River Cruises

I have taken a river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest on Viking River Cruises. Read about all of their offers at vikingrivercruises.com/us/regions/europe/index.aspx
I can recommend that line.

There are only a few lines that travel in Eastern Europe. Most terminate in Budapest. AMA Waterways goes from Budapest to Instabul visiting Croatia, Serbia, Roamnia and Bulgaria on the way. The same cruise leaves from Amsterdam if you want to take a longer trip.

We have booked their "Black Sea Voyage for next April. Call them at 800 626 0126 for more info. Or go tho the WEB at www.amadeuswaterways.com.

Good luck.

My mother and I took Grand Circle Travel's Eastern Europe to the Black Sea cruise this fall - and had a great time. Our total time was just over 2 weeks, which included an optional pre-trip extension of 4 nights in Prague. From Prague we took a bus to Budapest, stopping off in Slovakia for an excellent lunch [roast goose; yum!] and spent 2 nights in a hotel. Then onto the ship and cruised down the Danube for 7 nights, stopping in Croatia [Osijek], Serbia [Belgrade, 2 nights], Bulgaria, and ending at Constanta [Romania] on the Black Sea; then a bus ride to Bucharest for the last 2 nights in a hotel. There was an optional post-trip to Transylvania which we did not do - but ran into a couple in our Bucharest hotel who raved about that area. In some ways the trip was not as much "fun" as our previous river trip from Vienna to Amsterdam; Belgrade still has a number of bombed-out shells of buildings from the recent NATO bombings, and our hostess for the "home-hosted" lunch in Croatia had lost her house to Serbian bombs in the 1990s. But it was extremely interesting and I'm very glad I spent some time in that part of the world. In addition to the cities listed, we also did some of the optional trips which took us inland; I especially enjoyed the Caldarusani monastery in Romania. The Grand Circle website is gct.com; it looks as if they have made a few changes in the itinerary, including staying in the ship instead of a hotel in Budapest. This was our second GCT trip, and we have been extremely pleased with both of them. Let me know if you have questions that I haven't answered. The short version is: Go! It will be fascinating!