Viking River Cruise on the Danube

Along the Danube somewhere out there!

Tuesday, September 28, 2018

The big day arrived for our Viking Riverboat Tour that we booked over one year ago! The night before I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Oops! In my half sleep, I walked into my dresser and ouch, extreme pain in my right pinkie toe.

Near Passau on the Danube

It was splayed out at a right angle and I pushed it hard back in place. I heard a crack and it complied, but wow, did it hurt! I put ice on it and fell asleep. The next thing I knew it was time for the trip to the airport. Most of the side of my right foot was black and blue … and I gingerly put my shoe on. Wow, it was tough to walk. Our Lyft driver delivered us to the Southwest Florida Fort Myers airport. Richard wheeled me to the

One of many locks that our ship transited

gate and I limped onto the plane. It was a Delta flight to Atlanta with a 3 hour layover. Then, onto Munich Germany, a 9-1/2 hour flight crammed into coach. We dined on the rubber chicken dinner and dozed fitfully all night. We arrived in Munich the next morning (German time), 6 hours ahead of Florida. Oh, the air was cool, in the 70's with low humidity. It felt so good.

Joanne enjoys Passau

It was an easy entry into the European Union and the Viking people met us with a wonderful coach bus that took us to Passau, about a 2-hour ride on the amazing Germany autobahn to the cute port side historic city. The Viking Ship is called the Vilhjalm and is equipped to handle 130 passengers. It is a long narrow river boat that is gorgeous inside. Our cabin is #115 and we have a nice window view of the world going by. We had a terrific lunch and then a tour of the city. It is hard to walk on my foot, but the swelling went down so I'm taking it slowly. We tried to stay up so that we are almost adjusted to our new zone. After a wonderful dinner, we feel asleep in our cabin and today, we are doing fine.

St Stephens Cathedral

The fabulous organs

The morning included a tour of Passau and highlighted St. Stephen's, a 17th century baroque cathedral, that houses Europe's largest pipe organ. We attended a noon concert and got to hear the 17,000 pipes, well maybe not all of them! We boarded the boat and went through a river lock entering Austria. So, far, we've met wonderful Canadians from Toronto and Americans from Houston (Tomball area) and Pittsburgh. Everyone is very friendly – so far, a great cruise!

Friday, August 31

Posing with Cesky Kormlov in the distance

Today we visited Linz, Austria home of the famous Linz raspberry filled cookies.  Delish!  We chose to take a free 8-1/2 hour tour to Cesky Krumlov, a world heritage site.  At 9 am we set off in a nice coach bus and drove about 1-1/2 hours to the Czech Republic border.  Cesky Krumlov is a fairy tale village comprising 40 buildings and palaces situated around five courtyards.  It was founded in the 13th century by the Lords of Krumlov, and when they died off, it passed to the Rosenbergs.  The guide took us through the lovely gardens with pink roses blooming and pointed out the castle grounds baroque theater, tower, stables, bear moat etc.  We had quite a bit of free time to enjoy an authentic lunch of dumplings, roast pork & sauerkraut and tried their special dessert - a cinnamon roll "chimney."  We checked out the shops and the St Vitas Cathedral and enjoyed people watching.  Just a lovely day!

Sunday, Sept 2

Note:  We have lots of good pictures, but it has been hard to download them and post here because of slow internet speed on the cruise boat.  We hope to download them later.

Monk Richard

It's been a busy two days!  Yesterday, we toured two Benedictine Abbeys, one in Gottsweig and the other in Melk.  The scenery was awesome along the Danube and views gorgeous.  This section of the Danube is known as "the Wachau" and is dotted with ruined castles,  medieval towns and terraced vineyards.  The first abbey was constructed in the 11th Century and is dubbed a UnESCO Worldl Heritage Site.  About 40 monks live at the abbey and they work serving the local parishes, educating the children and rent out the vineyards to support the maintenance and workings of the abbey.  Both abbeys have breathtaking ceiling frescos by artist Paul Troger and extensive art collections.  

Our Viking Ship -- the captain's wheelhouse can hydraulically lower to get under bridges!

Gottweig Abbey Church Altar

Last night while we were sleeping, the ship docked in Vienna.  This morning we toured the city with a ship-arranged guide.  We both were blown away by the architecture and beauty of the city.  It is one of the world's greatest centers of art, music and architecture.  We visited an orginial Vienese coffeehouse where today, drinking coffee is a popular social pastime in Austria.  We ordererd "melange" coffees, which are a lot like cappuccinos with more steamed milk and homemade apple strudel.  Yum!  Tonight we are going to a Viennese concert and a tour of the city lights.

Wednesday, Sept 5

Richard tours Budapest

The week flew by on our Viking Viljhem ship and today it was time to leave.  Really, I could have stayed another week and we both agreed next time we would book a longer journey.

The Viennese concert turned out to be absolutely great.  It was one of the few "extras" we paid for on the ship.  Viking provides many shore excursions that are free - and that is what we mainly took.  But we wanted to hear a concert in Vienna and we were not disappointed.  It was in an intimate hall with a 10-piece orchestra.  We had 3 singers and 2 dancers.  We could recognize some of the famous songs i.e., The Blue Danube Waltz.  I have not been exposed to much classical music, but in person it was wonderful!  The Strauss waltzes were especially enjoyable.

On board in Slovakia

We had an overview tour of Vienna and were were impressed by the magnificent ring roads encircling the main part of town.  There were tree lined streets that looked like Paris.  We heard about the history from the tour guides and the stories of the famous Queen Maria Therese and Cici, the princess "who did her own thing" in her era (tatoos, moved around without her husband, long hair with diamond flower pins, etc.).

Every night the Viking ship chef would prepare delicious regional dishes.  If you didn't want to try them, there was always salmon or steak or hambergers!  We tried all the special dishes and they were delicious.  There is always cappacino or other specialty teas and coffee with homemade cookies tempting you as you go by them.  There was also cultural entertainment aboard and always a live piano player in the lounge.  We liked that there are no casinos - every thing is the "top of the line" and the food and attention from the staff is 5 star.

The next day we traveled to Bratslavia, Slovakia for a half day tour.  It was a lovely country that split from the Czech Republic and is a member of the EU.  We toured the lovely castle and bought a painted egg decoration for our Christmas tree.

Illuminated Chain Bridge, Budapest

From the ship approaching Budapest

It took most of the day to transit the man-made canal portion of the Danube to Budapest.  At 11 p.m. the ship approached the city.  We have to say that the lights of Budapest will be one of our "all time" memories.  The Castle and Parliament buildings, bridges, homes are completed illuminated.  From the river it appears you are floating into a fairy land of exquisite beauty.  The ship had special drinks for us and homemade goulash soup to celebrate our arrivals.  

King Stephen, one of the first kings of Hungary greeted us

A few sentences about the weather here.  Europe had a drought in the last 6 weeks.  None of the Viking ships could even approach Budapest because of low water levels. So they had to transfer all 180 passengers into buses.  So - on the one hand, we were very lucky - because it rained on and off, the water level rose and we could cruise all the way here without any difficulty.  On the other hand, we could not always sit out on the sun deck because of the rain.  But that was OK because the lounge has large windows so we didn't miss the scenery - except some of it was in the rain.  Temperatures were very mild - in the 70's and pleasant.  The ship always gives you large "Viking umbrellas" every time you go out if it even hints at rain and of course, you have fresh bottled water ready for you!

Hungarian Parliament Building

Yesterday in Budapest, we took a general tour of the city and later went to the famous bathhouse for soaking in the  different temperature thermal pools.  Budapest is on a fault line where fresh hot springs are enjoyed by the people all year round.

Inside Parliament in one of the halls

After another fabulous meal last night, we bid goodbye to our new friends we made on the boat this morning.  We were sad to leave, but now are starting on our own "land tour" courtesy of Rick Steves guidebooks.   We have almost 2 days in Budapest and then 5 nights in Prague.  We are getting to Prague courtesy of "RYAN air", an Irish discount carrier.  Only about $75 a ticket and an hour flight, and we will be there!

Famous St Mathias