Farewell

One of the things that is so unique about river cruising is that because of the small number of passengers, you really get to know your fellow travelers.   We met people from Scotland, Wales, and many part of the United States.   The group at the right became our closest companions on the trip.   Sue, John Wayne, and Sharon are from the Pittsburgh area.   Such nice people with whom we had so much in common.   We ate most dinners with them and this was our "last supper".   We have promised to keep in touch.   They helped make a wonderful trip even better.

As I write this, our bags are packed and we are relaxing in the lounge on the Kara until our shuttle to the airport.   Our fingers are crossed that connections are a bit smoother than on the way over.   It has been a marvelous journey.   Our travel itch has been scratched once again!  

Thanks to all of you for following along.  

Hugs and see you all soon!

Bob and Debbie

Nuremberg Part 2

Nuremberg was one of our favorite cities, but it does have a dark past.   During the rise of Hitler's regime, he chose several cities as "staging grounds" for his rallies and planning sessions.   Nuremberg was one of those cities.   Large areas of the city had been used.   The picture on the right is part of one large staging area and the protrusion you can see below the black doorway is where he stood to give many of his fanatical speeches.   It was surrounded by large areas of bleachers for the higher level dignitaries to sit and huge open parade grounds for the masses to use.

The pictures at the right and below (taken out of the bus window with the raindrops falling) is of the building where the famous Nuremberg trials were held.   After the war, the US and its allies held the first ever individual trials of people committing crimes in the name of their country.  

Some of those people were sentenced to death.   But some of them received life sentences and the ominous red brick building at the right is where they served their sentences.   It struck us as so painful and depressing for the German people to think of what happened in their country.   We also learned that Nuremberg had a similar experience to Budapest where there was originally a very large Jewish population and now very few.   In fact we learned that in Nuremberg, the original population of Jews (can't remember exactly but thinking they said about 16,000) was "reduced" to 6.   Unbelievable and so sad.   Then we also learned of how the US and its allies nearly destroyed the city.   They are still recovering.    There is certainly nothing positive that comes out of war.  Everyone loses in the end.

Bob  and  Debbie

Nuremberg Part 1

Our passage from  Regensberg to Nuremberg was along an engineering marvel.   It is a man-made canal built to connect the Main River and the Danube River.   It gave boats a route all the way from the North Sea to the Black Sea.   There were many locks along the way.   We arrived in Nuremberg around noon on Tuesday.   It was a miserable looking day.   Rain, dark clouds, and chilly.   So when we began our city tour after lunch it did not look promising.   During the first bus part of the tour it began to let up and by the time we walked through the old city, it was again partly sunny and warm.   The picture above is of the old castle located on the highest point of the city.   It was badly damaged during WWII, but some sections remained intact and the rest has been restored.

This is the view we had from the top of the castle over the city.   It was so beautiful!   The clouds were breaking up and the rain had stopped.   Our guide had shown us a picture of what the area looked like after the war.   It was nearly destroyed.   But as you can see, many areas have been restored and restoration is still going on.

A courtyard within the castle walls.

The only tower left standing in the castle after the war.

After viewing the castle, we made our way down into the old town along cobblestone streets and narrow alleys.   The picture at the right is called Beautiful Fountain.  It has a gold ring hanging on the metal lattice around the bottom.   Legend has it that if you turn it 3 times in a clockwise direction you will return to Nuremberg.   You can just see me doing my turning!

Most of this part of Germany is Lutheran, but this is actually a Catholic church.   Quite Gothic looking and pretty dreary inside.

Of course, we could not visit Germany without having some authentic sausages.   There is quite a battle between German cities as to who has the best ones.   These were not bad, but we actually feel like good old Johnsonville does a pretty good job too.

To be continued.....

Regensburg-Part 2

This morning we arrived in Regensburg, Germany.   We had an early breakfast and left the boat around 9 for our optional excursion.   We first got on a bus and rode for about 45 minutes through the lovely countryside of Bavaria in southern Germany. We went through several little towns, past farm fields, herds of sheep, and finally to our destination-Weltenberg Abbey.  It is the oldest Abbey in Bavaria-established in 620 AD.   The present church was built in 1716.   Only 9 monks live in the Abbey at the present time, but they still follow the Benedictine rules of work and worship.

The first two pictures show the worship part.   The outside of the church is fairly unassuming, but the inside was very pretty.  It was designed and built by two brothers.   One did the painting and one did the sculpting.   It is hard to see, but there is a large horse and rider right on the altar!

The picture above lets you know what work the monks do.   Their beer is very famous in Bavaria and has even won worldwide awards.   Who knew....

After our tour of the Abbey, we walked a short ways along the river.   This is a view back at the Abbey grounds.  

We were picked up by a scenic cruising boat.  We sailed through this part of the river called the Danube Narrows.   It is the narrowest and deepest part of the entire river.   Reminded us a little of the Dells boat rides.

It was such a relaxing trip!   While we were on the ride we got to sample the monks beer and have a yummy pretzel dipped in warm mustard. Pretty nice way to spend our time in Bavaria.


Hard to believe our next stop is our last.   We are entering the man made canal that connects the Danube and Main Rivers.   It is quite an engineering marvel and has a series of locks to bridge the two rivers.   We will arrive at Nuremberg tomorrow morning and then spend our last day there.   We have really settled into the cruising routine and both agree if someone offered it to us, we would just keep right on sailing!

Hugs,

Bob and Debbie

Beautiful Regensburg

We arrived at the old city of Regensburg on Monday morning.   One of the things we did was take a nice walking tour of the city.   As you can see the old town was a maze of narrow, winding streets lined with beautiful old buildings.

There was a church on nearly every block.

 The most stately was the church shown above.   It is the cathedral of St. Peter.   It was very different than most that we had seen so far as it was built in the gothic style.   The interior was much more ominous and dark, but as you can see the stained glass windows were massive.

At one point we went to the top floor of a shopping mall and had these wonderful views of the old city below us.   So clean and charming.   It looked a bit like a picture postcard!

More to come about Regensburg...

Passau and the Pep Band

We arrived at the dock in Passau, Germany about 9:00 AM. We could tell just from our views off the ship that it was going to be lovely and charming.   Our tour started shortly and we were treated to a very nice walking tour of the city.   The large cathedral at the right is another named after our friend St. Stephen.    It has that same Baroque architectural style that we have seen so much.    Here is another quiz for all of you.   The locals have a name for the top.   What do you think it is?  

 We were able to go inside and actually could have stayed for Mass, but decided we would not get much out of the German.  

It was very different on the inside from the cathedrals we had seen so far.   Much more light and not so much gold.   Quite impressive.

The building at the right is the town hall which is called the "Rathaus"  in German.   It was so lovely.   Cream color with green accents.   It is hard to see, but on the side there were five paintings depicting important in the history of Passau.
There have been people living here for centuries.   The first diocese was founded here in 739.    Passau has always been an important city as it lies at the confluence of three rivers.   It was also the medieval center for the salt trade.

As all of you who live in river communities know, the danger of flooding is always there.   Passau has been hit with many, many floods.   In fact our guide told us they plan on flooding several times each year.   At the left you can see Bob standing next to some flooding marks which are on the side of the Town Hall.   The second mark from the top was just last summer.   The water was up to the second story in most buildings in the old center city.   It was amazing that we saw very little evidence on most of the buildings.   There were a few areas where we could see the water marks, but most everything else had been totally cleaned up.   Apparently the locals have flood clean-up down to a science.

Clearly, one of the most beautiful buildings we saw today is the one at the right.   It is called the Veste Oberhaus.   It was a fortress built in the 13th century and overlooks the 3 rivers and the city of Passau.   We so hoped to be able to walk up to it, but were informed our ship had to leave port early because of low water levels further along on our cruise.   It was disappointing to us, but we were glad to get a nice picture of it anyway.

Got back to our room to find this fella waiting for us.

Just have to take a minute to brag a little about grandson Evan.   Hard for us to believe he will be a freshman at Preble High School this fall.   He is going to have a rocky start to his year as there was a bad fire at his school 3 weeks ago and the start of classes has been delayed until Sept. 15.   Guess it could have been worse, but it surely has complicated his registration and orientation.   Were very proud that he has hung in there with his drum and will be playing with the band.   They actually had their first football game last week and here he is strutting his stuff.   The team lost the football game, but way to go Evan.   We're very proud of you.

Tomorrow brings us to Regensburg, Germany.   Supposed to be one of the most beautifully preserved Medieval cities in Germany.

Love and hugs to all,

Herr and Frau Noll

Melk Abbey

As we came closer to the small village of Melt, we got this first view of the Melk Abbey.   It was so massive looking from the river.

The boat docked and we had time for lunch before we left for our tour.   Took a short bus ride up the hill to the abbey.   This view was from the road showing the walkway to the entrance.   Great view-except for that darn tree!

There are seven courtyards within the Abbey, but this is the largest.   The Abbot lives in the room directly ahead in the picture.

The Abbey is run by the Benedictine Order.   There are 33 monks living here.   The oldest is 92 and the youngest is 22.  Their order lives by two main principles:  work and prayer.

There is also a private school attached to the Abbey which has 900 students.

Another view from the outside during our tour.   It was raining pretty hard here, so we didn't spend too much time here.  To bad because the views down to the town and the Danube were wonderful.

The main sanctuary of the church was quite amazing.   Again, more gold than you can imagine.

A view from the top of the Abbey.



We are now back on the boat heading for our next stop-Passau, Germany.   We had a short program about Mozart, and some German language lessons.   Resting before we have dinner.   Looks like a really fun one-Austrian and Bavarian favorites.   We will even have a chance to go down in the galley to see our food being prepared.

Hugs to all of you.   Hope everyone is doing well.

Bob and Debbie

Sailing The Wachau Valley

This stretch of the Danube is considered one of the most beautiful.    It is all identified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.   As you can see, we didn't have such good luck with our weather.   Special note to our friends, Roger and Marsha, who were with us on our last Viking cruise down the Rhine: remember our long day of cruising?   Pretty much the same.   Beginning to think we bring the drearies with us!   Anyway, it did get better as we sailed.    

We even saw some blue sky and peeks of sun later in the morning.  There were so many quaint villages and beautiful churches along the way.

The church at the right is one of the oldest in Austria. It was built in the 1500's.

There were also many old castles like the one at the left.   Some were just ruins, but others were still inhabited.

Just below and to the left of the castle you can see another fixture of the Wachau Valley-vineyards.   They were everywhere!   Apparently this valley is the perfect microclimate for growing grapes.

The picture at the right shows a castle that we had been told about as we were sailing.   Only when the commentary was going on that bank of clouds was much higher and we could not see it at all.     Then after we had passed by, we looked behind us and it just popped out of the clouds!  Pretty cool.

This lovely castle is one of the ones that is still privately owned and inhabited.   Not a bad little piece of real estate!




The Happy Travelers

Vienna and the Schonbrunn Palace

Vienna is such a pretty city!   As we took our tour through it to get to the Schonbrunn Palace, we passed amazing architecture, beautiful churches, many parks and beautiful tree-lined streets.   The picture at the right is the Vienna Opera House.   So many famous composers either called Vienna home or spent much of their lives here.   Emily asked for some quizzes about our travel.   So Emily, here goes.   We were told Vienna was home to four of the most famous composers to have ever lived.   Could you name them?

After our lovely ride through the city we came to the famous Schonbrunn Palace.   This was the summer home to the royals of the Hapsburg Family.    It was nothing short of amazing.   We were not allowed to take pictures on the inside, but it was so beautiful.   We only got to tour 20 of the 1,400 rooms, but we saw more gold than you can imagine!

The grounds of the palace were immense.   We just did not have the time to do much exploring, but you can see just some of the grounds and gardens in the picture at the right.

This is the back of the palace.    Just as beautiful as the front.



It was a very wonderful tour.   We returned to our ship and enjoyed a nice dinner.   We are still trying to catch up on our sleep and the night helped.   We turned our lights off at just past 8 and had such good and restful sleep until the alarm reminded us that we were entering the beautiful Wachau Valley of the Danube.

See our next post or two for the fun we had  in this area.

Debbie and Bob

Our Floating Hotel

We are sailing on the Viking Kara.   It is a new ship-just christened in June.  


All you cruisers out there will recognize the infamous lifeboat drill.   Only thing is that on this ship you can see land on both sides of you.   We actually don't even have life boats.   Guess we will just dog paddle to shore!

On the upper deck there is this nice little herb garden.   Looks nice, smells wonderful and ends up in our food most days!

Special notice to Katie.   Look here what we found on our boat!

Here is  Bob getting in a little putting practice.



And a view of our boat.     Next stop Vienna and the beautiful Schonbrunn Palace-the summer residence of the Hapsburgs.


Hugs to Everyone.

Bob and Deb