Friday 23 August – River Cruise (Hungary and Croatia)

We had travelled through the night from Budapest to Mohacs, just North of the border with Croatia. I woke up early so decided to take the opportunity to go up on deck and take photos of the sunrise. It was quite a nice morning with a few streaks in the sky from planes.

My brother David’s birthday today. After breakfast we gave him a call before we headed off on our day long trip through Croatia. We followed the crowd off the boat to the waiting boats. Well, kind of. I had forgotten one thing – my camera. I went back and grabbed it and there were still a few people coming off the boat so I wasn’t late really.

Our first stop was the Hungary-Croatia border. It only took about 30 minutes on the bus to arrive. Here we would have our passports checked before we travelled into Croatia for a few visits of towns. We were the 3rd of 4 buses. Each person had to get off the bus and then line up at passport control. The first few people in the front bus had gotten through, then the Hungary computer systems stuffed up. It was a manual process from then-on, with extremely long delays. There were a few people who wanted to use the toilet. They were complaining quite a bit (it had only been 30 minutes people since you left the boat, use the toilet before you go!).

The guide negotiated with the passport control police to use their toilet. The guide asked us how many people needed to go – emergency style, not just need to go. In the end about half the bus got off. Ros and I stayed on sitting up the back of the bus in the air con.

It was about 2.5 hours before we got to line up. Half-way through the second bus the system issues had been resolved so it was a lot quicker thankfully. All of this time would eat into our visiting time of areas. While we were waiting, most of the people from the 4th bus had gotten off and were waiting in the shade. One of them was using the fence as a step platform and going up and down. The police were eyeing him off quite a bit. If that was not enough, he then proceeded to walk up and down a ladder they had there. Surely he had better sense than to do that and could just sit still for a few minutes.

After border control, we continued onto Osijek. This had an old fortress and was now mostly a University town. We visited a winery in the fortress wall before continuing on a short walk around the town.

Our bus ride now took us to a winery, via Vukovar. This winery used to be owned by a Jewish family, the Goldschmidt’s. They left due to the war and did not return. The family that took over the winery named it after them. We were here for lunch as a group.

Lunch started with some bread, wine and noodle soup. The next course, roast pork and potatoes, with salad, was exceptional. It was full of flavour and just melted in your mouth. We finished with some apple strudel plus coffee for Ros.

Next stop, Vucedol. The Vučedol culture flourished between 3000 and 2200, centered in Syrmia and eastern Slavonia on the right bank of the Danube river, but possibly spreading throughout the Pannonian plain and western Balkans and southward. The site of the museum was where the township was. It was fascinating. They took you through the history of the area in the various rooms – from how they lived through to tools used. One particular point the guide made was that they put all of their garbage (bones mostly) in a pit. They found a pit that was about 1 metre diameter and a few metres deep. On display they had a replica, but the bones were real. The bones dated back over 5000 years. The next part was skeletal remains – skulls. The skulls again were 5000 years of age and the real ones were on display. Amazing.

As we departed the museum, our guide suggested that we could take a detour and walk up the hill to a vantage point overlooking the Danube. We agreed and went on the walk. It readily became apparent just how the museum had been built into the hillside. Up the top of the hill we had a fantastic viewpoint. Underneath this hill they had some excavations that were behind locked doors. It looked like animal and human remains. This was their next part they were excavating. They had only excavated approximately 10% of the area so far, but had learnt so much.

Vukovar was heavily damaged during the Croatian War of Indepedence. Approximately 2,000 self-organised defenders defended the city for 87 days against approximately 36,000 troops of the Serb-dominated JNA supplemented with 110 vehicles and tanks and dozens of planes. The city suffered heavy damage during the siege and was eventually overrun. It is estimated that 2,000 defenders of Vukovar and civilians were killed, 800 went missing and 22,000 civilians were forced into exile.

The guide told an extremely sad story about soldiers in the local hospital during this time. There were 260 soldiers that were in the hospital with wounds. In the final days of the battle, the soldiers were taken to a nearby farm for a few days, tortured and then executed. They were buried in a mass grave. Very sad.

The damage to Vukovar during the siege has been called the worst in Europe since World War II. On the way to the boat in Vukovar we stopped at the water tower. The water tower is riddled with bullet holes and was retained by city planners to serve as a testimony to the events of the early 1990s. As we travelled through the town you could see buildings with bullet hole damages everywhere. A large number of buildings had been rebuilt.

We had arrived at the boat around 4:45pm. Earlier in the day we were told that we needed to arrive at 5pm. Customs had not yet cleared the ship, so we needed to wait before boarding, but this time it was only a short delay.

It had been a long day – we had some drinks in the lounge, listening to a local Tumbra band that had brought onboard. They were really good and it was interesting to see something a little different. Following this we had dinner. The food again was excellent, but we had organised something extra special. Just before they brought out dessert, the Maître D brought out two birthday cakes – one for Neal and one for Carol. Ros and I had arranged it the day before. It was an excellent chocolate mousse cake and very filling. After such a long day we were keen for bed.