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

Day 4 Crossing Borders – Bratislava and Vienna

This cruise has been so busy that we haven’t had time to keep up the daily postings. We'll try to remedy that since we finally have a bit of free time and a couple of hours of cruising.


In the early morning between Budapest and Bratislava, we encountered the first and largest of the 11 locks we would have to transit on our way to Vilshofen. Not only is it a two chamber lock, but there is a good sized hydro electric plant right beside it. The Danube has a surprisingly strong current, which is quite evident every time we pass a channel marker, or even just look at the water moving under a bridge or past a mooring platform on the riverside. So it is not surprising that they are making use of it for hydro power generation. The plant produces about 10% of all of Slovakia's power.




The very interesting thing about the lock is the difference between the gates. At the bottom of the 20 metre lift, it is a standard gate, much like the ones in the Panama Canal or even the Trent-Severn Waterway. But the gate at the top is much shorter, as you can see from the photo. The top side of the lock leads into the Gabcikovo Canal that runs for 35 kms and is not that deep, so the gate also doesn't have to be too big. What is different about it is that the gate slides down into the bottom wall to open, rather than opening two big doors.

Bratislava was something of a surprise. We had expected, based on information and reviews we had read earlier, to see some run-down forgotten relic of the communist era when Slovakia was part of Czechoslovakia. In fact, we found a beautiful old town with a long history dating back to the 9th Century. Our tour guide for the morning, Juri, didn't need to hold up his lollipop sign – nobody could miss him. He's taller and broader than Larry! But he was also a font of information and humour. Larry says he'd have a great career ahead of him in standup comedy if he wanted to give up guiding tours.

The fountain in the old Main Square is home to the statue of another of our own familiar figures: the Teutonic Knight Roland, the same one who stands in Bremen. We can't recall his significance in Bratislava, or Pressburg as it was known in those times, but it was a surprise to find him here!

Larry and one of the humorous statues around town - the 'Paparazzi'

The time in Bratislava was so short that we had no chance to go to the old Hrad, or Castle. The views are supposed to be spectacular, and some of the rooms have been turned into a museum. The castle itself, although dating back to the Middle Ages, was destroyed by fire in 1811 and was only rebuilt after 1953.

After the morning in Bratislava, we set sail for our longest daytime stretch on the river, the 60 km to Vienna. Along the way we passed the ruins of Devin Castle, a very old fortress of Celtic origin that used to guard the confluence of the Danube and another small river. It once again serves to show just how long the area has been inhabited and how important the river has been throughout the ages.

We weren't speeding along by any stretch, since the ship has to push pretty hard against the current, but we had planned about 7 hours to get there. Unfortunately we couldn't keep up the pace, so the Captain had to pull in to the closest open berth to let the hundred or so of us off to get to the Concert Hall on time, then moved to our assigned spot.

The program for the evening was Strauss, Mozart and Lehar in the Hofburg Palace concert hall. Fortunately our guide warned us on the way that they had redecorated the hall after a fire in 1994 and there was now some modern art on the walls and the ceiling. It was the talk of the groups in the other buses, and we found ourselves explaining it a few times both before and after the concert. Here's a photo of the orchestra and the decorations:

The drive back to the ship was known as the 'Illuminations Tour', but unfortunately it is very hard to get a good photo of anything at night out of the window of a moving bus (or even a stopped bus for that matter!). So there won't be any photos of the Prater Park until tomorrow's posting. Of course, nobody told our guide that the ship wouldn't be in the same place when the bus got back to the riverside, so she had a moment's panic until one of the folks up front told her where the ship would be. It was just a good thing that WE knew!

Day 3 Budapest Tour

Now that we were officially on the ship, we had the first guided tour of the trip on Friday morning. Since we had not ventured out to the old part of Buda, up near the castle and the Mathias Church, just in case they would later be covered again on a tour (for reference, see Alesund, Norway June, 2011), we chose the full city tour.


This was a great idea, except that we, unknowingly, took the first tour group tickets that we were handed. The way most included tours work on river cruises is that you go to the front desk, tell them which tour you want, and they give you a coloured tag to identify the group you will be with. Which is fine, except that, of course, they fill the first group and then start handing out a different colour to the next group, etc, etc, so you can imagine our group was at capacity of about 30. The only problem with the set-up was that the tour operator decided to put a small group of Spanish-speaking guests on our bus with us. Also not so bad, except that, to a man or woman, they DIDN'T bring their Vox headset receivers with them, so they had no way of hearing their guide unless she spoke very loud. Instead of sending them back to the ship (only a short walk down the street) to get them, they decided that the Spanish guide would talk to them over the bus microphone, and the English guide would speak through the Vox system during the bus ride. This didn't work too well, since the Spanish guide kept speaking on the mike while our guide was talking to us so we couldn't hear her properly most of the time.

That notwithstanding, we did see a number of sights, including Hero Square, dedicated to the many men who lost their lives through various wars, battles, uprisings and occupations that Budapest in all its incarnations had survived, from the Huns to the Turks, Ottomans, Germans and, most recently, Russians.

Next up we traveled across the river to the old town of Buda, which dates back to the settlement of the town as the capital of the region, and the establishment of Buda Castle. Unfortunately we didn't have time to see any of the castle itself, but we walked through the town to the Mathias Church, which was named after Mathias Corvinus, one of the early kings of the Hungarian empire. The church roof was recently completely redone, as you can see from the photos, apparently financed by selling the tiles from the old one. Because of the church's historical significance, there was a ready market and they managed to pay for the whole project out of this endeavour.

On the other side of the church square stands the Fisherman's Bastion, built to honour the fisherman who provided a lot of the food and commerce (and soldiers!!) during Buda's early turbulent history. Some of the best views across the Danube can be found from this point. So here are a few shots:

After crossing back to the Pest side, we had a brief description of and drive-by of the Parliament Building and headed to our last stop – the City Market. This is open most days of the week, and is housed in a building that would probably be the size of the St. Lawrence Market's north and south buildings combined. It smelled wonderful – there were fresh fruit stalls, meat stalls of all kinds, spices – especially paprika in all its varieties, and food stands. Upstairs there were also stalls selling linens, leather goods and souvenirs.

At the end of this tour, we walked back to the boat to start getting ready for our 5:00 departure. But first we had "lifeboat" drill. This is a bit of a misnomer, as a river cruiser actually carries no lifeboats, but in the post-Concordia world of cruising, every ship must have a drill. The Captain had mentioned the drill the previous evening and it involved gathering on the Sun Deck (the top deck), checking in, and donning your lifejacket. The Captain then reviewed the emergency procedure, which involves beaching the boat and hopping off. As he pointed out, the depth of the river is such that even if the ship sank, the Sun Deck would still be ABOVE water, hence no need for lifeboats!! As an aside, no mention was made of WHEN the drill would take place and Larry was actually in the shower when this compulsory drill started!!

Once that was all done, we were just about ready to set sail. In one way it's too bad that we couldn't get the full effect of the Parliament Buildings at night, but the sail up the river was just as nice during the afternoon.

After dinner, we capped off the evening by lounging up on deck as we sailed along into darkness. The sun isn't going down until after 9:00, and we had been told we were going to sail past the largest Abbey in Hungary around that time. Unfortunately, the announced timing was off by an hour – by the time we got to it, it was too dark to take any photos or video. But it was a spectacular sight nonetheless.

Day 1 & 2 – Budapest

Well, we certainly didn't get off to a good start. We booked our flights through Aeroplan, which meant we flew Toronto, Montreal, Munich, Budapest. When we checked in at Toronto, Air Canada's computer couldn't find Monica, and even when it did finally find her, it wouldn't check her in past Montreal! A little diligent work by a couple of check-in agents, and finally we're at the gate and ready to go. Too bad the plane wasn't! A thirty minute delay while they replaced a part. Okay, we're on the plane and taxiing to the runway, and we stop. A fifteen minute ground delay due to weather in Montreal! Normally not a worry, but we only had a 90 minute connection in Montreal, half of which was gone before we even left the ground in Toronto! Fortunately there were no other delays and boarding had just started when we got to the next gate, but the nagging thought, will our bags make it??


From Montreal, the rest of our flights were on Lufthansa, and the flight from Montreal was in Lufthansa First Class. (We did book through Aeroplan after all.) What a First impression!!! The cabin had only 8 seats, two rows of four, and the rows were 8 feet apart! The picture will give you some idea.

The only unfortunate part about this flight is it was only seven hours long and we had to spend the largest part of that time sleeping!! Oh well, we are flying First home too, so we will get to really enjoy it then.

After two uneventful flights, we arrived in sunny, hot and humid Budapest, and much to our relief, so did our two suitcases!!

Our private transfer from the airport to the hotel was waiting for us outside and within 45 minutes (in a nice, quiet Mercedes S500) we arrived at the Four Seasons Gresham Palace Hotel. It was built in the early 1900s as the headquarters of the Gresham Company, was partly destroyed during the war and left in disrepair until into the 1990s. It was purchased by a subsidiary of Four Seasons Hotels and completely remodelled, and has been open as the hotel since 2004. It is quite beautiful as you can see from these photos of the lobby and outside.

After an hour's siesta, we started out on a brief exploration. The hotel is on the 'Pest' side of Budapest, looking straight across the Chain Bridge. So we set out across the bridge to the 'Buda' side and along the riverfront toward the Parliament Building. That's the one that you see photos of in all the brochures for Budapest cruises, all lit up at night. Since we were already more than half way to the next bridge, we decided we'd cross there then walk back to the hotel. On the bridge we exchanged photo-takings with a couple from Australia. So here's the first of the 'us' shots for this trip:

In the evening, we decided to dine at the hotel since it would be an early night. They have a small terrace area outside, and since it was a warm, still evening we opted to eat there, and had a delicious meal that included Goulash soup (of course!), Chicken Paprika for Monica and Wiener Schnitzel that covered the plate for Larry.

The only interruption came just before we ordered dessert. We had driven through a short but heavy rain shower on the way from the airport in the afternoon, and our driver had said that at this time of year we could expect brief showers most afternoons. Today's afternoon shower was followed by a thunderstorm in the late evening. It started slow but the rain picked up just after our waiter finished moving us inside. Just before retiring, Larry took some video of the buildings lit up on the other side of the river, and managed to catch a rogue flash of lightning from the storm reaching toward Buda Castle. A glorious day despite the rain.

The next morning, we woke to another beautiful day. After breakfast, we decided to wander down the river in the other direction, toward the Elizabeth Bridge, in the area where AMACerto was moored. We wandered along the Danube Promenade, dotted with small restaurants and connecting a couple of waterfront parks. We finally found the boat (or is it still a ship?), talked to the crew about early arrival, and then walked back to the hotel via the main pedestrian shopping area, the Vaci Uta.

A short taxi ride with our luggage had us back to the boat about an hour later; then we checked out the layout and the amenities until official boarding time. Here are a couple of photos:

In the evening, the Captain greeted everyone at his Welcome Aboard party, and after the obligatory information session, we had our first dinner on board. The food is a good as the various reports have been saying; so that meant that the exercise room would be on the agenda at least a few times during the cruise.

After dinner, we had local entertainment from a string trio, playing some gypsy-style music as well as traditional folk music and classical pieces written by Hungarian composers, while folk dancers demonstrated their traditional dances.