We left Vienna in the bright sun of early morning on a hydrofoil, bound
300 miles down the Danube to Budapest, gateway to the East. Of the several
boats moored quayside at the Shiffahrtzentrum, I was surprised to discover
ours was not one of the several multidecked, glassy vessels bobbing in the
river current, but rather the squat, sealed vessel that looked to me like a
half-submerged bus or a big blue cigar.  It was either Russian- or
Bulgarian-built, judging by the Cyrillic on the steel bulkheads, but it would
take us all the way to Budapest in quiet comfort.

The Danube was broad and vaguely industrial around Vienna, and grey and
wind-tossed by the time we reached Bratislava.  Twice we labored through locks
that lowered us over a hundred feet vertically: massive steel and concrete
things as silent as the grave.  We left Vienna in the bright sun of early
morning on a hydrofoil, bound 300 miles down the Danube to Budapest, gateway to
the East. Of the several boats moored quayside at the Shiffahrtzentrum, I was
surprised to discover ours was not one of the several multidecked, glassy
vessels bobbing in the river current, but rather the squat, sealed vessel that
looked to me like a half-submerged bus or a big blue cigar.  It was either
Russian- or Bulgarian-built, judging by the Cyrillic on the steel bulkheads,
but it would take us all the way to our destination in quiet comfort.

The Danube was broad and vaguely industrial around Vienna, and grey and
wind-tossed by the time we reached Bratislava.  Twice we labored through locks
that lowered us over a hundred feet vertically: massive steel and concrete
things as silent as the grave:  one was a brief (and surprising; we'd just
begun the voyage) and just at Vienna's city limits where the Danube canal
rejoins the river.  The other was a 30 meter drop in what I discovered later
was an enormous estuary, almost an inland delta in a river system that later
re-finds its shape and continues with better definition.  It was the Vodnè
dielo Gabcikovo, just miles from the triple border of Austria, Slovakia, and
Hungary.

After hours of skirting the Slovak border east of Vienna we entered Hungary
definitively, and around us the terrain grew hilly and forested, a lovely change
of scenery from West Africa.  Then, our trajectory changed fast from east, to
south.  We had rounded the bend at Vác and would soon be in Budapest.  This was,
for me, the most beautiful part of the trip, as the forest on both sides gave
the river a primitive and wild look that obscured the millions that have been
invested in ensuring its navigability.  I read afterwards that the Danube, aka
Donau (Austria), Duna (Hungary) and dozens of other names, is one of Europe's
principal riverine transport corridors, and the nations that use it have
invested millions in dredging, channeling, and stabilizing the watercourse to
ensure goods and people can flow up and down it as necessary.  Over the course
of the afternoon we shared the waters with dozens of ferries, transporters,
booze cruises, barges, tugs, and even small container haulers.

But at no point under the cloudy afternoon sky was it blue, blue, blue,
flowing instead through greens, grays, and silvers as we descended to Budapest.
We arrived at mid-afternoon, under a glowering sky.  We would spend a week in
Budapest before returning home, and would discover then that the Danube is a
central feature to the region, as much a part of the landscape as a part of the
culture.  Somehow, to experience at water level on board a ship just as much a
part of the region's history, seemed surprisingly appropriate.