Recap

We are back in the States and the software has returned to English.

A long held opinion that I reached years ago is that one needs to spend at least a couple of weeks in a place to start to understand it. This trip bore that out. While the time on the boat was great to get a snapshot of a dozen places, it was only that. And since we were looking to relax and watch the world slide by, A snapshot was perfect.

The end of the trip was a couple of days each in Vienna, Budapest and Prague. Because Vienna is huge we never really got a chance to experience it. We did enjoy what we did but we were left with the feeling that we missed more than we saw.

Budapest wasn't as overwhelming and our experiences seemed to be more representative of the city. That lead us to like it better in comparison.

We got the impression that Prague was the smallest of the three and we grew to figure it out a little bit. At least part of that was because we met more people that spoke some amount of English.

By the way, I ate like a king. I ate everything I wanted and as much as I wanted and I lost 7 pounds. I should write a book and call it "European River Cruise Diet".

Praha

This working in my fourth (?) language is getting old. The software keeps updating to the language of the country were we are located but not to the only language I know.

Prague has been hectic to say the least. Five hour tours of a few of the significant historical spots, getting lost, found and lost again can fill a day. Saturday night did a "Beer & tapas" tour. I used to call it a pub crawl but this was a couples event so the named changed. It was fun. The photo is one of four bars we visited.

Europe has turned the public restroom into a cash cow. There are few of them and they cost between fifty cents and a dollar. It seems there is always a line and little is spent on cleanliness. Interesting too is that the hot water faucet, thankfully still on the left, turns clockwise for on while the cold faucet turns counterclockwise.

Off to the airport in a few minutes.

Off to Prague

Today is a travel day. We are packed and waiting for the bus.

OMG

Talk about a magnificent entry. As we sailed into Budapest the early morning fog lifted and the sight was unbelievable. The most grand Parliament Building on the Pest side and church spire after church spire on the Budapest side. Absolutely gorgeous! So much so that I forgot to take a picture.

Good news. The background language of Blogger isn't German anymore. Bad news is that it is Hungarian.

Near the end

Today is our last day in Vienna and our last day in Austria. We have only a night time cruise to Budapest for the finale of the river cruising portion of the trip. Surprisingly we have only spent a couple of afternoons on the sun deck. The first couple of days were chilly and overcast and a few days in the middle were over a section of the Main River and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal when it was closed because of the low bridges.

Thankfully the portions the Rhine River and then later the Danube River that were most photogenic and dotted with castles and vineyards and quaint villages were passed in good weather and perfect conditions.

Austrian people like to think of themselves as unlike Germans. And that may be true for some things but not for all things. For instance I am used to numbering those infrastructure items like telephone poles and electrical transformers but Austrians also number the trees and the garbage cans.

The Viennese City Council met with a group of taggers and worked out an agreement that the taggers could do what they wanted on the miles of concrete walls beside the Danube Canal if they wouldn't tag elsewhere. It is infinitely humorous to me that they could be so naive as to believe that taggers could actually enter into an agreement and that they would respect it. The taggers have spray painted all the walls along the canal and everywhere else too.

When the ship was heading upstream it was easy to dock as we just pulled up beside the berth and tied off. Now that we are heading with the current, the ship does a little dance to swing around prior to tying off facing into the flow. Then we do the same dance in reverse before sailing away.

I am shocked at the percentage of Europeans that smoke. I don't know if the cigarette packages don't carry a warning or if those warnings aren't believed or what but there are lots of smokers.

Liza heaven, Bob hell

Vienna, Austria is like every other big city except it has some older buildings. Okay maybe it has a lot of older buildings. I enjoyed the walking tour even if the dates and the saints and such have all started to run together. The tour was concluded next to St Stephens Cathedral. For a half mile or more uphill from the cathedral are a seemingly endless collection of high end stores of every ilk. Liza's heaven. Bob's hell.

Underwhelming until

The guided tour of the Abbey at Melk was borderline boring. And then the tour ended in the library. I honestly don't remember the number of volumes or the age of the oldest. I could Google it but that isn't the important part. It was a visually stunning room. From floor to ceiling in that room with unusually high ceilings each of the fours walls was covered in beautifully bound books. It was worth the price of admission.

And it only got better. From there we went into the church. It was as breathtaking as a space could be. Even though the fortress was given to the monks in 1089, I don't think the church was built until the 18th century. I just cannot imagine a peasant of that time entering that space and not falling to his knees. If that didn't convince you that there was a God, nothing could. It is so grand and so ornate and so impressive I was in awe. If the library was worth the price of admission I am at a loss for words to describe the church.

The Abbey also had a wonderful little park. The walk down the hill and through the quaint little town of Melk was worth the time and energy.

Correcting/Clarification

When the Third Officer told us during the wheelhouse tour that there wasn't a rudder and there were "thrusters", I made an assumption that there weren't any props. Last night the Captain gave a very technical briefing and had a PowerPoint accompaniment. It turns out that there four props on completely rotatable gimbals at the stern and two  pumps (thrusters) at the bow.

Nothing but the truth

I must have misunderstood the tour guide yesterday in Regensburg. I thought she told us that the only cathedral in Germany was there. When the guide this morning orientated us to our surroundings in Passau, she pointed out the spire of the cathedral. I told her about Regensburg having the only one and she was confused. Not only does Passau have one but lots of other German towns do too. Too much information in too short a time.

Passau sits on peninsula between the Danube River and the Inn River. The Ills River comes in too. It is a wonderful little place with again about 20% of the population being university students. The tour guide was at a loss to explain the low population growth and the high number of students. A fellow traveler pointed out that education is free so obtaining a degree is no reason to stop attending.

A confluence of events lead to this being a Baroque town. Most significant was a fire in 1662. The west side of the cathedral didn't burn and is still Gothic. The east end was destroyed and subsequently rebuilt but in the Baroque style. I don't know and can't understand why they didn't want to match the existing style.

A number of the German towns we have visited have had some version of a sea wall. Usually a meter or two tall, they would be raised out of the ground or brought in from a staging area to completely separate the town from the river. Passau doesn't have that option. A flood in 2013 had water more than five meters above the dock. If you want to use that to show the effects of global warming or climate change or whatever the term of the day is, the flood of 1501 was even higher. Just saying.

Downside and technology

Yesterday we were one of five identically sized river cruise ships in Regensburg at the same time. I don't know how many cruise lines have how many ships plying these waters but there are a lot. So with five ships of almost two hundred people each, that is a lot of folks in a relatively small part of a relatively small town. Needless to say we had a disruptive effect on the life of the residents. But I was glad to see the town.

Public restrooms are few. So when we passed one many of us took the opportunity to use the facilities. To turn on the water to the faucet in the lav you positioned your foot over a sensor in the floor. It wasn't intuitive for me but once you figured it out, it made sense.

While on technology, the door between our stateroom and our bathroom is a sliding door. I have a particular distaste for them because they usually work so poorly. I have to reappraise my opinion. This door will not slam. Close it as hard as you like and mechanism catches the door, slows it to walk and gently eases it closed. Don't quite close it and that same mechanism grabs it and brings it the rest of the way closed. Very nice.

Regensburg

I still haven't figured out when it is Regensberg, Regensborg, Regensburg or Regenstadt? Perhaps I never will to paraphrase Don McLean.

We just completed another city tour and our guide, Gudrun, was fantastic. No one has been as good as Kai in Wurzburg but she was excellent. She kind of had an inside track as she is an archaeologist. And one interesting fact has come to light. Every tour probably rightly starts with a statement of population and then is followed up with how many of them are college students. So two things are obvious. One is that every town and city has a college and another that someone is doing a lot of breeding. That said I thought someone told us that the average couple only had something like 1.2 or 1.3 children. So where are all the college students coming from?

And it is here that the only cathedral in Germany exists. I guess some of those other folks were stretching the truth a bit. This town started in preRoman times but the earliest structures still standing are the walls and gates from the Roman times. There are still 26 of the hundreds of medevil towers. Most are around seven stories tall but were only habitable for the first three. Above that was just showing off. It is a little bit funny to see how a building that is only 400 years old is dismissed as just another building. By the way, the guy that owned the licence for the postal service and the transportation service was named Palais Thurman und Taxis. He was incredibly successful and hence rich. Is there any chance that his name lead to the term for cabs?

Continental Divide

Everything that goes up must come down. All the locks we have traversed so far have taken us higher from the first two or three foot rise in The Nederland to back to back to back 82 foot locks last night. Now we have passed the Continental Divide and starting the process in reverse. I inquired why the lengths and widths and distances are all in meters but the heights of all the locks are in feet. I got a lot of blank stares. My guess is ego. 82 feet sounds a lot bigger than 25 meters.

We also passed over a water bridge. As luck would have it from the town or roadway below, the view is spectacular. Not so much from the ship.

Money. Because the Rhine River passes through so many countries, it is an international waterway and no fees are charged directly for use of the locks. The Main River is wholly located within Germany so there is about a $1,000 charge at the first lock as you enter and subsequent locks are free.

Here is where I insert a photo of a 55' version we passed through at dusk yesterday.

Ludwig Canal

Yesterday I mentioned we were on the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal. It was completed in 1992. Today the tour is in Nuremburg so I opted to take a hike to see a section of Ludwig Canal that was completed in 1846.

It is located only a kilometer or so from where the Viking Gefjon docked in a very industrial part of Nuremburg. Surprisingly the trek to get there is through an autumn forest. Funny juxtaposition of industrial and rural. There were no markings along the trail and both the directions and the map were flawed.

Luckily I passed a couple of hikers but they were as unfamiliar with canal as I am with German. Imagine my surprise when our paths crossed again beside the canal under the only sign I ever saw.

The canal is beautiful this time of year with ancient deciduous trees lining each side. The old tow paths that the horses would have used to pull the barges have been converted over walking and biking paths. The colours are great and the area popular with folks. I did take a bunch of pictures but I don't know how to get them off the camera and onto here. (Until a month later)

Architectural styles

Bamberg is a real place. We saw industrial area, commercial areas, residential areas, urban areas and historic areas. They are all intertwined into a functional community.

On top of one of the seven hills there is a cathedral that we could visit and photograph. For me the most interesting part however was to stand outside and look at the chronologically arranged buildings from all the major architectural styles of the time. The medevil cathedral was the third constructed on the highest ground after the two wooden predecessors burnt to the ground. Turning right the old Town Hall is in a Gothic style. Across a little break is a Baroque building that had been the Prince-bishop's residence. A little more of a turn and you were looking at a Renaissance building. A history lesson in one spot.

When I think of the Holy Roman Empire, I think of Rome. There was a time from the Early Middle Ages until 1806 when it was German and during a part of that the seat was Bamberg. It turns out there are all kinds of historic things I didn't know and even more that I thought I knew that are wrong. Talk about humbling.

Another river?

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I had missed the moment when we had left the Rhine river and gotten on the Main (now that i have heard it a hundred times I can say that it is pronounced closer to Mine). We did get to see and photograph at Koblenz where the Mosel joined into the Rhine.

So yesterday at Bamberg the navigable portion of the Main river ended and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal began. I had commented the Main was looking a lot like a canal. The reason was that the word "Main" is derived from an ancient word that means snake. Commercial ships don't like to follow circuitous routes so someone (government or canal company?) had come in and created little sections of canals that straightened out the snake.

But now it is all canal. And with the canal comes the locks.

We saw lots of buildings from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Bamberg. But I was intrigued to see an ancient road reconstruction project. It was only 60 or 70 meters in length but, since it was all being done by hand, each little section showed how the subbase of native materials was prepared, how a thick base of compactable imported materials were added and then almost a foot of concrete. All this to get ready for the cobble stones. Certainly intended to last a long time.

Like nothing else

In my seventy plus years I have gotten around a little. Sometimes like this trip, by personal decision while othertimes it was for employment or to fight a war (or "conflict" to use the term of choice back then). But I have never seen anything like this.

Of course the castles and the palaces and the locks are the big ticket items that sell cruises, but the things we see along the way in between the events are as interesting. Here on the Main River we are always close to shore because the river, which gives every impression of being a canal, is so narrow. As such the geese, the swans and ducks are just outside our room.

I may have mentioned that our room is on the middle deck with the lobby and the restaurant. The high dollar rooms are above with the lounge. The nice thing about our level is that the water is just below our feet. It really gives a nice perspective of shoreline as it glides past.

Right now the bank is only about 50 feet away. That hasn't prevented other ships going in the opposite direction from passing between. The bank is relatively steep and about 3 meters (pretend I said 10 feet) above the water. In other places it has only been a foot or two higher. So the view from our floor to ceiling door/window is steely green water, verdant green vegetation and cloudy skies. Wonderful.

Bacon theory

The food has been spectacular. My usually breakfast fare has been an omelette but this morning I went for the Eggs Benedict. It was wonderful. Beside the eggs we had a traditional fried tomato and crispy hash browns. But the best part was the bacon.

I love crispy bacon. By cutting the bacon super thin they are able to get it super crispy too. And each bite is exceptionally tasty. But my bacon theory is that by being so thin it doesn't contribute to making me fatter. Believable?

Crew

The people in Central America think of themselves as Americans. Not surprisingly then they get upset when us from the US call ourselves Americans and exclude them. I was about to compare Viking Cruise Line to the Cadillac of the genre. Then I wondered, since we are in Germany, if I should compare them to the Mercedes-Benz of the genre. Either way you get the idea that they are good.

Viking has all the amenities in the newest ships but the real difference is the crew. I'm not just saying that because the majority of the wait staff and some of the house cleaning staff are Filipino. Viking has a very international crew. The most recognizable shortcoming was when I tried to find a Dutch speaker to translate my still foreign language software.

Walking from our room to any destination on the ship are opportunities for innumerable greetings, mostly from the crew but also from a lot of friendly guests. I haven't had to actually order a champagne with breakfast in days. It just shows up.

Wurzburg

Since I didn't use Wurzburg on the previous blog I can use it now to recount the rest of the day. Viking organises things to the enth degree. It is more than a little unusual that we actually have some time of our own. So the good news is that Liza is off shopping. I'll give you one guess about the bad news. Yep, exactly the same.

We learned the difference between a cathedral and a church and a chapel. That doesn't imply that I remember the difference, only that we learned it. Or is there some inherent relationship between learning and remembering? Oh well, on to other things.

There were lots of churches and chapels and maybe even a cathedral, but the best part of the day was meeting some college kids. Wurzburg has about 125,000 residents and nearly a quarter of them are students. School hasn't started yet but the students are showing up. Not enough to overpower things but certainly enough to influence things.

While we standing in the square and surrounded by religious institutions (noticed how I did that?), a particularly gregarious girl came up to offer us some local wine. It is a little, but very little, like a Beaujolais in that it very, very young. It was actually more like tuba, the Filipino wine made from coconuts. Still slightly sweet and cloudy, it came in the same sort of plastic jug that milk or oil comes in. We bumped into them several more times around the town.

OMG

The name of this blog was going to be Wurzburg until I saw the inside of the residence of the Bishop-Prince of Wurzburg.

We are having issues staying on schedule going upstream so the ship docked at Karlstadt. There we loaded onto buses and cut across the land to the residence of the Bishop-Prince of Wurzburg. Even though infinitely faster than staying on the ship it was still the most circuitous route you can imagine. The evolution of the transportation system would be a great study.

Yesterday in Miltenberg the tour guide was so proud of being Bavarian. So now the tour guide, Kia (pronounced kay), was equally proud of being Franconian. He knew everything! Just being able to pronounce the names of the artists and priests and politicians is something but being able to recount 800 years of history like you had lived it was special.

The Residenz Wurzburg is reflective of the ego of its original owner. You cannot imagine such an ego. No matter who you can think of in modern times, his ego doesn't hold a candle to these brothers. After being dropped at the bottom of a grand staircase that rose four stories in a room with a ceiling that rivals the Sistine Chapel, you enter the "White Room" where the fabric on the ceiling is actually plaster.

From there you enter the audience room where it is designed to make the Bishop-Prince seem godly and to make you feel inconsequential. They did a good job. Through a series of other rooms, each grander than the preceding, leads to the Mirrored Cabinet. Hence the OMG! Words like spectacular or stunning or whatever adjective you can think of, don't do it justice.

Being the idiot technician that I am, I was interested in how it was done. Paintings were done on glass from behind with front items painted first and them sandwiched with a mirror. Of course all the frames are Rococo in style and covered in gold leaf. The effect is amazing. It has to be one of the most impressive indoor spaces ever designed.

March 16, 1945 was the day the city of Wurzburg was destroyed by Allied bombs. Thankfully the grand staircase and that side of the building survived to a large degree. The Mirror Cabinet did not. Still the reconstruction certainly recreates what was there originally.

Another river

I missed the turn onto the Main and I missed the lock that separated the Main from the Rhine.

I started with message a couple of days ago so it is posted out of sequence.

More Locks

If yesterday was castle day, today is lock day. We've already been through two during the  night and just traversed the first of four before we get to Miltenberg. It turns out that as much as I like the locks, Liza hates them. My view is that here is a technology that is hundreds of years old and it still works pretty much like it did when it was invented. Liza's view is that every time we traverse a lock we are not making progress.

(I've encountered a technical glitch. To put it simply I have overwhelmed my poor little tablet with castle photos a couple of days ago. After 22 attempts, which might have actually been closer to 50, it just keeps looking for photos. So I will continue with commentary but sans accompanying photos.)

Interestingly I don't believe that we ever tie off when we are in the locks. My guess is that the ship is so heavy that the incoming water can't push it around and the lock is only a foot or so wider than the ship so there isn't an opportunity to go from side to side. That said the Captain or officer has on occasion turned on the thruster for a second or two. The downside of lock passage is that they aren't very photogenic.

Castles, castles and more castles

On most of the rivers between Amsterdam and Koblenz the shoreline was about the same elevation as the river. That changed at Koblenz where the soil changed  to granite. Rather than be a plain, things changed to a canyon cutting through the mountains.

In medevil times in such a canyon a canon could control passage of a ship. So the guys with money did. They built castles to house the canons and in which to live. For many kilometres along the Rhine it seems that someone built a toll booth, called a castle today, at every bend.

Marksburg Castle

Right on time we headed to the buses for the ride through town and up the hill to the Marksburg Castle. After all this is Germany. These are freeway worthy bus driving were there wasn't enough room for a pair of Volkswagen to pass. The Mercedes buses were so intimidating that everyone got out of our way.

It turns out that we didn't take the cable car up to the castle above Koblenz because it is just a shell and not a real castle. Marksburg is a real castle. So much so that a family still lives there. Importantly it was never captured or destroyed.

The last little climb to Marksburg castle was on foot and steep. It would been preferable to be a knight and have ridden up. They don't know when the castle was built but the first time it was sold was in 1283. If anyone is keeping track, that was even before I was born.

There were a few things of interest that we learned or saw along the way. The people were short but the bed was even shorter as folks slept sitting up. Laying prone was associated with death so they didn't do it. The toilet was a in a cantilevered room off the dining room. They wouldn't even close the door as you were expected to participate in the conversation even as you took care of business. I hope the cantilever part is self explanatory.

Koblenz

We had our first regret. The Viking Gefjon docked relatively early in the Deutsche Eck where the Rhine and Mosel rivers converge. And it was right under the cable car. We so wanted to take it the top. But it was not to be. Our tour of the Marksburg castle kicked off at the  same time as the cable car started to run. Of course to tempt us they started to run their safety checks an hour before starting time.

So while waiting we walked a few minutes back down the Rhine to the monument of Kaiser Wilhelm the Great.

Forgot

I always forget something when I travel. Usually it is a toothbrush or socks or something that you can purchase along the way. On a trip to Vegas one time I forgot my wallet. That one I couldn't recover from. So imagine my surprise on this trip to realise that neither one of us forgot anything. It is only day 4 so there is stll a slight chance that we will discover something  yet, but it is looking good.

As a follow-up to the tiny vacation blog, we have gotten used to the small  shower. First I don't look in the mirror. Second is that we have gotten a little bit organised. Third we have the biggest towels in the world. Net, net is that I am enjoying the experience.

This may come as a surprise to some of you but I am basically lazy. Who would think an old, fat guy would be lazy? So I've started this blog so I only have to write this once. I can't imagine writing innumerable postcards, saying the same, "This postcard is from X. Wish you were here." Actually I can imagine it because I've done it.

Our schedule is still out of sink (I know that isn't the correct spelling) with that of of the ship. We wake in the middle of the night, are waiting for the restaurant to open and generally at the right place at the wrong time.

Not drunken debauchery

Just so you know that Liza and Bob did something other than eat and drink, Viking had a three piece orchestra on board for a classical concert. They were  fantastic! It was great to get to listen to music that was originally composed and performed in this part of the world.  During lunch and dinner they also have a pianist and bass guitarist that are as good. Both groups aren't just good but exceptional. I am so jealous.

Koln

There are supposed to be a pair of dots above the "o" so you know that I am referring to Cologne Germany. What a history! We were told it started as the first retirement community when Roman soldiers were given some land by Caesar after 20 or 25 years of service. That was in the time of Jesus.

Restaurant

Finally our schedules and the restaurant schedule matched. I think this is day 3 and we finally had a chance to eat in the restaurant. It is on the same level as our room with similar views.

We just got passed by a gaggle of geese. They were headed South just above the water and making much better time than we.

When we were in Dutch waters the rules of the river, the Main, matched those of the road. Now that we are on the Rhine, the rules of the road are the same but the rules of the river have switched to match those of England. I haven't a clue as to why.

Still Dusseldorf

It is 7 AM and still dark. And only now are we finally leaving Dusseldorf. As the Rhine winds along we have passed urban areas, then industrial, then rural only to return to more urban again. It turns out Dusseldorf is much more than I expected.

I have Google Maps open to try to get some sense of where we are. In between here and our stop in Cologne is lots of countryside and a couple of smaller towns.

Even though to my untrained eye I thought we were making good time, the Second Officer pointed out yesterday that we are going upstream. Net result is that our passage is slowed by the speed that the river flows. When I was in the wheelhouse our indicated speed was about 15 knots (in relation to the water). The river is flowing about 6 knots in the opposite direction so our progress in relation to the land is only 9 knots.

Monheim am Rheim is the next town we will pass.

My ship

It is 5 o'clock in the morning and the Viking Gefjon feels like my ship. Not only is the ship asleep but the German town of Dusseldorf is sleeping too. The early trains are running across the bridge overhead as my ship glides silently underneath. There are lights on but no signs of habitation. Everything is peacefully quiet.

I've gone out onto a sheltered deck on the third level to watch the town pass. It is still cool to my Phoenix blood but the deck blocks the wind and it feels wonderfully comfortable.

Dusseldorf seems to have a little bit of an ego.  The classical residential buildings are built right up against the road beside the river and each is illuminated so that people on the river can see the houses in all their splendor. There are some high rise buildings in the background but for the most part the town seems at a very human scale.

As we get to the outskirts of town I can see part of the infrastructure of a community. A huge, well lite electrical generating plant has a very prominent place beside the river which has changed to the Rhine. I missed if the transition was by passing through a lock or if it was just turning a corner. Sometimes it is hard to keep track of where we are going as the sun is still not up and the Rhine snakes it's way through the countryside.

By the way, even though we have been in German waters for many hours, the software still reads in Dutch. Not that it really matters.

More Wheelhouse

Did I mention that the wheelhouse is collapsible? Because we pass under innumerable bridges of every imaginable vintage, the wheelhouse has the  option of lowering itself if clearance isn't up to modern standards. First choice is lower it part way and open a hatch in the roof. Then the Captain ducks his head at the  last second. If that isn't enough he can lower it even further and steer the ship from the side, outside the wheelhouse entirely. To help in identifying when lowering is going to be required, the bridge pillars are marked with the inverse of the water depth poles we are familiar with.

And there is no wheel in the wheelhouse. Back in the day there was, hence the name, but now steering is accomplished with a joy stick, not unlike a video game. Just to continue with that theme, the ship is rudderless. That is not to imply that they can't steer it, but that the steering is accomplished by directing the valves, thrusters, coming out of the Caterpillar engines. And yes, that is a one meter level laying on the dash.

Well how about that?  We just passed under the bridge that was the lead in the movie, A Bridge Too Far. If anyone cares, it is still standing.

As such that means we will be passing out of Dutch waters and into German. So I wonder if the blogger software is going to switch from Dutch, of which I understand nothing, to German, of which I understand next to nothing. Or will I even be able to tell?