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

Nice Afternoon

After we returned to our ship we had lunch as we began our first day of sailing the Danube.  The weather was beautiful and we had such a relaxing afternoon.

 The picture at the right is especially for our very special grand daughters, Emily and Katie, who have both spent many hours at my side helping to cook and bake.  Girls, these people are showing us how to make apple strudel.  I have the recipe,  and I can't wait to make it with each of you.

It was such a sunny and warm afternoon.   We spent quite a bit of time enjoying the beautiful views of the Danube.

Still more to come...

City Tour Part 2-Buda

We left the Pest side of the city and drove across one of the pretty bridges that span the Danube.   On the other side, we entered Buda.   We toured this hilly, green area which is so different from Pest.   One of the stops on the tour was the church shown in the next 3 pictures.   It is St. Mathias church.   Yes, named after the very same beloved leader that we learned about when we were in the Heroes Plaza.   It was like no other Catholic church we have been in.



The walls and pillars all over the inside of the church were painted in shades of brown, tan and orange.   It was lovely, but almost had a Middle Eastern feel.   The stained glass windows are the originals that were removed and hidden away.   Amazingly they survived the war and were put back in the church when refurbishing happened.

 Outside the church there the remains of walled fortifications that are called Fishermen's Bastion.   It was named that because the fishermen who lived on the hillside below the church area were responsible for its protection.  It had openings in the wall where you could look out on the Danube below and the Pest side of the city.

This picture is taken looking through one of the arches.   The large building you can see with the dark colored steeple is the Parliament building.  It is quite beautiful, especially with the sun shining on it.

A short distance away we found this monument.   It was dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in the terrible plague that hit so much of Europe.





More to come.....

The City Part 1-Pest

After breakfast we left our boat in the steady rain and began our city tour.   Lucky for us, the first part of the tour was basically driving to different parts of the central city.   As we neared our first stop-Hero Square-the rain stopped and we were able to enjoy the spot in dry conditions.  This large plaza was created in 1896 when the World's Fair was held in Budapest.   It contains many statues recognizing important people in the history of the country.

The picture at the left shows one of the heroes.  The center statue is of Mathias.   Apparently he was one of the most well-loved leaders of Hungary.   He was quite handsome and gregarious.

The first statue in the picture at the right is of Saint   Stephan.   He is always pictured holding that double cross because he was the leader during the Austrio-Hungarian reign and that represented both countries. He is the patron saint of the country who is honored by the festival and fireworks that we enjoyed last night.   Only problem is, he didn't really like Budapest and Hungary in general.   Needless to say, the feeling of many of the present countrymen is mutual!

We got back on our bus and continued viewing the Pest side of the city including the Jewish ghetto area. We learned that in just 4 months time, the Nazis exterminated 60,000 men, women and children.   Many of them were chained together at a time at their ankles, forced to stand on the edge of the river, and then the first couple were shot.   As they fell, there was not need to use any more bullets and one by one they pulled each other into the river and drowned.   They were made to leave their shoes on the bank as the shoes had value to the Germans-unlike the people.   The memorial area is now lined with shoes.  Quite moving.  Then we  headed across the Danube to the Buda side of the city.

A Marathon Travel Day

Our long day began on an ominous note in Milwaukee.   Our weather was fine there, but apparently the weather in Chicago was not.   As a result the airport was in a "shutdown" for a time and it didn't take long for everything to get backed up as far as landings and take-offs.   We ended up sitting on the tarmac there in Milwaukee for nearly two hours.   We truly expected that we would not make that connection since we only had a two hour window.   Unbelievably, we did make that flight as it was also delayed due to the back-ups.   The plane was great and not crowded so we had an extra seat in our row and were able to take turns stretching out for naps.   Not what you would call quality sleep but tolerable.   The only problem was that because that flight was delayed and because it was a long process to get off the big plane, through customs and on to our gate in Vienna-we arrived there exhausted, stressed and then disappointed to find we had missed the flight by 5 minutes.   The next 6 hours were spent in a sleep-deprived stupor waiting for the only other flight out that day to Budapest.   We finally got to our departure time.   They took our boarding passes and we walked down a jet-way expecting to enter the plane sitting at the end of it.   Only we didn't.   they put us on a shuttle bus, trucked us out onto the tarmac and these cute little prop jobs are what met us!     I didn't even know they still flew these things!  You can see Bob just about to board in the picture below-at the back of the plane!  Actually was a nice little flight and so low to the ground that we saw all the cities and villages as we made our way to Budapest.   We were happy to see the Viking representative waiting for us at the baggage claim area.   We made it to the ship around 7 and enjoyed the evening that we described yesterday.

We were so looking forward to a long, peaceful night of sleeping in our comfy bed.   Not so much.   We both feel like our bodies were not quite adjusted to the time change.   Slept well, but only in stretches.  

We looked forward to our Budapest city tour....to be continued