At first, it was a bit difficult as there was no sign on the roads, everything looked dirty, broken, almost dead... Vidin, the first city we visit after crossing the border, was almost empty, and there was nothing spectacular to see. Some old playing garden, a synagogue in ruins, a small fortress... After 3days on the road, we were expecting something better... Something that could match what went out from the 3days we spent dreaming about it, idealizing it.
So I must tell that we left the town (driving to Sofia) a bit disappointed, but now, I realise that it was only our fault : our previous travels were in towns full of great monuments (Prague and Vienna), so we were expecting to find the same thing in Bulgaria and to have the same kind of travel... But hopefully, soon after the second day, we understood that it was different (and even better) than what we did before, and all the rest of the travel was pure magic !

Tour of Vidin, Bulgaria (incl Baba Vida Fortification and wine tasting).

This is our last day in Bulgaria and I’m definitely sick.  However, I’ll probably never be here again so I’m not about to miss seeing anything even if I don’t remember it too well afterwards.

I’ve taken a cold pill, the ship doctor gave me a shot and some more pills but probably the most effective medicine was the afternoon wine tasting.  But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

We are in Vidin, Bulgaria, a town with a nice central park and a fortress called Baba Vida.  The fortress dates from the 14^th century but was built on the site of an earlier Roman fort.  We climb around on the fort and get an awesome view of the town of Vidin and the Danube.  There are few handrails or guardrails, plenty of opportunities to fall off the fort which gives a much better sense of the original building.  It just feels dangerous – for defender or invader.   A truly amazing string quartet plays for us on the fort battlements (which becomes a Venturi Tube forcing wind thru the performance).  The quartet plays well but also has to chase their sheet music a few times – the rising wind seems appropriate with my cold-induced lightheadedness.  The group walks to a local restaurant for a wine tasting – four different wines and my favorite is a dark red called Mavrud. 

We walked thru town and tried an Internet Café one more time.  It wasn’t too successful but I did get a photo of the two young men running the Café.  By now all the shops had closed and the town center was almost deserted except for one wedding party driving around with horns honking and white balloons attached to all the cars.

My cold was winning the battle for whatever mind I had left so we went back to the ship for dinner and the 7 o’clock departure from Vidin.