Day 9 Transfer to Munich

It was still rainy when we all got up the next morning. Our suitcases didn't have to be out until 7:30 A.M. (a distinct advantage of river cruising) but our bus transfer to Munich was leaving just after 9:00. Many of our fellow cruisers were taking the post-cruise package that went to Prague, so we said our goodbyes at that point. We had spent quite a bit of time with the couple who lives closest to us – around Yonge and Finch – and found out that they would be in Berlin at the same time as we were, after their trip to Prague. Maybe we'd find a way to get together; if not, we'd try to see them once we got home.


So, off we went, all 23 of us, to Munich. Our guide for the next 3 days would be a nice fellow named Jeff, originally from London but living in Munich for about the last 15 years. Our tour stop was in yet another old city, this time in Regensburg, where we'd get a tour and an hour or so for lunch.

While we had passed through rain showers and thick, heavy fog on our way from the ship, by the time we arrived the sun came out and the day had turned beautiful and warm. The old city is quite lovely – it is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site – with the flowers just starting to bloom in the window boxes and gardens. Here are a few photos:

Original bridge to the town wall & gate

The 'Dom' or cathedral

Outside the old Rathaus, or Town Hall

The sign on the last photo translates as:

I'll eat my fill on steamed dumplings, since steam doesn't have any calories!

That's some good advice to keep in mind for the next week or so of eating good German food (and those small German portions!).

And this is what we finally had for lunch in the courtyard at the Ratskeller:

Larry- Sauerbraten with Spaetzle and Red Cabbage
Monica – The local Asparagus Special.

White asparagus is a springtime tradition all across Germany. They grow white asparagus here instead of the green variety. It is quite a bit larger than what we get at home (even the white) and is served with Hollandaise Sauce and parsley potatoes. Most often you can get some cooked ham on the side. Boy, was that ever delicious! Anybody who wants to try some when we get home just needs to ask!

Once we arrived in Munich and got settled into the hotel, we took our first walk through town. We were in the Le Meridien Hotel, conveniently situated right across the street from the Hauptbahnhof, or main train station. Inconveniently, though, it is also situated all the way across the city centre from places like the Hofbräuhaus and many of the really nice restaurants. But, on the positive side, it meant that we could walk off the calories consumed by beer (non-alcoholic), wine and food before we got back to the hotel! Interestingly, every brewery in Munich, and there are at least six of them (!), makes a non-alcoholic beer and it is clearly listed alongside all the other beers on every menu card. Even better, it is served "Vom Fass" or, "on tap" in 1 litre and half-litre steins, which Larry says makes it taste even better than the bottled Beck's non-alcoholic beer has at home!

After confirming our bearings on the map with Jeff, we set off to rediscover Munich. While we had not been here since the 1975 school trip, as we headed toward the centre of town, the Marienplatz, things began to look more and more familiar and we soon felt right at home. While the storefronts may have changed, the landmarks are the same, and without too much trouble we soon found ourselves in the main beer hall of the Hofbräuhaus enjoying our first refreshments!!

While it was tempting to have dinner at the HB, on our way we had passed a much more intriguing restaurant called the Haxnbauer. We had actually detected the aroma of roasting pork from about a block away, and when we passed the racks of pork hocks (hence the name – Haxen) on a rotisserie in the window, we knew where we were going to have dinner!!! And it was wonderful. And Monica's Mom will be soooo jealous when she sees the pictures!!!!

Chunks of roasted pork hock and veal shank with semolina 'knoedel'

The kitchen and 'take-out'. In the background you can see the hocks roasting...

After a fabulous dinner, we headed back to the hotel. On the way we made an interesting discovery. The street beside the hotel is called Goethestrasse and it seemed very familiar to us. Back in 1975 we stayed at a small hotel called the Pension Mariandl and we were both sure it was on this street. Plus, we both remembered it was not far from Marienplatz. A quick check of Google confirmed that not only were our ancient memories correct, but that the hotel is still there!! Unfortunately time prevented us from tripping down that particular memory lane, but once again it shows it's a small world indeed!!

Day 8 Passau & Vilshofen

Our last day on the ship was split between the almost "twin" towns of Passau and Vilshofen. The towns are so close together that almost every other river cruise ends in Passau and it is a major "turn around" point for the Danube cruises.


Monica was up early again to take advantage of the last morning's sailing. Here's some of what we saw on the way:

Passau's main claim to fame is that it is at the junction of three rivers, of which the Danube and the Inn are the main ones. When looking at both of the rivers, it is easy to see that much of the Danube's strong current below this point comes from the Inn.

Passau is yet another very old city, but small enough and far enough away from the main cities that it was not harmed during the war. The town fortress still bears, in large numbers, the date 1488, which is when it was built. Of course, no tour is complete without the visit to the town square. In this case, it is right on the Danube. The other obligatory visit is usually the town's main church or cathedral. In Passau, this is a must-see. It is one of the most beautiful we've seen on this trip so far.

Since we were only there for about 5 hours, we wandered around a little after the tour and headed back to the ship to start our packing. But of course, there was another theme lunch - Oktoberfest. Here's a quick view of some of the offerings on the lunchtime buffet:

We didn't want to miss the last brief sail, about 3 hours to Vilshofen, so we got the suitcases mostly packed up and then headed up on deck. Not long before Vilshofen we went through the last lock – most of the others were night-time transits, since we certainly don't remember most of the other nine – and everyone who hadn't been paying attention earlier was on deck to see it.

In Vilshofen we were scheduled to have a bit of an Oktoberfest celebration just outside the ship, just before the Captain's Farewell cocktail party, but the weather chose not to co-operate. It started raining not long after our arrival, so the festivities had to be moved inside. Unfortunately, it was kind of crowded in the main lounge and that made it difficult to get any good photos.

We had a nice chat with the Captain after the party and got some good tips from him about cruising on the Danube that Larry will surely pass on to his clients.

Although we didn't get any Oktoberfest photos, we did, however, get a couple of nice photos taken at the bar (by the bartender Tamasz from Budapest – who we missed by 'that much' on our previous river cruise in France because he was on vacation from that ship the week we were on it) and by Kerry, at the Captain's Dinner.

And to keep with this cruise theme of Food, Food and More Food, here's the special dessert the kitchen made for us, and presented with a Baked Alaska Parade:

 

Day 7 Linz and Salzburg

After getting our rather stiff legs back into shape (and we weren`t the ONLY ones!) we started off on our next touring day. By this point, we were already thinking that this cruise is far too short for the number of stops it makes – just confirming something we had figured might be the case when we booked.


Linz itself really is not known for any one thing in particular and would probably rather NOT be known for one thing that it was. That being that Adolf Hitler grew up in the city and spent much of his youth here. Beyond that, it is a university town and a centre of the German steel industry. In the last 15 years, they have been working on improving the cultural side of the city, and are concentrating on the future rather than the past. The modern art museum and the museum of technology have some of the most interesting architecture in the city, both lighting up with thousands of LEDs at night.

And the other thing it is known for is its cake, Linzer Torte, an almond cake with red currant (or raspberry the way Monica makes it) filling. After a brief walking tour of the city we also made a somewhat less brief coffee and torte stop in the main square.

The Main Square

Looking at the Cathedral from the Royal Palace

Monica with her Linzer Torte

Linz was also the "jumping off" point for the three big optional tours; Salzburg, Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic, and the Gmunden Lakes District (or Salzkammergut). Since one of the big selling features was to go back to where we first met lo those many years ago, we chose Salzburg, naturally. After a two hour drive, most of which was spent snoozing, we arrived in Salzburg.

To be honest, after 37 years neither of us remembers much of Salzburg, beyond the fact we climbed the hill to the castle that overlooks the city, so much of the tour was new to us. We saw most of the standard tourist sights, especially those used in 'The Sound of Music', including the park where the Do-Re-Mi song was filmed and the cemetery that was used at the end of the movie – which doesn't look at all like it does on film.

It was unfortunate that our city tour went a little over time, but we had also been keeping an eye on the funicular that goes up to the castle to see how quickly we could get there at the end of the tour. We noticed, though, that it didn't seem to be moving at all, and there was no way we would have enough time to walk up like we had done in our first visit. So, having determined that we'd have to come back again to accomplish that goal, we consoled ourselves with a slice of warm Salzburger Apfelstrudel and a cup of coffee, kindly provided by our friend Roy.

Looking up at the castle - in front of us is the "Do-Re-Mi" fountain 

Mozart's birthplace - you think anyone could possibly miss it?





Yes - this is the second piece of cake in one day!

Fortunately we managed to dodge the rain – we had some on the way to Salzburg, and another shower on the way back, but stayed pretty dry while we were there, unlike Linz where back at the ship they had been having a huge thunderstorm all afternoon. Once we got back and had dinner, our final Austrian night included a visit by a musical trio called La Strada, made up of two violinists and a guitarist. They played a variety of pieces from classical to opera to folk music, and were every bit as good as the buildup they got from Rachel, the Cruise Manager.

Day 6 Easy Riders of Austria!!

Monday morning found us in the very small town of Durnstein, about 50 kilometres upstream from Vienna. The comment was made Sunday that we were leaving Austria's largest city (Vienna) and visiting Austria's smallest town. The morning's tour was a walking tour of the town, followed by a wine tasting. Why they scheduled a wine tasting the morning after the Heuriger is one of those questions that defies an answer!!! The town is very small, with only 950 residents, but is very picturesque. It sits at the base of a hill dominated by the ruins of a castle said to be where Richard the Lionhearted was held for ransom.




Larry with grapevines, the town wall and the remains of the castle high above



Durnstein's church tower, painted white and blue to 'bring Heaven to Earth'

One of the long-anticipated highlights of this trip was the afternoon bike ride from Durnstein to Melk. While we had always planned on doing this ride, it was only once onboard that we discovered it was a distance of 33 kilometres. Good thing we had been working with Eric on our cardio endurance for the last six weeks!!! The plan had us leaving at 1:00 from Durnstein and rejoining the ship at Melk by 4:00PM, in time to tour Melk Abbey. Unfortunately we left 30 minutes late, and the first 7 kilometres took almost an hour to do, resulting in a "scolding" from the ride master. We were both pretty tired from this first stretch, but our preparation paid off, and after a short rest we were off again. Unfortunately Mother Nature decided we needed to be cooled off and shortly after crossing the river it started to rain. And rain some more. And thunder. And get windy. And, oh yes, the temperature dropped from 24 to 15 degrees!!!

Our first stop - overlooking vines and the river

Our ferry had to wait for AmaCerto to pass before crossing the river

Because the rain slowed us down some, and we were behind time at the beginning, we had to ride through a couple of the usual stops to catch up. In some ways this was disappointing, since the towns we raced through would have been quite picturesque if we had time to look more closely; but it was also a good thing, since not stopping meant our knees and backs didn`t have time to seize up from the cold and damp during the breaks!

We had raced the AmaCerto all the way along the river and made it to the dock, tired, wet, cold and a little bit saddle sore, at just about the same time as the ship did. This gave us a chance to change into some drier and warmer clothing and join our tour group for Melk Abbey. This is one of the largest abbeys in all of Europe, and has been a Benedictine-run school almost since its inception. Today it has about 900 grade-school students, most of whom live in the area around Melk. The church is quite impressive, as is the overall size of the abbey and its library that includes over 100,000 publications dating back to the 12th Century.

Overlooking the grounds

One of the seven courtyards

The Marble Hall

The outside of the church

The high altar inside the Melk Abbey church

Needless to say, all of the bike riders had a bit of an early night – us included!

Day 5 Vienna All Day

Sunday dawned bright and sunny, perfect weather for our day in Vienna. Our first of two tours was the walking tour of Old Vienna. It being Sunday, and Pentecost Sunday at that, absolutely nothing was open except the churches, restaurants and the odd "souvenir" stand. In other words a terrible day for "the ladies" and a perfect day for "the guys" and their wallets!!





Graben Str, one of the main pedestrian and shopping streets



A Lebkuchen stand outside the cathedral

After a short drive in from the pier, our tour started in front of St Stephen's Church, the oldest, and second largest, church in Austria. Of absolutely NO surprise to us, a full third of the church structure was covered in scaffolding!! Our guide explained that it was originally built with a lower quality, and very porous, sandstone which is a magnet for airborne pollution. She also said keeping it clean was a full time job and since coming to Vienna in 1983 she had NEVER seen it without some scaffolding somewhere, so we didn't feel so bad!

Some of our fellow cruisers, from North York of all places, had a close encounter with the Dalai Lama while they looked around inside the cathedral. Being Pentecost Sunday, there was quite a crowd going in to celebrate mass, so we didn't worry about trying to get inside ourselves (never mind that Larry wasn't sure that lightning wouldn't strike!). The Dalai Lama had been speaking to a large crowd in Vienna only a couple of days before, and was still in the city. Will got a pretty good photo of him, too.

Other areas of interest we covered included the home of the famous Spanish Riding School and Lippizaner Horses, at the other end of Hofburg Palace from the concert hall.

Two of the famous horses in their stalls

One of the more famous ways to tour Vienna - in a horse-drawn fiacre

Our tour covered pretty much all of the Old Town, ending in front of Hofburg Palace, scene of the previous evening's concert, and conveniently right across the square from the Sacher Hotel. The significance you ask? The Café Mozart in the hotel is the "birthplace" of a particular Viennese pastry called, surprisingly enough, Sacher Torte! This is a dense chocolate and sugar confection usually served with large quantities of whipped cream. Monica had been lamenting for days that our schedule would not allow us any time to visit Café Mozart, and she almost had to be physically restrained when we passed it the previous evening on the bus!!! So needless to say, when the tour ended right across the street, with an hour before we had to be back to the bus………………..

And while we somehow managed to NOT get a picture of Monica with her torte, herewith the proof of our visit!!!

Another of our fellow Canadians - Roy from Calgary - with his strawberry shortcake

After returning briefly to the ship for lunch, we were off on our afternoon tour to Schonbrunn Palace, the Summer Palace of the Hapsburgs. The palace is located at the foot of the Vienna Woods and when it was constructed in the 1700's it was actually "out in the country", and while it isn't "downtown" it certainly isn't in "the country" any longer. The Palace itself is modelled on the Palace of Versailles in France, although somewhat smaller and far less opulent. We toured 22 rooms of the palace, but unfortunately pictures are nor permitted, though Monica did "sneak" a couple.

After completing the inside tour, we then wandered the outer gardens, again modelled on Versailles, and again, neither as large or as colourful. They were still very nice and here are a few pictures.

The palace from the far end of the garden, near the fountain

Looking down the gardens toward the fountain and the Gloriette at the top of the hill

And on the way back to the ship for dinner, we passed (for the third time) a couple of other landmarks.



The Jubilee Church



The Ferris Wheel at the Prater Park - over 120 years old

 Completing our very full day in Vienna, after dinner we were again bussed out, this time to a winery for an Austrian Heuriger. This involves a visit to a local winery where the "new wine" is served, accompanied by breads, pates and music. Each table had two bottles of white wine and our entertainment was one gentleman with a violin and another with an accordion. A very good time was had by all and everything you need to know about the evening can be summed up in four words-

Monica
Polka
Chicken Dance