September 18, 2012
Please feel free to make new friends in the lavatory: Brusarci - Calafat (Romania)
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THEY'RE BUILDING a bridge across the Danube at Vidin. I saw it from the shabby ferry that runs slowly and not inexpensively across to Calafat, on the Romanian side. All that's left is to fill the gaps in the carriageway, paint the lines and hold a ceremony. When that happens, the unloved, blunt-ended, flat-bottomed ferry will be sold to some company in even more dire straits or be broken up for whatever these things are broken up for.
The staff have lost interest in anything but the essentials of their job. But that's not to say they can't be forced into it. So when I saw the open door to the disgusting lavatory and took a picture, a gruff man in blue overalls remonstrated and slammed the door closed.
But it wasn't the state of the place that interested me, although it did add to the picture and to his embarrassment, for he obviously knew what a brown-and-yellow pit (ideal colours for a lavatory, when you think of it) his employers offered.
No, what had caught my eye was a sticker above the door in two languages boasting that this was the passenger assembly and relaxation area. It actually referred to the metal stairway from the car deck to an upper level set out with hard seats. The stairs were behind the lavvy. This grumpy geezer had sailed thousands of times from Bulgaria to Romania and back without noticing the juxtaposition. When I pointed to it, he bad-temperedly acknowledged the point and tore the sticker down.
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Today, then, was the day I saw the Danube for the first time. The landmark - or rivermark - couldn't go unmarked. I took up temporary residence on a café terrace affording a view in both directions and noticed once again how much the Danube - second in length in Europe to only the Volga - is a working river. Long flat vessels, and tugs pushing two or more barges, move up and down, linking cities, joining countries, perhaps heading down to the Black Sea at Constanta to transfer their loads for passage to who knows where. I find the romance inescapable.
p.s. I had an e-mail today from the two Germans, from Munich, whom I met on our first day in Macedonia. They too had had to be rescued in Albania, crushed by the appalling mountain roads. They therefore join everyone else we have met on this ride. I feel sorry for them but I don't now feel so much of a failure myself!
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