On Our Way Again

Here we are, ready for another interesting adventure in Europe. If we thought we were getting away from our hot summer at home, we had 'another think coming', as they say. The weather in all of Europe has been so hot and dry since May, that the rivers that aren't dependent on the high mountains for their source water have been losing depth, and navigating them has been difficult to say the least. We did not escape this issue, either.

We were originally going to take two cruises on the Danube River - the first on Crystal Mozart, going round trip Vienna eastbound to the Iron Gates, a gorge on the border of Serbia and Romania, and back. Then we were joining a Tauck tour that includes a westbound cruise on the Danube from Vienna to Nurnberg, Germany. We had been following the weather and water situation on the river for the better part of three weeks, praying, as were most Europeans, for some rain, but it never materialized.

Because of the low water situation, especially in Budapest, where the navigation channel in the Danube was only 0.6 meters, or about 2 feet, deep, many cruises in that area were being either cancelled or changed to new itineraries. And that happened to us. Our Crystal Mozart cruise was changed to go westbound to Passau and then back to Vienna, which didn't work at all. As we were given a couple of choices as to what we could do, we chose to cancel the cruise and take the future cruise credit. No point in almost duplicating our cruises and then sitting at the dock in Vienna for 4 nights!

That being done, we decided that we would turn the first part of our trip into a driving tour in Bavaria, covering some of the places we went with Monica's Mom and Dad in 1992. We discovered the German Alpine Route that runs along the border with Austria - that should be a great drive!

Of course, we had to rethink our packing again - and had enough room in the suitcase for a curious
Franklin. But true to form, he wouldn't let us get a photo of him IN the suitcase.....

Close, but no cigar! Just as I got the camera
set, he decided to leave. Neat effect, though!

We were so busy rearranging things just before we left, that this first blog post is coming to you from Vienna. We arrived this morning, and after getting a little additional sleep after the plane, we went for a wander in the old city. And, just to get it out of the way early, look what we found:

St. Stephan's Cathedral, landmark of Vienna,
with scaffolding!

The last time we were in Vienna, we had come to the cathedral on a walking tour, but could not get in to see it because the Dalai Lama was visiting the city and happened to be at St. Stephan at the time. This time it was a lot quieter. And the cathedral is quite beautiful inside.

And as we walked around we also came across this monument to one of Austria's favourite sons, Wolfgang Mozart. FYI, Monica discovered that he never was named Amadeus; his actual first middle name was Gottlieb, which is the German version of the same. Somebody along the way decided to 'latinize' it to make it more continental, probably for marketing purposes, and so it stuck! Your interesting factoid for the day!!

...and the begonias are in the shape of
a treble clef.

Tomorrow we plan to have that Sacher Torte at the famous Hotel Sacher! Hope you enjoy following along.