Wrapping this all up

The last three days of the trip we spent it all in Germany and listening to the ship crew deal with the enormous amount of rain pouring into the Danube.  As the river continued to rise, we were at risk of not getting under some bridges. So as we planned to stop at Passau but were redirected to another city where they bussed us back to Passau.  The needed to get to just before the bridge that was in question if we could pass under it.  So while we were prancing about the town, the crew dismantled the top deck, removing all the chairs, tables and railings. More on that later.

So we got to Passau after a short bus trip and entered the town.  We joined another tour that day.  The area is the town of three rivers that all merge at this point.  They have a history of regular flooding and you can see how the town is built and how people live to prepare for their bouts of flooding.  We spent most of the time looking at St Stephan church during the tour.

 We did stop in a couple of other areas to see some art exhibits of art work of local artist, but the appeal of the art was sadly lost on me.

So, we left the tour as we figured out we wanted to see parts of the town they were not going to visit.  We walked down to point of town where all the rivers meet and took in the view.  After that we explored other parts including yet another coffee shop, which was excellent and headed back to the ship to get ready for our big adventure to see if we would get under the bridge.

It was close and the ship made it with about 10 cm to spare!  So, we sailed on towards Regensburg.  It was interesting sailing from that point on for the day.  We had a guest lecture on the history of Danube and what happened along the points we were sailing.  One interesting place in the middle of - what appeared to be nowhere was a large memorial.

After we ended up Regensburg by the next day, we decided to skip the tour and explored the city on our own.

 We basically just wandered around town all day.  They plan was for the ship to leave around 1:00 that day and end up Nuremberg, but when we got back to the ship, we were stuck because of the high waters, so we had the rest of the day to more exploring, so we did.

 So we walked into different shops, different churches and got lost several times and even watched a group training to river rescues.

 We all ended up having the big farewell dinner with some fancy treats and ending with a group picture with each alumni group.

  The appetizer and dessert.

Hey, they make wine here

The Danube river upstream from Vienna held a quite a few castle remains.  I don't know what else to call them, but they were basically castles that were built along the river that were no longer being used and thus had fallen apart a couple hundred years ago.  To see them they warned us to get up early, so it was an early start but fun to sit up on the deck as the day started.  We also noted the number of vineyards we sailed past.  Quite the region with the hills and great views, though we had mostly rain the entire day.

As the morning wore, more and more of the passengers kept running up to the deck to check out the range of castle structures.  One of the interesting things about the Danube trip was there are markers along the river to tell you at which kilometer marker you are at and it helped as we had guide books that told us which castle was which in comparison to the marker.

After docked in a village across the river from Melk, we jumped on a bus that took us to the Melk Abbey.  The tour of the abbey was fascinating. It is used as a school now, but the students were out for the summer so we missed some of that view, but we were also able to see most of the abbey and it is set-up nicely for tours.  The restoration is very beautiful and the history is quite engaging.  We had a brief tour of the gardens, which Kathy and I both felt we wished it was not pouring out so we could see more of it.  I think we would love to go back to the town.

This is a view from back of the abbey overlooking the town.

The abbey is the main source of employment for the town and it fits in centrally to what goes on in that town.  Our guide for the city (which was different than the guide we had for the abbey) was born in the town and grew up and lived there her whole life.  She talked about life growing up there and going to school at the abbey. It was a nice perspective.

After seeing the abbey and what not we wandered through the town and bought some gifts and had more coffee and pastries.  Yum.   It was another nice night on the ship and as we sailed we saw past other cities we saw some interest light shows the buildings displayed.  We had a fun evening on the ship with a talent show and games in the lounge.

Vienna as in not the sausage

So, as we left early from Bratislava to get Vienna by the evening, we lucky enough got into town in time to see a brilliant sunset.  There was a contingent that went to town as soon as we arrived, as I assume they were looking forward to getting to Vienna as much as we were.  Kathy and I stayed and enjoyed the evening with our new friends on the ship and got ready for the next day.

The next day started for us with a quick bus trip to see some of the highlights in a quick glance as we quickly whizzed by in a bus, kind of funny.  Our first guide was very funny and he went through the different views of the city's history. After about 45 minutes of this, we stopped at the famous Saint Peter Square.  Just so you do not miss out on any of the details when you go there, I will not spoil the details they told us about.  So much to see in the architecture!

We then walked around the town and learned about the different historical buildings, the music traditions and the government structure.  Quite a show our guide put on.  We then had a few hours to explore and have lunch on our own.  Being simple folks (most others went to some restaurants and two couple actually went back to the ship for lunch) we found a cafe and sat in the shade with our lunch and coffee.   It was a very hot day so we kept to the shaded parts of the streets and just wandered.  We found so many neat buildings that are not pictured here, so you will have to come over and see the rest.

 But after a few hours we caught with the tour and went to see the Schonbrunn Palace, where  the peak heat of the day met with a tour of a large building without any breezes.  It was pretty nice, but we really were stuck with the tour and I we would of liked to look at the gardens instead of the rooms where people ate their meals and crap like that.  Funny enough it was the only day that was warm on the trip.  Little did we know that the rest of the trip was going to be cold and raining.  

As the tour ended before we passed out, we jumped on a bus that took us back to the ship where we met our fellow travelers.  The night was fun with the ships crew entertaining us by wearing Mozart wigs and having fun with that.

On a quiet Sunday morning

This is some sort of space tower bridge.

Our ship arrived at our next stop early in the morning.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we got up early to take in the sites of Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia.  

The city was quiet, being a Sunday morning and we started our tour with a short bus trip to an old castle that overlooked the city. We stopped outside the gates and we walked through a number of courtyards.  The castle was founded long ago around the 11th century, though the current version was built in the 17th century, but did not have cable tv during that time.  
We climbed to one of overviews of the city and the guide pointed out that while looking over the river, you could see the development during the communist era.  It was very industrial and very boxy looking.  After digging through the nooks and crannies of the castle, we took a walking tour of the town.

We saw several of the towns museums, including a interesting tour of the wine making history of the area.  Another stop was a tour of a collection of  Francis Cleyn tapestries.  The story was interesting on how they acquired them.  Apparently they were hidden in the walls for centuries and when the build was sold, the new owners, the government found them and now have them on display much to the chagrin of the previous owners who had no idea they were there.

We only had few hours to see everything, so Kathy and I left the tour and did some walking around by ourselves and headed back to the ship.  We had a short stay and had to leave by noon to head on over to Vienna.

The dinner that night was a celebration for MN Alumni group, where we sang a stirring rendition of the rouser.  As we headed up the river, we dined with our new alumni friends and got ready for a long day in Vienna.

A little Buda and a little Pest

So we were up at for our day of touring in Budapest.  We started our ship life with a nice little breakfast and a little coffee up on the deck of the ship.  The ship we were on is certainly smaller than your traditional ocean cruise ships.  It holds around 170 people.

Anyway, we walked off the boat and on to our bus and headed to our first stop at Hero's square on the Pest side of the town.  Oh, I did not know this, but the city is divided on two sides of the river, the Buda side and Pest side, sort of like East and West De Pere.  The towns merged long ago in 1867.  So anyway Hero's square has an interesting history and serves as central location to quite a few local sightseeing spots.  What was interesting was having natives at all of our stops be our guides.  The impact the communist had on Hungry and what the liberation means to the citizens is still evident today. Our guide told us a touching story about after the liberation the story of the funeral for the leader of the resistance and reburial.

We then drove around the city and saw a number of the highlights and heard the stories about the resurgence and the rebirth of the city that was still coming to life after the end of communism in 1989. This is a beautiful city.  We headed over to the Buda side of the river and got out and went to Castle Hill, where we toured Matthias Church, and we looked over the famous Fisherman Bastion.  After the touring we figured we could wander around the Castle Hill area and we explored some parts of the old castle areas and the former castle that is now an art museum. After a few hours of this we headed back to the ship and hung out.

The ship set sail around four and we hung out on the top of the ship as we sailed past the sites.  It was a nice evening for it.  Even after dinner we headed up to the top to take in the sights and talk with our new friends about what everyone did that day.  We figured out we missed the best stop by not going to the farmers market where you could get some great paprika.  Well, I guess that will be next time.