Republica Restaurant
Tulcea, Romania
Salut
As I sit here typing I can hear the restaurant diners just next to the boat. They’re up on flybridge level so not looking in our windows or having us watch them eat. It’s 10 pm but I guess people wait for the heat to abate before going out to dinner. A ferry docks just behind our boat at a small terminal. Noise and motion aren’t bothersome, but the fumes are a bit. So it goes.
We left Vidin and stopped next for the night in Oryahovo which led to more question I’d like to answer some day when I have A REAL LIBRARY. Stopping at places off the tourist map are really the most interesting in some ways.
Ru
Oryahovo
“ High up in a picturesque landscape of cornfields and vineyards, the town of Oryahovo (km 678) is an agricultural center.” JPM Danube Guide. Rick and Mary said the town was once a coal loading station under the communist. Ships would bring the coal which would then be loaded onto trains. But the coal wasn’t wet down so the coal dust maybe be what forced the people to leave the homes closest to the Danube. I haven’t been able to find info about that online there are lots of abandoned buildings along the river.
But I did find this about neighborhoods threatened by landslides.
In Bulgaria, losses of water come to 57 per cent. Refuse sites take up more than 200 000 decares of territory. More than 900 landslides have been caused. I can give you an example. The town of Oryahovo was one of the worst damaged by last year’s floods. In the town, although there was a lack of funding, the state managed to build a drainage system 50 years ago. The system was so effective that for many years Oryahovo had no problems with floods and landslides. Until 1990. Then the unit that maintained the system was closed. A few years later, the problems deepened, and last year a whole neighborhood was threatened by a landslide. This is only one example and there are thousands.
So I don’t know but the roads closest to the river at the bottom of the town all seem to be empty or overgrown.
We went for a late afternoon walk, stopped for a cold drink, bought a few groceries, and returned to DoraMac. Oryahovo isn’t a place cruise ships would stop but it was a lovely place to spend the afternoon.
|
When we arrived at Oryahovo, a Dutch couple we’d met several stop along the way was already there. We paid the “tie up fee” and then took a walk up into town to stretch our legs. I have no comments to go with most of the photos. It’s just what we saw during our walk. |
|
Both of these photos were taken just up hill from the Danube. All were abandoned. |
|
Higher up-hill were small homes with big gardens.
Lots of lovely gardens alongside most of the houses closer to town. |
|
St. George’s Church (1837) in the National-Revival style, where old printed church literature from Russia is preserved. http://trakia-tours.com/oryahovo-guide-70.html |
|
We stopped for a cold drink. I went inside to pick out my drink not being able to read the menu at all. Mary thought she ordered lemonade but received a Rattler which is beer and lemonade mixed. Randal and Rick got the beer they ordered. But we couldn’t figure out how to order any snacks. I should have had my trusty picture dictionary which now is in my backpack. |
|
Once upon a time it must have been quite lovely
|
|
Big and concrete and blah = Communist era architecture for the Administrative Center |
|
|
|
We were broiling but these men were running around playing “football.” |
|
We took this lovely road back down the hill from town
|
|
Before Oblivion Comes, a book by BNR journalist Rumen Stoichkov “ The asset of the new book is that it takes readers astray from traditional tourist routes. …. In the foreword to the book Rumen Stoichkov writes, “In my reports I have always tried to single out a problem that troubles a certain village such as unemployment, bad roads, poverty, a church about to collapse, a cultural center, school or nursery school about to close doors, etc. This entails depopulation, and eventually, the disappearance of the place from the map of Bulgaria. Well, as I traveled to make my reports, there was positive information too. It came from legends, the local natural scenery and traditions, the folklore and the wisdom of the local people.” (Oryahovo is one of the places visited and it would be interesting to know if it was a positive or negative.) |
|
Often getting from the boat to land is an interesting process. These photos show us returning to DoraMac from town. We walked into the official port area and then over a ramp to the barge. Then we walked carefully along the barge edge before climbing back onto DoraMac.
|
