Catching Up: on our way home

Internet service was so bad Monday in Bratislava and then again Tuesday I couldn't post. Today, Wednesday the 11th on November we started at 1:30 AM to the Budapest airport from the ship at Bratislava in a 3 hour bus ride. Here's how this came about.

The Danube has been getting lower every day, and there were hints that we might not make it to Budapest in the ship. Well, Monday it was confirmed that we could go no further south-east than a small Slovakian town called Komarom some 6 hours south-east of Bratislava. So Tuesday they bused us all (who wanted to go) to Budapest and back to the ship at Komarom, from which we were supposed to be bussed Wednesday AM to our flights from Budapest. On our return they announced the Danube was to be closed from Bratislava south, and to avoid being stuck in Komarom the ship had to steam back up to Bratislava and we were to be bused from there the 3 hours to the Budapest airport in a big bus with very tight seating and no knee room, a preview of our Budapest to Heathrow middle seats. We needed to leave at 1:30 AM so some early fliers could make their flights, so we were on the bus heading to the airport at 1:30 AM after little or no sleep and are now waiting for our flight to BWI during a 4-5 hour layover in Heathrow. Mary and George got business-class seats, which has paid off handsomely on both directions on this trip. Better seats, shorter lines and a comfortable lounge at each airport.

Finally back at 3721, we have been through the additional insult of being shuttled after passing thru immigration quickly to the agricultural check line where they were x raying and searching bags. We were chosen at random, but they only x rayed our bags and didn't search them as they did to the people ahead of us.

The 2-3 hour before the flight arrival at Budapest seemed unnecessarily long until we spent 1.5 hours in a not-long line waiting to be checked in. It all seemed very third world. A middle seat for Judy and I to Heathrow capped it off. Then

Back to Monday. We walked around the lovely little town of Bratislava which we had visited several years ago on another river trip, and has a delicious dinner with plenty of wine back on the ship, which sailed for the aforementioned komarom that night.

Then we bussed to Budapest and toured around with the AMA group, having lunch at the river-boat-located restaurant "Spoon". Good food. Goulash soup, chicken and chocolate mousse with very nice wines. Then back to the ship, and dinner, followed by the sailing back to Bratislava for the short night.

Brataslava

Budapest

Black Death Monument: compare to Vienna version.

Parliament building on Pest side of Danube

Church on Buda hill:

Sunday in Vienna, and Lipizzaner horses

Today we arrived for a full day in Vienna. The most beautiful buildings I've seen on the trip. Opera House, City Hall, Art Museum, everything. We decided to bus around the main loop to see everything in the center and it was worth it, despite my growing reluctance to take more tours. The guide was excellent, thought.

Here's the newly cleaned library:



and the monument to the black death:



and St. Stephen's church:



We visited the stables of the Lipizzaner horses, which we saw last trip. This time we didn't bother to see a training session, though.

The weather was like summer, in the 70's and clear. We tried to get some coffee in a street-side cafe, but it was so busy we didn't have time before he.ading back to the ship for lunch and a bike trip this afternoon to the Klosterneuburg Monastery 12 km up the Danube. This monastery made wine in large quantities, but we did not get a taste. They were celebrating Leopold Festival, men's day at the church behind it. Saint Leopold III founded the Monastery in 1114 (Yes, I swore I would not ride one of these bikes again, but with the weather so pleasant and the 12K trip to the monestary on a bike trail, I couldn't resist.) Judy and Kathleen went too. Got back around 4:30 pm.

The monastary:

Just now from our balcony:

Melk Abbey and Krems/Durnstein

A twofer today. We woke up in Melk and visited the abbey, featuring a large, old, ornate library, a cathedral and a school. We had seen this before, but it was worth seeing again. A new exhibit was a reusable coffin instituted by Joseph Hapsburg, who refocused the abbey on practical things that benefitted the people as well as the church. The coffin had a releasable bottom, into which the body would be placed (over a grave I hope) and then dropped into the grave. That way only one coffin was needed for a whole town.

Just now we pulled into Krems, where we get to Durnstein via a short bus ride.

Melk Pics

The Abbey

The reusable coffin

 The Abbey Ticket

The Hapsburgs Portraits

 Typical Modern Abby Display Room

Durnstein

 The Austrian Porta-potty: Pipibox

Where we finished up our tour with a wine tasting today

The Tasting 

Linz, bike tour and Salzburg

This AM we had a bike tour scheduled, followed by a half day visit to Salzburg. When I got up at 7 AM the weather was cold and foggy, so I had breakfast and left Judy while I did the ride. Although I normally like riding the combination of the weather, the group of 15 or so people, and the big, heavy, upright, unstable, close-coupled bikes, some with big puffy seats that could not be adjusted detracted greatly. Tellingly, the tour leaders rode more sensible mountain bikes. We basically rode around LInz in an unwieldy bunch, having to look out for each other and traffic more than the scenery.  However this was enough to persuade me to cancel the 20 mile trip down the Danube later in our cruise. That looked, with better bikes and a smaller group, to be very promising, from the section of the Danube bile path we did manage to ride.

I decided to stay in Linz with George this afternoon, letting Judy and Mary and Harry and Kathleen do the bus trip to Salzburg. Pictures later, I hope...

VIlshofen to Passau

The ship took just hours the morning of the 5th of November to reach Passau, where the three rivers Inns, Danube and Ilz meet. Passau is a college town with around 10,000 students, but seems much smaller than that number. Starting at around 3 PM we hiked the hill to the Passau Castle, which dates from 1499, and stands on a hill. After a fairly long climb we reached the castle and had broad views of the Bavarian forests and the town of Passau and confluence of the three rivers. The Ilz river flows from Bavaria and is practically black from the forest runoff. The River Inns, which flows through Innsbruck, is gray.

Tonight we 'sail' for Linz.

Castle from Below Before Hike

View Through Woods Towards Confluence from Castle

Some of the Castle Building on Way Down

Judy with Danube as Background After Castle Hike

Sundown over Passau

Finely Painted Cathedral Ceiling

Passage from Prague to Vilshofen

Yesterday we were picked up at 10 AM at the the Kings Court hotel by a nice Mercedes van and driver I hired over the internet and driven on a 3.5 hour trip to Vilshofen Germany, a small town on the Danube river where our ‘ship’, the AMASonata was docked. The cost for six of us was around $220 total, and we gave the driver a $20 tip, or $80/couple.

Beautiful agricultural scenery along the way. Vilshofen is a neat little town with cobble streets at the junction of the Danube and the Vils rivers. Downtown is an easy walk from the boat.

Today at 11:30 AM the ship transits the short distance to Passau where we walk around town or to a castle, we haven’t decided which. The Danube is very low, to the point of having to unload some upstream ships to move them. We hope this is not in store for us. We will see…

Our Ship

Vilshofen Main Street

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Day Two in Prague

Today we toured with Mary and George and Kathleen and Harry, who arrived last night, after delays in the London fog, but not as much as we had the day before. I rode a Segway on a trial run, but decided against the full tour due to expenses of $40/hr. These gadgets look and feel fun!. The Segway company was sold to Ninebot, and they have gotten down significantly in price, to a low of $315 for a simple unit. My experience encouraged the rest of them to try one and they had fun too, but in the end no one paid for the tour.

We visited the Prague Castle again, this time with Harry and Kathleen, and met George and Mary there. After a Starbucks we split ways,Mary and George took a cab, Judy and Kathleen walked back and shopped on the way, and Harry and I walked directly back, not stoppjng anywhere.

We attended a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in the Art Nouveau Hall next to the hotel. It included Pachelbel (canon), Brahms Hungarian Dance No. 5, and Sarasate Gypse Airs Op.20. The latter two were familiar, but I had not realised the composers were the named ones. I caught a few winks during Vivaldi, but when I was awake appreciated the lead violinist.

After a fine dinner at our hotel, we are finally back in the room ready for bed and our departure tomorrow in a van I ordered for the 3.5 hour trip to the boat at Vilshofen Germany.

The food at the Kings Court where we are staying is so good and inexpensive we have had little reason to go outside at night for dinner. We know the staff well, and vica versa, which makes it very comfortable. Plus, it’s cold out.

Here’s Harry on a Segway/Ninebot:

More Day Two Pics: Harry, Judy and Kathleen

More Day Two Pics: Stained Glass in Castle Cathedral

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Day one (of two) in Prague

Some pics from around Prague, in particular the Prague Castle, described in Wikipedia as follows:

Prague Castle (Czech: Pražský hrad) is a castle complex in Prague, Czech Republic, dating from the 9th century and the official residence of the President of the Czech Republic. The castle was a seat of power for kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman emperors, and presidents of Czechoslovakia. The Bohemian Crown Jewels are kept within a hidden room inside it.

It is among the largest castles in the world occupying an area of almost 70,000 m2, at about 570 meters in length and an average of about 130 meters wide. Although the Guinness Book of Records listed Prague Castle as the largest ancient castle in the world up to July 2006, Malbork Castle occupies more than twice the area at 143,591 m2. 

Cathedral within Castle Walls

The tower can be climbed (from inside) via stairs. We did this last visit, and decided not to today. Maybe tomorrow.

Front Gate

Judy with Castle in Background

Looking at Castle over Vitava River

The Vitava river flows through Prague and Bohemia.

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Transit and Prague

The trip from BWI to Prague, via Heathrow was, in a word, horrible, mostly due to a heavy fog over southwest England that delayed our Heathrow to Prague connection several hours and a middle seat on the full plane on that leg. That threw off our van I hired to go from the airport to the hotel by an hour.

Tops of city buildings piercing fog as we came in to Heathrow:

Anyway, the Kings Court hotel we chose, and finally arrived at, exhausted, is a magnificent European-style hotel with plenty of extras like free wifi, indoor pool, free use of the executive lounge with food, wine, coffee. The bar is very comfortable and serves good drinks at reasonable prices, and the restaurant has a wide selection of well prepared dishes.

Drinks, dinner and bed followed our arrival in short order, and this AM just before I wrote this entry, breakfast in the gorgeous dining room (outdoor part, since we got down at rush hour.) Breakfast features custom-prepared egg dishes, an orange juice machine that squeezes fresh juice on-demand, a wide selection of breads, cold cuts, salmon. Breakfast also includes champagne and juice mimosas, which it seems many people, but not us, liked to start the day.

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