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