Let me sum up…

by | Dec 28, 2023 | Photography

I am so sorry this has taken me so long. I am back with my final summation of our entire European trip this month. As usual, I will break it down into some categories so it doesn’t look like you have a massive block of text to read all at one time. I welcome any comments about my views, but please realize that they are based on my experience.

We loved Lisbon!

If you read my Lisbon reports, you know that we loved it. It was like the early days of travel for us—just the two of us having a great time in a great city. If there was one thing we didn’t like, it was living out of a suitcase. We loved our tours, the food, the hotel (especially the hotel) and pretty much everything else. It is also a very inexpensive place to visit. Oh, we didn’t have a very good time at our Fado dinner. There must be better places. But that was just a minor annoyance.

Our flights and airport experiences

Again, I have detailed these pretty well in this post in my huge rant about Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris. All the rest of our flight experiences were excellent. We really liked our flights with Delta much more than we did a year ago when we flew with them home from Barcelona.

Prague—ice and cold

Bathed in snowy white.

After we flew to Prague from Lisbon, we became Viking’s problems as this was part of our pre-cruise extension. Read and see all about it by clicking here. It was an OK extension but we could have done without the ice and snow. I know that Viking can’t do anything about ice and snow, but they can figure out a way for people who are not great walkers when it is dry and warm to see some of the city’s sights. Viking offers an “included excursion” for every day of an extension and for every port on a cruise. But to only have an excursion that on a dry and warm day would be “challenging” leaves out a huge part of their clientele and those that shouldn’t attempt it but do hold back those that can handle it.

But other than my complaint about shore excursions, we loved Prague. It was a great hotel with a great breakfast; we found a super place for dinner, thanks to a friend here in Redmond, and the tours we were able to take were pretty darn good.

Nuremberg—worst hotel, best tour of the entire trip

Nuremberg’s lousy hotel

Viking should immediately stop using Le Méridien Grand Hotel. Yes, it is very well situated, but it is so old and out of date, they need to find something better. Our room was tiny and felt like a cell, not a room. There was one elevator to serve more than 200 rooms. The restaurant was never open to guests for lunch or dinner, so we ended up eating in the bar (where the menu was as small as our room). Their breakfast was good, but that can’t make up for the rooms and the fact that there was no place to eat. If you do any pre-extension with Viking, make sure to pre-book your restaurant reservations for dinner yourself. If you get there and find you can’t get into any place, check with your tour manager (who works for Viking) and see if they can find you somewhere. That worked for us in Budapest.

But in Nuremberg, I went on the best tour of the entire trip. If you go, do the WWII Nuremberg tour. If you can get Werner as your guide, you will have hit the jackpot. His knowledge and understanding of the topic are encyclopedic, and he was great with the delivery—a born storyteller.

The Cruise—from Regensburg to Budapest on Viking Gulveig

Now that’s a long ship. Maybe that’s why Viking calls it a longship.

This was our first river cruise, and I have to say we truly enjoyed it. It is quite different from an ocean cruise, and we are looking forward to our next one on the Douro River in Portugal next October. It will be a really different experience than the ice and frigid cold we experienced on this one.

The cruise (as you may recall) was billed as Christmas on the Danube—Europe’s Christmas Markets. I don’t know what I thought the Christmas Market thing would be, but it wasn’t that. My expectations were that once we were in Europe, we would be Christmased to death. We weren’t. If anything, it was almost the opposite. As much as I loved the ship, it just wasn’t very festive. We saw a lot of other riverboats/ships, and 90% were better decorated for Christmas than ours was. And there was little to no Christmas music on board. The piano player would drop one or two holiday tunes into his nightly repertoire, but that was it.

And the Christmas Markets were pretty much all alike. The ones we saw in Lisbon were our favorites, followed by the ones in Budapest, but otherwise, they were all about the same. The same merchandise, the same foods, the same crowds, the same drinks. It truly was a case of if you have seen one, you have seen them all. And Viking felt we wanted to see them all for three or four hours. I don’t know what I was supposed to do at a Christmas Market for that amount of time.

Getting back to the ship, our stateroom was excellent. We had a typical verandah, which is tiny by ocean ship standards (205 square feet with the verandah), but it was so well-designed that we barely noticed. The bed was much more comfortable than the bed we had on our Viking Ocean cruise in October 2022. We had plenty of storage, and by the time we got to our stateroom (after being in three hotels in the last ten days.

Things we loved about the cruise and the ship

  • Embarkation was amazing and easy. We arrived from Nuremberg, got off our “luxury motor coach,” and went right onto the ship. We (about 40 of us coming from the extension) gave them our credit card info and got our room keys in less than 10 minutes. Then, every person was escorted directly to their stateroom by a crew member. We got Natalia from Poland. She later turned out to be one of our servers in the dining room. She was so great, showing us how everything in our stateroom worked and telling us how to get help if we needed it. She stayed and talked for about 15 minutes, asking about us and seeing if there was anything else she could do for us. What a treat! Best embarkation ever.
  • The main dining room was surprisingly spacious. But unlike ocean cruises, you better like to meet people because there are NO tables for two. There aren’t even tables for four. There are tables for six, eight or ten people. That’s it. But that worked for us. We were thrilled to have meals with new friends, especially our new friend from New Hampshire, Carol.
  • We never had to wait for an elevator. Because we really didn’t have to. There are only three levels on a Viking longship. And the only reason to go below level two is if you have a stateroom on deck one. We were on deck two (stateroom 213), so we never went down to one. The main dining room is on deck two as well, so we could have eaten all our meals and never even gone upstairs if we didn’t want to. But the top deck had the only lounge and a small buffet. We went up for drinks most nights and to hear what Debra, our Program Director, told us what was on tap for the next day.
  • Dinner times were interesting. By that, I mean that they were later…or earlier. They changed every day. They were usually close to 7:00 pm but, one night (because of an after-dinner concert in Vienna that many attended), dinner was at 5:30. Other nights, if there was a late shore excursion coming back to the ship, it might be as late as 7:30 (which is really late for us).

Things we would love to see changed

These things are going to be really picky. Why? Because Kathleen and I could only think of some minor annoyances that we didn’t like.

  • The pianist in the lounge was too loud! Why do cruise lines, restaurants, and pretty much every public lounge or bar think we want to hear loud music every single second of the day? We met some great people on this cruise—people we would have loved to have traded travel stories with. But most of the time, when we were in the only lounge on the ship, we couldn’t hear people sitting directly across from us talk. The pianist thought that louder was better, and he played one of those electronic pianos that made him the entire band, and he liked to show it off. Not to mention the fact that he barely played any Christmas music. TURN HIM DOWN PLEASE!  During the rest of the day there is excellent recorded music playing in the lounge. At a low volume. Low enough that you can have a conversation. We would have loved to have that in the evenings. If you read my review of our ocean cruise on Oceania’s Vista in October, you know I complained about that on that ship as well. On Viking Ocean ships, there are many places to go and. have a nice, quiet drink with conversation. But river ships only have one lounge, and if Mr. Loud is playing the piano, you are screwed.
  • Laundry service was highway robbery. By the time we boarded the ship, we had been on the road for ten days. We needed to send some things out to get clean. We knew there was a chargeable laundry service on the ship, but not one that charged $4 to wash a pair of socks, $7 to wash a pair of jeans or $6 to wash a tee-shirt. We ended up sending out six items, and the bill was $42. That’s HORRIBLE!
  • Rafting was fine, except once when it was UNSAFE! If you aren’t familiar with rafting (as it pertains to river ships), it is when two, three, or four of these very long ships tie up to each other. Then, if your ship is the second, third or fourth ship out from the dock, you cross through the lobby area of each of the inside ships to get to yours. It’s not a big deal, and you can look at the other ships a little. But this kind of rafting only happened with other Viking ships. The one time we were rafted with a non-Viking ship, we had returned from Munich, it was very dark and we were not allowed to cross through the other ship’s lobby. We had to climb to the top (observation/sun) deck, cross over and climb down into our ship. This meant climbing some slippery stairs, crossing over an icy deck, then onto a very narrow gangplank between the ships (three stories off the water) across our ship’s icy deck and then back down some more slippery steps. This should not happen.
  •  The lunch on embarkation day was just wrong. We left Nuremberg at 11:00 am (too early for lunch). We arrived at the ship at 2:00 pm and were told that there was a buffet lunch in the lounge on deck three. That lunch was really sparse. And really poor. They need to improve this situation. Better scheduling (leaving Nuremberg earlier or later) would help.

As you can see, we are nitpicking here. It was a great cruise with four tiny blips. All of them are easily fixable.

Viking Shore Excursions

I have already mentioned that our pre-cruise tours were outstanding. And our post cruise tours were even better when we got to Budapest. But I want to run through the ports really quickly. You can always go back for a more in-depth look in previous posts.

  • All the tours on this cruise were better than any of the tours we took on our Viking Ocean cruise in the Mediterranean back in 2022.
  • The worst guide was the guy we had in Regensburg. His job was to show us around the city in about 45 minutes. What he did was get us off the ship on back streets, told misogynistic jokes as we walked, took us to see nothing really interesting and then left us in the middle of town saying, “The river is over that way. Just get there and turn right.” WTF? He should never be used again.
  • The second worst was the guide who took us to Munich. He was just okay as a guide, but what he or Viking did to us was not. This was the day that we enjoyed going to the BMW headquarters and then downtown Munich and then a very nice lunch. But after that, we were just told we had three hours of free time and no place to go to get out of the cold. That was WRONG! No one needs to shop for three hours, especially on a Sunday when all the shops in the old town core were closed. The only real option for shopping was the Christmas Market but how many ornaments can you buy or how much mulled wine could you drink (and still find your way back to the bus). This needs to change.
  • Some of the excursions were just “fine.” They were nothing to write home about. The tours on the extensions were much better than those on the cruise, except for maybe the “Panoramic Budapest” tour that we took with the hilarious Barbie. The rest were either bad (like the first two above) or just “fine.”
  • It would be VERY hard to do private tours. On an ocean ship, we would just have done private tours, but I am just not sure if you could do that on a river cruise. The reason you would have a hard time doing that is that you never know where the ship is going to be. For instance, we went to bed in Regensburg with the knowledge that the next morning, we would still be in the same place. If we had been doing a private tour, we would have told our guide to meet us there and then found out where we could rejoin the ship. But when we got up, we were miles down the river because the ship had to move quickly to get under some low bridges just outside Regensburg. This was NOT Viking’s fault. The river levels cannot be controlled. When we got up that morning, we were going to Munich. The ship just pulled over, tied up in the middle of nowhere, and we got off and met our “luxury motor coach” on a very rural road.
  • I make jokes about “luxury motor coaches,” but that really didn’t apply to the buses we rode on during this cruise. They truly were luxury motor coaches: great seats, lots of legroom, places to put anything you carried. We had been dreading the long bus rides from Prague to Nuremberg and from there to Regensburg, but they were very nice. And they planned restroom breaks when needed. I would have no problem taking them again. Much better than on our Viking Ocean cruise in October 22.

The Food

Our last ocean cruise on Oceania’s Vista in October 2023 was all about the food. The rest of the cruise was nice, but I wrote a lot about the food, as I do on many of our cruises. On this cruise, we had very little to complain about food-wise. Our servers were outstanding. Breakfast in the dining room was a buffet, but you can also order from a really nice menu.

We had only one complaint about the food in the entire cruise. Jamie and I ordered fish and chips one day, and we sent it back. The fish had sat too long and had turned to rubber instead of being crisp. That may have been more of a service thing than a cooking thing. We do wish that the chef had some heartier soups. When you come in from a cold excursion and go to have lunch and all the soups are just broth, you kind of wish for a nice clam, corn or potato chowder.

Other than that, the food was great. Lots of variety, lots of interesting dishes. My brother said it passed the “Steve Test.”

Beautiful Budapest

If you have been following along for the last three weeks, then you know we LOVED Budapest: great tours, a very nice hotel with an amazing view, and a super tour coordinator. Only one guide was truly horrid, and we have already forgotten the horrible Lazlo. If you missed my detailed reports on Budapest, they start here.

The Final Word

And that does it. I hope you have enjoyed coming along on this trip. We had a great time; it only felt like we had hit a wall a few times and would do it again (but NOT a Christmas Market cruise). We are going back to do another river cruise in October. But for my faithful readers, stick with us. We are off to England, Scotland and Norway in June for almost a full month. And, of course, a few posts before that.

Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.  —Louis E. Boone.

Saved the Best for Last–Budapest

by | Dec 16, 2023 | Photography

My good friends Mike and Cathy took this exact cruise with Viking last year at about the same time. Well, it was not exactly the same cruise; they went the other way. Instead of sailing from Regensburg to Budapest (BTW: we have learned that the name of this city is pronounced Budapesht; they don’t want to be a pest ?). We did the opposite. And now that we have arrived here, I am so glad we did it that way. Our cruise started with the worst port, and every one after it got a little better until Thursday morning when we arrived in this incredible city.

When we visited Sydney, Australia, a bunch of years ago, I thought it had to be the most photogenic city in the world. From just about anywhere, you could see either the bridge or the Opera House, and if you could get either of them into your photo, it was gold. I now believe Sydney is number two. This city is number one.

We were warned the night before by our wonderful Program Director Debra that we would sail into Budapest around 8:30 am and that if we wanted to see one of the best sail-ins ever, we should be up and watching. So we were! I was on the top deck. (where again it was freezing in the wind) as we sailed in. And as you will see in my photos, it was worth it to be out there in that cold. I am going to say one more thing before the usual warning—if you think Budapest looks good in the daylight, wait until you see her in the dark ?. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Until I started doing research for our trip, I had no idea that Budapest was really two cities—Buda and Pest. Buda is on the right side of the river as you are going downriver. Buda is built on a hill. Pest is on the left side of the city (where the Parliament Building is) and is pretty much flat. Both sides are equally beautiful and photogenic.

Soon after, we were tied up in just about the best moorage in all of the city—we were at the base of the Chain Bridge. This Bridge, which is closed to all but transit and pedestrians, is right in the literal heart of the cities. And it is a beautiful bridge.

After our sail-in, we left almost immediately for our first tour of this incredible city. Viking calls this tour “Panoramic Budapest.” And to make things even better, we had maybe the best tour guide we have had so far on the cruise (remember, Werner in Nuremberg was not part of the cruise—just our pre-cruise extension—he was the best of the trip)—Barbie. And even though she wasn’t wearing pink, our Barbie was young and cool and even had a ponytail. It really is the year of Barbie. She was both a great guide and hilarious to listen to.

When you go on a “Panoramic Tour,” that usually means you get driven all around the cities and get out a few times to look at stuff. When we did this in Munich, most of it was a big snore. Here, there is way too much to see, so as our “luxury motor coach” drove down the road in Pest, my head is like a swivel chair going from side to side. For me, it was making a list of the things that I wanted to come back and take photos of without a bus window between me and the scene.

Then we drove to the top of the hill in Buda and went for a walk with Barbie. We saw the main cathedral you saw in the photos above and then went to the amazing Fishermen’s Bastion. According to the interwebs, it is called The Fishermen’s Bastion because “it was the section of the Buda City Wall entrusted to the guild of fishermen, but more likely to the Danube side settlement, Fishtown (Halászváros) also called Watertown,” where there were so many incredible views, I just couldn’t stop shooting them. In the four hours of this tour, I truly believe I shot more than 500 photos. You don’t have to see them all but here are the best of that tour. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

After we had gotten our fill of photos from up on the top, we were back on the “luxury motor coach” and headed back to the ship. That was followed by lunch and a chance for Kathleen to take a nap and for me to sit in the Lounge on the ship, look out at this incredible city and review my photos. We had three full days in Budapest, so I knew I could wait for Kathleen to rest up and get to see the photos before I headed back out.

That pretty much covers our first day in Budapest but not the night. The night is when the real beauty shows up. Yes, this city gets even more incredible when the lights come on. But you will have to wait until later or tomorrow to see it as I need to go upstairs and get ready for our last full day here. We have a private tour, a traditional Hungarian dinner and an early night so we can be up and at the airport for our 6:20 am flight from Budapest to Paris and then on to Seattle.

But if you go from Moscow to Budapest, you think you are in Paris.  —Gyorgy Ligeti

 

Vienna Clears Up–It’s All About Horses!

by | Dec 15, 2023 | Photography

As I write this, I am sitting in a darkened lounge looking out across the Danube at the Buda side of Budapest. So much has happened in the day since I last wrote (our first day in Vienna) and today that it is hard to take it all in and put it in order. But I shall do my best. I only hope I get this online before 6:00 am as we have to be off the ship today by 9:45 for the last time—our cruise ends today. We are transferring to the Intercontinental Hotel for two nights, and then on Monday, we fly home.

But back to day two in Vienna. When we got up, the skies had cleared, and there was no fog. After posting and breakfast, we really had nothing we had to do before lunch and our afternoon excursion, so I decided to take another walk. This time, instead of staying on the side of the river our ship was moored on, I walked to the big bridge ahead of the ship and crossed over to an island that turned out to be pretty cool. I took the panoramic shot at the top of this post from the middle of that bridge.

On the way, I found some colorful workers, a lighthouse, and some modern landscapes (Vienna does have skyscrapers, but they are limited to being far from the old city. It’s like the modern city on one side of the river and the old one on the other), a beautiful park, strange statues, a sandy beach and Kathleen. See the pics below to find out how I saw all that on an early morning walk. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

After my walk, it was lunchtime, and after lunch, we were back in the Old City for the only paid excursion we had signed up for on our original trip (we didn’t take) back in 2020—visiting the Spanish Riding School and seeing the Lipizzan Stallions. If you have no clue what I am talking about, then allow me to tell you. Found in 1572 by the Hapsburg Dynasty and brought to Vienna from Spain, the Spanish Riding School trains Lipizzan stallions to perform. Suffice it to say that if you really are intrigued after seeing my photos, make sure and check out the linked website. The horses and the organization are truly amazing.

How did we find out about them? A long time ago…(1963), there was a Disney movie called “The Miracle of the White Stallions.” It was all about how the Spanish Riding School had saved their beautiful and incredible white stallions from the Nazis. When we were kids, Kathleen and I had both seen it, and these incredible horses were something we have always wanted to see ever since. And on Wednesday, we got our chance. And not to see them perform but to go backstage to meet them and get to see (and smell?) them close up. Check out the photos below and the captions for the story…or go watch the movie (because of the limitations of the WiFi on board, I can’t check to see if it is on Disney Plus, but you can buy the DVD at the link). Or just look at my pics. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

After our backstage tour of the stallions, we had a little bit of time in the area of the Imperial Palace, and we went to have coffee and cake at a small Viennese Cafe in one of the museums (OK, it was a cafeteria, and the coffee was cold and cake stale) but that meant I had time to take a few photos of buildings that had been fogged in the day before and I really liked some of the shots I got of this opulent city. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

And then we were back on the “luxury motor coach” and headed into Viennese traffic for our ride to the ship. As soon as we were on board, the captain untied and set sail for our final cruise destination—Budapest! More about that tomorrow. I have to go take a shower, put my bags out (unlike ocean cruise ships, on a river ship, you don’t put out your bags until 8:00 am on the day you get off), have breakfast and be out of our room by 8:00. Our time to leave the ship is 9:45 for our transfer to the Intercontinental Hotel which will be our home for the next two nights. I will try to post again tomorrow, but if the weather is good, I am going to bundle up and go for a pre-dawn photo walk so it might be two days. You never know.

A barn with cattle and horses is the place to begin Christmas; after all, that’s where the original event happened, and that same smell was the first air that the Christ Child breathed.   —Paul Engle

 

Sailing the Wachau Valley and seeing an Abbey

by | Dec 13, 2023 | Photography

Yesterday was a big day. We did a bunch of stuff that basically wore us out. And we had even more scheduled that we ended up canceling due to my getting a horrible headache and not being able to get warm.

First, the Valley

Our schedule on Tuesday morning was to sail down the beautiful Wachau Valley. This is a stretch of the Danube with some pretty amazing villages, castles, monasteries and low bridges. The best way for me to take you there is to show you my photos and have you read the captions, so here they are. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

The village of Krems

We reached the end of the valley early. It was like we had gone through at jet speed, and as the Captain explained, we kind of had. Because of the rapid snow melt and the rain, the river was running very fast, so we were being pushed much faster than normal. He even told us that, at one point, he was running the engines in reverse to slow us down. We were supposed to arrive in the village of Krems just in time to board the buses that would take us to Gottweig Abbey, high above the valley. But because of the river’s speed, we were docked in Krems almost an hour early. So they let us get off and wander the town.

I decided to take a walk because the sky was finally clearing up. Besides, I wanted to see if those were two churches or one. It turned out to be two, as you can see in my photographic journey in Krems. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

High on a hill was the Gottweig Abbey…”Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo” (think The Sound of Music—I couldn’t resist)

Our afternoon tour (for pretty much the entire ship) was a visit to Gottweig Abbey, which sits on a very high hill above Krems. It is really a pretty impressive place. While we toured Gottweig, the ship moved downstream to Tulln, where we would meet up with them later. More about that after I tell you about Gottweig in photos. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

After Gottweig, we had a bus ride to meet the ship in Tulln, where they would pick us up for about a two-hour sail into Vienna. We were scheduled to go to the Opera House to see a performance of Mozart and Strauss. But by the time we left Gottweig, I was starting to feel incredibly tired and strangely cold. I also had a really bad headache. This morning (while writing this), I had to ask Kathleen about that 45-minute bus ride because, to be honest, I slept through the entire ride. We got on board, and I went to bed, hoping that a nap in a warm bed would help. I got up for dinner an hour later, feeling slightly better, but by the time dinner was over, I was done. We had to skip the concert, and I went to bed at 8:00. Slept for almost a solid 12 hours (which is really out of character for me), and that’s why I wasn’t up and writing yesterday to get a post online. Sorry.

Later, I figured that I must have been zapped by all the time I had spent standing on the upper deck taking photos as we sailed down the Wachau Valley. I got so cold I just never warmed up. It was the temperature as much as the wind chill. What a guy will do for his art ?.

One final thing…

Something has been bugging me on this trip. The trip to the Abbey really helped me to figure it out. I want to say up front that I know that the beautiful cathedrals, incredible abbeys, and marvelous churches represent the art of the times they were built, but frankly, they bother me. The amount of money, time and effort that went into building them at the expense of the poor who had nothing while the rich (and sadly the churches) drained the economy to build these edifices just ticks me off. And the amount of money that is currently keeping them going while the poor and homeless are starving in the cold…I have no words. When I heard the guide tell us that this HUGE abbey with hundreds of rooms was “overbooked—we have too many monks here now for what our facilities can handle,” my first thought was, “there must be hundreds of monks living here—good for them for taking in so many. Then she said there were 34. THIRTY-FOUR???!!! That was it for me. This abbey, with more than 30 buildings and hundreds of thousands of square feet, can’t hold 34 monks. Are you kidding me? Someone asked her why that was overcrowding, and she said it was because in the sacristy nave where the monks sit during church services, there are only 30 chairs, and having an extra four monks means that some have to sit on regular chairs—the height of arrogance. These people are supposed to be serving their god. They took an oath of poverty. Sure, they don’t drive fancy cars, but their lifestyle is pretty good. All day, they can contemplate heaven, pray for hours, and drink the wine that others make in their abbey…sounds like a pretty good life to me.

And it’s not just that. When we went into Vienna yesterday and heard about the things that have been built just since WWII, and I think about the homeless or just the number of people who are killing themselves working 12 hours a day in a coffee shop, it truly bothers me.

It all reminded me of when we visited the Russian Summer Palaces while in St. Petersburg. When you see those, you understand why the Russian Revolution happened.

Ok, I will get off my soapbox now. I just wanted to explain why I am not as impressed as I probably should be by the churches, cathedrals and abbeys. The ones I like best are in small towns and are kept up by local parishioners. Like the ones I saw when I was in Krems.

I grew up in Austria, and for me, real comfort food is Wiener Schnitzel. Wiener Schnitzel and mashed potatoes because it reminds me of my youth… It reminds me of when I grew up, and it feels very comforting.  —Wolfgang Puck

 

We go to Munich! And wait…

by | Dec 11, 2023 | Photography

First, I need to say that we have lost all track of time. Not really time as much as dates. So often, I find myself asking Kathleen what day it is. Right now, I had to look up into the corner of my Mac’s screen to find out that it was Monday here (and still Sunday at home). This brings me to the fact that on Sunday (during the day—when the Seahawks were losing), we were on a “luxury motor coach” to Munich (which takes about 90 minutes).

Wait! I forgot to tell you about the night before. And maybe the biggest difference between river cruising and ocean cruising. Before dinner, every night, there is supposed to be (I say that because last night there was not) a talk by our Program Director (think Cruise Director) about the next day’s activities. So ours had said that our ship would stay docked in Regensburg overnight, and the next morning, we would get off and go to Munich (others who had not done the pre-cruise extension we did went back to Nuremberg), and most of those on board would spend the day in Regensburg doing a walking tour and then with time on their own. In the meantime, after everyone was off touring, the ship would move to Deggendorf, where we would all meet back up with her.

But that didn’t happen. What did happen was that when we got up to use the facilities in the middle of the night, we looked out, and the ship was moving. I am really moving. What had happened is that the weather had warmed up between the time we went to bed around 10:00 and 1:00 am when we started moving. The Captain was worried that if the snow melted and raised the river (even by a few inches), we would not be able to get under some of the lower bridges. So he basically turned on the jets and got us past those low bridges.

So when we woke up in the morning and went to breakfast, we could see we were moored on a river bank in the literal middle of nowhere. Seriously. No towns, houses or farms to be seen. All we could see was a line of trees with a road behind it. And on that road were two buses—one for Nuremberg and ours for Munich. After breakfast, they called us down at 8:30 (unlike ocean cruises, they make announcements that go right into your rooms), and we stepped off the gangway into muddy snow and made our way through some bushes to the waiting bus. I bet you never did that on an ocean cruise.

We (those of us going to Munich) thought that buses would be brought to that spot for those going to Regensburg, and they would tour from there. But later, we learned that everyone else on the ship stayed on until after lunch. The ship took the morning to get to Deggendorf, and then the folks who were supposed to go to Regensburg got on buses (that the Program Director had to find in a big hurry) and went even further back the way we had come to tour that city. What is interesting to note is that they (who went a much shorter distance) got back more than an hour after we got back from Munich. Also of note is that when we were headed home on our “luxury motor coach,” I asked our guide where the ship that we were headed left Munich, and I asked Reinhol to was docked; he had no idea. He said they were just getting out of Munich and on the road, and they would call him and tell him where they were.WHAT??? Sure enough, about an hour into a 90-minute bus ride, he gets a call and tells the driver where to take us.

Hopefully, you see what I mean about this cruise. It’s different than an ocean cruise; it’s very different. Another thing I told Kathleen was that I realized that doing private shore excursions instead of Viking excursions would be next to impossible. Where would you tell your guide to meet you? You could say come to one place and then wind up in another. A good example is this morning. We were scheduled to dock in Passau, Germany. Instead, we are docked in a small town in Austria. Those wanting to go to Passau’s Christmas Market (NOT ME) will be bussed back to Passau. It’s just crazy what they put up with to navigate the ins and outs of the Danube.

So, back to Munich. Because we got on the bus in the middle of nowhere, we had to navigate some pretty out-in-the-boondocks back roads to get to the Autobahn for the actual ride to Munich. This turned out to be the most beautiful part of the trip as we passed through so many small farming communities and beautiful fields and meadows. The sun was rising, and we saw deer, hares, villages in the distance, and so much more. The landscape was covered in snow (roads were clear), and we could see for miles in every direction from our “luxury motor coach.” Speaking of “luxury motor coaches,” we had a 48-passenger bus almost all to ourselves. There were only 12 of us on board.

This scenic part of the trip just killed me. Every time I turned around, I saw a perfect photograph. I mean perfect. I could have done an entire photographic coffee-table book just in the hour it took us to get to the Autobahn. But I didn’t get a single, usable photo. All I got was reflections of myself in the bus windows. Too much sun, in the wrong place and somewhat dirty windows. Just killed me.

When we finally got on the Autobahn, our aforementioned guide, Reinhold, told us, “We will drive for another 45 minutes and then make a rest stop at the BMW dealership. You can have a few minutes to look around and use the facilities and then we will be on our way.” We were kind or perplexed. Why would we stop at a BMW dealership to use restrooms? And why would we want to “look around?” Does Viking have a deal with BMW to help them sell us cars?

Well, it turned out that the “dealership” was the world headquarters of BMW and they had an entire BMW World for us to tour. For Kathleen and I who have two adult kids who LOVE BMWs, this was a big deal. (Brian and Michelle have four BMWs between the two of them, and my son Josh drives one too. Not to mention that Brian runs an independent repair shop that caters to European cars.) We loved touring BMW World, and I took plenty of pics to show them later. Finally, I can show them some travel photos so that they won’t fall asleep while we look at them ?. Here’s the stuff I shot at BMW World. Just snaps of cool cars so feel free to look at them on your phone if you want.

We stayed at BMW World for about 40 minutes, and then we were off to the old town of Munich to see their Christmas Market. Reinhold walked us through some historic buildings and areas around the Old Town. We got to see more Hitler sites (makes me sick to think about what went on there) and walked through a small Christmas Market (more about Christmas Markets in general later on) and then on to the Old Town (every city seems to have a downtown and an Old Town) Square where the BIG Christmas Market is. The square also had an amazing glockenspiel high on the front of the City Hall. There are pictures below, but our guide said that the sound of Europe was the church bells. So, I tried taking a short video so you could hear the bells striking noon but the wind was so bad all you could hear is the wind buffeting us.

We got a Viking-provided lunch at a GIGANTIC restaurant named Ratskeller in the basement of the city hall. When I say GIGANTIC, I am not kidding. The restaurant had so many nooks and crannies to stick diners into you would have thought it was a Thomas’ English muffin. The place holds 1100 people, all eating at the same time. And from the noise level, it was full when we got there.

Lunch (salad, a giant pretzel, stuffed cabbage and apple strudel) was delicious. Or maybe the giant glass of beer we drank with it made it delicious. It was after lunch that things went south.

Those of you who have read my posts about shore excursions know that I HATE when you are a long way from your ship and they take you on a tour, and then they say, “Now you have free time to SHOP.” We don’t shop. We really don’t. Well, we do but I grocery shop at home and we pretty much get everything else from Amazon.

This brings me to a rant about Christmas Markets. No, it is really a rant to myself for not realizing that every single Christmas Market would be exactly the same. And that on a “Christmas Market Cruise” you would see them every single day. From Lisboa to Prague to Nuremberg to Regensburg and now to Munich, they are all the same. They sell the same stuff (in many cases, it comes from Asia, so we know it is the SAME stuff), just at different prices. I have absolutely no clue why I expected anything else. What I thought about was the chance to walk around and take photos of the markets. The reality is that there are a bunch of well-dressed (if they are locals; those of us from ships look like we are wearing old, dirty clothes—because we are) people drinking hot wine, looking at Christmas trinkets, taking selfies, and just generally being festive. You can only go to so many Christmas Markets before you are so over them. I have now reached that point. I am done with Christmas Markets. Unless there is NOTHING else to do, I have been to my last one. You will have to really convince me that there is something there worth taking a photo of that I don’t already have a photo of.

Now, back to shopping. When we finished lunch at approximately 1:00 pm, Reinhold said, “You now have until 4:00 to shop. See you back here.” WTH??? I honestly can’t think of anything I want to shop for for three entire hours. Even if you plunked me B&H Photo in NYC, I couldn’t stand looking at stuff for that long. So Kathleen and I walked through the market (which means we squeezed through the market), and that took about 20 minutes. We have all the Christmas decorations we could ever want; we were stuffed from lunch, so we didn’t want to eat or drink. So what would we do for three hours in a sunny square where the crowds were growing by the minute, and the wind chill hovered around freezing? Did I mention that it was Sunday, which meant that there were no businesses, shops or any place you could go to escape the cold wind other than restaurants, and we had just eaten?

So we ended up walking around trying to find someplace to sit outdoors, in the sun but out of the bone-chilling wind. Not much luck. What were we going to do if we found it? Sit there for three hours? We tried getting into a Starbucks, but there was no dice. Everyone in there was ensconced in doing what we were trying to do. We finally returned to the place where we ate lunch and sat in their waiting area for about two hours until it was time to meet our guide and bus to return to the ship. TWO HOURS! While Kathleen, Jamie and Steve waited there, I walked around the area to see what other photos I could take that I hadn’t already taken. The answer was NOT A SINGLE ONE. I had taken everything of interest. It was just so frustrating. If we had known where the bus was parked, we could have gone there and sat on the warm bus. But they don’t tell you that. It got so bad that if we had known where the ship was, we might have hired a car to take us there. Stuck doing NOTHING for three hours is horrible. And since it was Sunday, even museums were closed, and the cathedrals had church services going on, so you couldn’t get in to take photos. Besides, my buddy Mike has the market cornered on church and cathedral photos, so I don’t even bother.

After our three-hour sentence was over (I forgot to mention that I couldn’t even play games on my phone because the power was down to 6%, and I had stupidly forgotten to bring my portable charger. You would think a “luxury motor coach” would have outlets or at least a USB port.) we boarded the bus for the ride back to the ship…wherever it was. As I mentioned earlier, after about an hour, Reindhold got a phone call to say it was in Deggendorf. To continue this comedy of errors, when we got to the village, we saw a Viking ship moored just below the bridge. So our bus went down a hill to get to it but as we got closer we told the driver and Reinhold that this was NOT our ship. It was A Viking ship, but not our Viking ship. So they had to call again and find out exactly where our Viking ship was. We took off to find it, which entailed recrossing the Danube again and then a bunch of U-turns. We finally got there and came on board, only to find that all the tours to Regensburg had not returned yet, and only those who had stayed on board or come from Munich were here. It was really quiet compared to the night before.

Right now, I am sitting in the lounge, and we have decided not to go out. It is raining pretty hard, but if it stops, I might walk up to the little Austrian village and see what I can find. In the meantime, I get to write this post and add these photos of Munich. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

There won’t be much to write about tomorrow since we are basically doing nothing today, so even you, my wonderful readers, will get a day off. Back again in a couple of days after we get to Vienna. Tomorrow is supposed to be Krems, Austria, but let’s be honest, it could be anyplace on the entire Danube River.

I liked Germany; I’m not into Berlin, it’s too huge and empty and imposing, but Munich was good.   —Graham Coxon