The Danube, from Vienna to Constantinople
| 1st day | To Budapest (twelve hours by steamer from Vienna). A few miles below Vienna the steamer passes the island of Lobau, where in 1809 Napoleon and his army of 150,000 men were locked lap for five days. It was a bad box, but the great captain was equal to the emergency, and throwing bridges across both arms of the river, finally defeated the Austrians at Wagram. The river passes ruined castles and mediaeval towns, some of them historically interesting, especially the curious old town of Presburg. Nearing Budapest, its grim Fortress looms up from a lofty height, dark and forbidding, but soon skirting Margaret Island and passing under the obtuse angle Margareten-Brucke, Pest and Of en are disclosed, with their palatial buildings on either side the noble river, a beautiful and impressive sight |
| 2d day | Belgrade (twelve hours by steamer from . Budapest). From Budapest to Belgrade the river winds through vast Hungarian plains, where all is flat and dreary. Belgrade, the capital of Servia, stands on a high promontory overlooking the Danube, and bounded on its west side by the River Save, which here joins the Danube after serving for a considerable distance as a boundary between Hungary and Serbia. |
| 3d day | Turn-Severin (thirteen hours by steamer from Belgrade). At Nicopolis are the remains of fortifications thrown up by the Russians, in the war of 1877-78. Plevna is directly south of Nicopolis, some twenty-four miles. At Kazan Pass the river scenery becomes grand. The shores grow more rocky, the river narrower and more confined, until at length the Danube enters a defile only 180 yards wide. Precipitous mountains shoot abruptly from the water's edge to a height of 2,000 feet. Eighteen hundred years ago the Roman Emperor Trajan hewed out a military road along the Danube, and where the cliffs rise so precipitously from the water, suspension bridges are believed to have been constructed. Holes for the supporting beams afe still visible, and the traveler can still see the inscription which Trajan ordered to be cut in the rock to commemorate his successful war with the Dacians: " He opened a way across the vanquished river and mountain." Near Turn-Severin have been seen, at low water, sixteen of the twenty stone piers which had sustained the wooden trusses of a more substantial bridge which Trajan's architect Apollodorus built across the Danube. |
| 4th day 5th |
Bucharest (twelve hours by rail from Turn-Severin), the capital of the kingdom of Rou- mania, with a population of close on 300,000 and the residence of the Roumanian princes. With suburbs somewhat oriental in appearance, the city has many new buildings, and these give it something of a modern look; but neither successful industry nor general progressiveness is conspicuous in this Balkan city. |
| 6th day | Varna (twelve hours by rail from Bucharest) , the chief seaport of Bulgaria, on the Black Sea. In the vicinity of Varna is the summer residence of the prince of Bulgaria |
| 7th day | Arrive Constantinople (fourteen hours by steamer from Varna). |
