2005 Danube River Cruise

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Day 22, November 12, 2005 - Constanta, Romania
Uniworld Version: Early this morning, arrive in Cernavoda at the entrance to the Black Sea canal. The 40-mile canal was completed in 1984, after nine years of work. It follows the original Danube riverbed dating from the Ice Age. Be on deck as the ship arrives in Constanta on the Black Sea, a thrilling finale to your epic voyage across Europe. This afternoon, tour this popular resort city. Its colorful history dates back to ancient Greek and roman times when seafarers established trading colonies along the coast.
The Danube-Black Sea canal took 30,000 people nine years to construct. Some 300 million cubic meters of land were manually excavated and 4.2 million cubic meters of reinforced concrete shifted by workers. This canal was only part of a centuries-old dream to build an inland waterway linking the North and Black Seas, which was finally realized in 1992, when a 106 mile canal between the Main and Danube Rivers in Germany was opened.
Some of my notes: At 11:00 we have a lecture in the lounge by a Romanian who was put “in hospital” (where he routinely suffered torture) by the Communists and in 1986 was released and went to America, regained his academic standing and is now back in Romania attempting to help get the government democratized. A very intense, interesting person. I had a short chat with him at lunch time, but cannot now find his name or email in my papers.
After lunch we tour the City where we see an archeology museum and Roman Mosaique with some ancient artifacts – no photos allowed. Then we visit a church where we find a baptism in progress, so I do not go in and interrupt their service. We visit the Mamaia resort and Black Sea coast, with shopping time in Constanta. Its rainy and cold and the air seems very polluted.
After dinner we pack and fill out questionnaires, and load the gratuities envelopes. We leave Eva (our room attendant) a bit extra for herself. We need to put our bags out at 7:00 am for our 8:00 am departure by bus to Bucharest.

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