about to enter Djerdap Gorge, a 100km-long natural border between Serbia and Romania with a series of canyons flanked by steep cliffs either side.
King Decebalus' sculpture — the tallest rock relief in Europe at 55m high — is on the Romanian boundary marking a heroic figure who's been celebrated since the country was founded in 1859.
At the entry, on the Serbian side, there's Golubac Fortress perched on the water's edge; Tumane Monastery, which dates back to the 14th century and is known for its miracles — still — is 9km away, just outside the village of Snegotin.
The narrowest — 150m give or take, depending who you ask — and deepest part of the Danube is here, so curiosity finds me on the bridge with Captain Jugoslav Bastijancic, glued to the sonar readout as we pass through the 'Little Kazan' and the 'Big Kazan' (the word means cauldron in Turkish): 70.2m, 73.1m, 73.4m, 77.4m, 79m, 78.5m, 79.1m 78.6m, 78.8m, 79.2m. . .
Officially, the deepest point of the Danube is here: up to 82m, so we come close enough. It all depends on the exact position of the ship.
'Depending on season, especially before the start of winter and at the end of winter, the Danube can rise by 7-8m in some parts,' the captain explains.
He's been a river ship captain for 19 years, following in the footsteps of his father, and knows the Danube like the back of his hand; the flow of currents along its entire length. It's a knowledge only experience brings.
We're doing 23km/h at the moment, but the previous evening, passing his village in Serbia, he slowed the ship and blew the horn so locals could come out and wave.
'It's all computerised, but there's no autopilot, I drive,' he says. 'A few new ships have this technology, but it can't be used effectively until all ships have it so they can communicate with each other.'
+ Travelmarvel is Australian-owned APT Travel Group's 'premium' cruising and touring brand. It also has a flagship luxury brand called APT.
+ Travelmarvel has three river ships operating across Europe: Capella, Polaris and Vega, all launched in 2021. Each one accommodates up to 178 passengers. The Rigel is due to join the fleet in 2026.
+ The eight-day Balkan Adventure along the Danube runs from April to August each year and costs from $3995 a person, excluding airfares. There are savings up to $1600 a couple for early-bird 2026 bookings.
+ There is also a 14-night Budapest-return Best of the Balkans tour along the Danube.
+ Designed specifically for cruising Europe's rivers, its hull was built in Romania, with final outfitting and interior finishes completed at a specialised shipyard in the Netherlands.
+ 89 cabins, configured with either a queen or twin beds.
+ Cabin types are window stateroom, French-style balcony suite, or owner's suite.
+ Facilities include indoor and outdoor lounges, a restaurant, an Irish-style bar, upper terrace with bar, fitness centre, sundeck with barbecue and plunge pool, complimentary wi-fi, bicycles, and elevator access between decks.
Olga de Moeller was a guest of APT Travel Group. They have not influenced this story, or read it before publication.