Monday, Nov 12.  Toured the New Town, founded around 1640.  Site of the 1968 Czech uprising and 1989 “Velvet Revolution”.  Disappointing when compared with the Old Town.  Buildings were largely utilitarian.  Awful day for photos anyway.  We went back to the Old Town for lunch and to watch the clock watchers, then over the Charles Bridge again.  A largely easy-going day.  Tomorrow at 0600 we fly away.  Wake up at 0300.

Overall, the trip was great, in spite of the weather hiccups.  We do not blame Viking for the problems and credit them for making the most of it.  Amsterdam and Prague bookends were fantastic.  Too many good memories.  But getting home will be great.

Next Adventure begins 16 February.  South America with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT).  15 companions max.  Hurrah!

Sunday, Nov 11th.  Scattered rain, then unused-to sunshine.  Better photo weather.  Amazing clock that defies description, even with instructions.  More gorgeous buildings.  Chocolate shops, puppet shops, glassware shops.  Museums everywhere.  Jewish Quarter was heartbreaking.  Hitler may have been planning for a “Museum for the Extinct Jewish Race”.  Stored, rather than destroyed Jewish artifacts.  One synagogue had a wall with 77,000 handwritten names of lost people.  Represents only half of those lost.  240 children out of 10,000 survived.

Huge metronome (which didn’t operate), built to replace a massive Stalin Statue.  Funicular (also not operating) encouraged a hill climb for a beautiful city view.  Large city square had numerous living statues, huge bears, soap bubble guy, etc.  

Wonderfully greasy sausage sandwich, fried potato swirl on a stick, hot wine.  The city isn’t cheap, but the exchange rate hides it.  Evening spent watching Youtube segments of orchestra performances.

Saturday, Nov 10th.  It’s the most beautiful city I’ve seen in Europe.  Words and photos don’t do it justice.  Point the camera anywhere and you get a great shot.  Food is excellent.  Crowds, not so much.  This is some kind of celebratory weekend.  (Harvest festival?)

Friday, Nov 9th.  Dense fog as everyone disembarks the ship.  Various departure times throughout the early morning.  It’s a wonder everyone got on the correct bus.  We had arranged a private tour van to transport us to Prague, with three stops along the away.  Our driver (in a very nice Ford van), was early and very helpful with our luggage.  

(Note:  A brief comment about the cruise.  It wasn’t what we expected, with all the low water (and the dominating conversations about low water).  I think that preventing us from getting to Budapest was the worst part and the one that will tarnish our memory.  But it’s not Viking’s fault and they did the best that I can imagine.  The offered credit for a future (Ocean Cruise!) will help.)

Dispensing with a scenic drive on country roads due to the fog, we made good time all the way.  First stop was Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.  Cute old section, full of humor and quaint shops.  Large display highlighting its Jewish citizenry’s accomplishments.  (At the start of WWII, 10% of its population was Jewish).  The fog hid their bridge across the Danube, called the UFO Bridge because of a strange circular structure at the top of its tower.  The Main Park (not to be confused with its main park) had lots of activity setting up their Xmas stalls.

Next was Lednice Chateau and Park, a beautiful palace/castle building on well-tended grounds.  Large enclosed greenhouse.  The stroll along the grounds was a nice respite from two weeks worth of city touring.  Lunch was at an unusually attractive restaurant for such a small town.  Excellent food.

After another two hours of driving we stopped at Cesky Sternberk Castle (a tautology: Cesky means castle).  12th century, still occupied by the 92 year-old owner.  The story is that in WWII the nazis took it over and kicked out the owner, only to discover that it had so many idiosyncrasies, after a few days they brought him back to run the place for them.  We couldn’t go in, but it was very interesting and even on the outside we could view the impressive view of the village below.

Another final hour drive got us to our AirBnb, where our guide became indispensable.  Our host had given me far too little information.  Getting the key needed a magic word at the restaurant and she hadn’t told us the apartment number.  The key had no info, nor did the restaurant.  The host didn’t answer her phone for 20 minutes, but our guide was persistent.  Eventually we managed.  Needless to say, our review of the host will be poor.

Had an excellent Vietnamese dinner.  Server had better English than I did. Other than a small glass of weak wine at lunch, I went alcohol-free for the first time in weeks.

Stuck in Komarom due to low water.  Used a bus to Budapest.  Long, slow bus tour of Pest.  Interesting.  Wished I could have gotten off the bus to see spots in detail, but time pressed.  Drove back to Buda and did a walking tour of the hilltop neighborhood, including the interesting church.  Afterwards, went to a landlocked Viking ship for lunch.  Several goodbyes to those with early flights, who would stay on board.  Then another long ride back to the Embra.  Drank up the rest of my on-board credit, settled the bill, had dinner. 

I did not spend nearly enough time in Budapest.  It had loads of history that I need to research.  But the cruise is over.  Tomorrow we leave the ship and take a tour van to Prague.  Four more days (on dry land).

In order to beat low water down the Danube, the ship rushed to Kamarom, Hungary, leaving tourists desiring to remain in Vienna with a bus ride to return to the ship,  We opted to stay on board.  Endured three heart-stopping passes below bridges within inches of the head.  Cringing was allowed.  Two massive locks followed, including what I was told was the largest lock in Europe.  It was the largest I’d seen.  Intimidating.  

The ship can’t go any further.  Tomorrow buses take us to Budapest.  Some return to the ship, others (with earlier flights), spend the night on a local (landlocked) Viking ship.  I can’t fault Viking for this arrangement.  Some passengers, of (as I see it) questionable grievance thresholds, want to sue. 

It was a relaxing day.  The river was interesting, especially when our canal was disturbingly well above the surrounding land.  Not many photos though. 

Tuesday, Nov 6th.  Vienna is a disappointment for me.  The city failed to separate the new from the old sufficiently.  The main cathedral, undergoing renovations, has scaffolding partially hidden by a printed representation of what it’s covering. I’ve seen this before and it’s really effective.  But some sections are large billboards advertising Breitling.  Just doesn’t look appropriate, given the cathedral’s history.  Other beautiful statues and monuments are surrounded by modern shops and advertisement.  It’s also a noisy city with narrow streets which should be closed off from traffic but aren’t.  Delivery trucks are allowed on pedestrian-only streets until 11.  I prefer Amsterdam which had canals creating a more opened view.  This is only my view.  Others enjoyed it.

Subways are fast, frequent and efficient.  Mozart House Museum essentially covered Mozart’s life in Vienna, which gave a person ignorant of Mozart’s life a limited and confusing experience.  The Opera House faces traffic.  

The evening concert was fun, but the theater itself was disappointing.  More people than I expected dressed up for the event.  I would say overdressed, considering the venue.  Performers were excellent.  Several comic segments, I suppose to entertain us hicks from across the ocean.  But it was certainly the highlight of the day for me.

We were informed of cruise changes for tomorrow.  Could be worse.  Might be better.

Monday, Nov 5th.  Poor connectivity today.  Short entry.

Melk Abbey ornate.  Massive library.  Attached village small.

Wachau Valley viewing was in intense cold wind and thin fog.  Good scenery, but not great.  Awful for photos.  Vineyards go across the hills on terraces, 90 degress different than German vineyards (top to bottom).  “Traditional.”

Winery tour was outstanding.  Included a 3D movie with aromatics!  Best presentation I’ve ever seen.  Good wine tasting.

Wednesday, Nov 4th.  Today we decided to skip the walking tour and relax.  We were docked in downtown Passau, with an excellent view of both shores.  I was given the time to examine the houses along the river in detail.  They’re all pretty but also structurally different in various ways.  Clearly built by wealthy people.  A lot of personal attention went into their design.  I’ve learned that house colors designate the professions of the occupants.

We spent an hour on our own walking around.  The cathedral in Passau sports the most pipes than any in the world.  Pamphlet sites “17,239, so far”.  I suppose donations will get more pipes.  The building itself is nothing special compared to the others I’ve seen.  We didn’t see much of the town, but others who took the tour enjoyed it.

In the afternoon we visited the real countryside.  Guess what.  More churches, or as I now am fond of saying, “OMG, Another Church” (OAC).  A bus took us to a small riverboat on the Inn River.  The river has very restrictive rules regarding engined watercraft, making our riverboat one of only two allowed.  Quiet cruise past country scenery and a few beautiful mansions.  Beer and pretzels served.  We disembarked and walked across a modern foot suspension bridge (into Austria!) which the guide derided for being expensive and unnecessary except for naturalists and tourists.  A little hypocritical for a tour guide.

We then bused a short distance to for a brief tour of the town of Sharding.  The guide (who, as with two other German guides, loved to laugh at her own jokes) talked to us so much we had no free time.  This was just as well because it was Sunday and nothing was open.  She shared a lot of interesting specific knowledge and general Austrian information.  Very good.  On the return to Passau we stopped at a monastery for an overview of the city.  We weren’t required to climb the famous 321 steps, popular among pilgrims and students who are about to take final exams and need good fortune.

A pleasing, semi-relaxing day.

Thursday, Nov 3rd.  After a quick bus drive to Regensburg, we received a tour of Regensburg from a local resident whose native country was Nigeria.  Very knowledgable.  Our tour was focused primarily on the local Jewish history, of which there is a lot.  A purge in the 16th century caused the removal of the Jewish cemetery.  The headstones were thereafter used for building material, which are today highlighted.  (The reason for the purge was due to the cities bankruptcy, which they blamed on the Jewish money leaders.  Earlier in the trip a city blamed the Jewish community for the plague.)

Continuing the saga, amends for the Holocaust are being attempted by building a synagogue, mostly from Christian donations.  The exhibit set up to tell the story of the construction is in a Protestant church.  It’ll be opened next year.  We were fortunate to see the building, as they just recently took down the construction tent.  There are also numerous brass plates in the cobblestones with names of Jews (and friends of Jews) who died.  The guide called them stumbling blocks.

The cathedral was, as usual, big and busily adorned.  Extremely intricate windows. Across from it was a hat shop with a duplicate of the hat worn by Johnny Depp in Alice.  Perhaps the best hat shop I’ve ever visited.

Drank hot tea with rum.  Excellent potato wedges. Chocolate shops, cuckoo clock shops.  Lots of shops.  Being a Saturday, crowded but relaxed.  Cars drive around with no apparent lanes.  It’s all cobblestones.  Bikes, previously required to be walked, are few.

Least I forget, the key historic artifact of Regensburg is the bridge across the Danube.  For centuries the primary trade route from Europe to the orient.  The aforesaid bankruptcy was in fact due to the discovery of alternative trade routes.  The bridge, for good or bad, was recently renovated, so it looks new on the surface.

Back on the ship, we were treated to a wonderful performance of classical opera singing, with some modern songs thrown in.  Lots of humor too.  Captivating.