On the fifteenth day of our cruise we traveled to Prague from Budapest by bus.  This was a much longer bus ride than we had anticipated.  The trip was even made longer because the bus driver had to take mandatory stops every 2 hours due to the law. 
On our first night in Prague we did a short walk doing a little shopping but didn’t get a chance to see too much.  On the following morning we had a walking tour with Viking and they took us on a bus to see some of the sights and then dropped us off at the old city where we were told some of the history of the city.  We walked through the Jewish quarter and then went into the city square where there is the beautiful Tyn church with its double spirals and a unique clock at the old city hall.  This is an astronomical clock that is over 600 years old and at every hour you can see the procession of the Apostles on the clock.  We even saw a simulation of the clock made out of chocolate at one of the chocolate shops.  From the old town city square we walked to the Charles Bridge which is one of the largest pedestrian only bridges we have ever seen.  It was built in 1357 and is lined with 28 statues of different saints.  The views from the bridge are really great and it is amazing to see how many sightseeing boats are off taking tourists around the bridge and down the river.  After walking across the bridge and looking at a few more sights we boarded back on the bus which took us to the Prague Castle.  This is a very large castle that overlooks the city and has a beautiful cathedral (St Vitas) in the center of the castle square.  You can see this castle from almost any place in the city.  This concluded our Viking city tour.  It was one of the best tours we had on our trip and the guide was especially good.
 
We elected to go off and visit the old town on our own.  As we walked there we came across a small outside market that primarily sold food and drinks.  Sharon sampled some hot mulled spice wine while Greg tried some Czech beer.  Sharon had seen this hot wine throughout the day and really wanted to try it.  She loved it and had to have a second glass.  We also tried a “toastie” which was a cheese sandwich grilled with onions and oil.  It tasted great and we were sorry we didn’t get two of them.  We walked around the square and visited a few shops.  Sharon picked up a custom embroidered apron for Bella that had her name on it along with “Mama’s Helper”.  We are looking forward to seeing some Grandma and Granddaughter baking times.  We stopped at one candy shop for a half hour and watched a demonstration of them making candy.  We could not figure out what they were making but it looked like the taffy you see being made in Gatlinburg.  It turned out it was hard rock candy that had these intricate designs in the center of this rolled candy.  It was amazing to watch them make it and how they were able to create these designs from just rolls of candy that looked like taffy.  As we headed back to the hotel we had to have one more snack.  We had seen these rolled pastries called Trdelniks that looked really good all day.  You could have them just sugar coated or filled with chocolate or filled with ice cream.  We each had one filled with chocolate and they were really good.  These snacks were all the dinner we needed that night.
 
Our next day in Prague was filled with Viking tours.  We wish we hadn’t scheduled two tours which filled up the entire day and night so that we could have toured the city a little more.  The first tour went to Kutna Hora where the famous “bone church” was located.  This was one of the most fascinating churches we had ever seen.  It is actually the Sedlec Ossuary and is a chapel which was built at a cemetery by monks in the 13th century.  The cemetery was popular with royalty and other people and in the 17th century there were so many bodies buried there that they started to exhume the old bodies and put the bones in the church.  It is estimated today that there are bones from over 40,000 people in this church and some are shown as decorations throughout the church.  It is really an amazing sight.  From there we went to St Barbara’s Cathedral in Kutna Hora which is a very impressive church with some nice views of the country side on the outside of the church.  We had a nice Czech meal in the town before doing a little shopping and heading back to Prague.
 
In the evening we went to a local place that had Czech folklore singing, dancing and music while we ate a very traditional Czech dinner.  The dinner was served with local beers and wines.  This was a very participative event where the dancers got most of the people out on the dance floor to participate in the Czech style dancing.  It was a very enjoyable evening and a great way to end our stay in Prague.
 
The next morning we boarded our flight to Paris which connected on to Atlanta.  After almost 3 weeks of different cities and having a great time with some our Georgia friends it was time to close this chapter of our journey and look forward to the next one.
 
Sharon and Greg

 Vienna, Austria

 On the eleventh day we stopped at Vienna which is a beautiful city of two million people.  Fortunately we spent two days there and were given some opportunities to do different things while we were here.  We were initially given a bus tour of the city which allowed us to get our bearings in this large city.  We were shown the opera house, museums, parliament, city hall and the Votiv church.  Unfortunately while you are in a bus you really can’t take good pictures so we went off on our own on foot to relook at some of these sights and take some good pictures. 

After catching a couple of sights we stopped at Café Landtmann.  This is a century old coffee shop frequented by many famous people over the years.  This was Sigmund Freud’s favorite café and Tom Cruise stops in when he is shooting Mission Impossible movies.  Coffee in Vienna is a big deal.  It was originally introduced to the city when the Turks invaded and ended up having to leave thousands of pounds of coffee behind when they were kicked back out of the city.  There are about nine different types of coffee you can order with regards to how it is served.  Most of the variations are based on the amount of expresso shots or hot milk added although other more fancy types have whipped cream and brandy.  You can’t just drink coffee at a real Vienna cafe.  You really need to order something with it such as Sachertorte which is a rich chocolate cake that Vienna is famous for.  Our waiter told us though that Landtmann’s was most famous for their apple strudel so we decided to try this.  Once again there were options on how they served you the strudel.  We took it with both whip cream and ice cream!  We ended up staying at the café for over an hour while we let the weather improve a little and used the great wifi they had there.  We were told on the ship that sometimes people come in and order one small cup of coffee and stay for hours reading newspapers and no one in the café will ever get upset. 

After we got back on the road we visited a few gardens and saw the statue of Mozart and Haydn.  Austria has so many famous composers and musicians but Mozart’s life story is the most interesting.  He was a child prodigy and was able to play the piano like a true artist when he was only 3 years old.  His father, who was also a composer, was so impressed with his son’s unusual talent that he took him to Vienna to play.  His abilities were so well appreciated in Vienna he ended up touring all major European cities over the next 3 years.  From there he started writing his own music compositions where he ended up writing over 600 compositions until he was 35 and died expectantly of an illness he had picked up while traveling.  Such a remarkable talent to die so young!

We walked over to the palace to take some pictures and marvel at the many buildings that composed of this magnificent complex.  While walking through one of the buildings we were treated with a view of the famous Lipizzan stallions.  These amazing horses were imported from Spain but they have a very special training school called  the Spanish Riding School for these horses to learn to perform in the palace.  We were able to take several pictures of these stallions poking their heads outside their stalls and watched a group of our Viking passengers walk in to the stalls on a tour they had arranged of this Spanish Riding School.  It was interesting to find out they were told they could not take any pictures of the horses during the tour and yet we were able to snap away at the horses while they were having a great time in the stalls. 

After leaving the palace we went to St Stephens Cathedral which is a really amazing church.  We went inside and were amazed to see so many statues that were plated in silver.   Up until now, it seemed like all statues in other European cities had all there church statues plated in gold.  The cathedral is located in the very center of town and shops line all the roads around it.  The streets were packed with people and this certainly was the busiest city we had seen.  Many of these shops are very high end (Tiffany’s, Armani, Dior, etc.) and the buildings that these shops were in were as old as the 12th century cathedral we had just visited.   We assume the affluent people of the city lived above these shops in very nice apartments.

On our way back to the ship we stopped off at a very old carnival that has a giant Ferris wheel built over 120 years ago.  It was amazing how large this Ferris wheel was and it contained about 18 “cabins” that are carried around by the wheel.  Up to 15 people can get into these large cabins and you can rent one out for 1.5 hours for $350 if you want to have some private time with a few friends.  We were told that this is a popular way for someone to propose while up in this Ferris wheel.  They also said that they had actual wedding ceremonies in these “cabins” as they went around.

Vienna is truly a remarkable city and everyone should get an opportunity to visit it.

Wachua Valley Bike Trip

On the twelfth day (second day in Vienna) we took a bike ride in Wachua Valley.  Sharon had found this excursion through Viator and it was well priced for a full day tour.  We had scouted out our meeting place the day before and got up early to meet the other riders.  Three other couples from our cruise group went with us and there were another 9 people we met at the bike rental shop that also were signed up for the tour.  We all headed off on a tram, metro and train ride to eventually get to Krems, a city on the outskirts of the Wachua Valley where we had actually made a brief stop on the cruise 2 days before.  It seems amazing that you can take a one hour train ride to go the distance it took us cruise in one day.  That just goes to show you how winding the river is and how the locks slow you down in a river cruise ship.

From Krems we all got assigned a bike and took off through the town and on into the country side which was very pretty and you could see vineyards almost anywhere that you look.  We had several rest breaks to keep the group together since many people would stop and take pictures.  These stops gave the guide an opportunity to explain the wine industry to us while we waited for people to catch up.  Our first stop was a winery co-op to do some wine tasting.  A wine co-op is a winery that makes wine from several different vineyards owned by different people.  By having a co-op winery it is more cost effective to produce the wine so that not every small grower has to have these more elaborate facilities.

From the winery co-op we went off to Dunstein which is a small quaint town.  This was a stop for lunch but we decided to do some hiking instead.  We climbed the nearby hill which had the ruins of the Austrian King’s castle where Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned while waiting for his ransom to be paid (see last blog).  The views from on top of this hill were really great and we spend quite a bit of time taking some pictures up in that area.  We came down the mountain on a different side (not intentionally) and had to hustle to meet our group to continue the tour.  The town itself was quite quaint with many little shops that had hand crafted items.  Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to really look at any although we did grab a quick snack at a local bakery to make up for missing lunch.

Our bike group was split in two because we had to be back to the ship by 6:00 and we were already running late.  This meant ourselves plus the other 3 ship couples missed the tour’s steamboat ride and some extra biking time but we still had a good time together in our small group.  We did one other wine tasting in the town at a family owned winery.  It was in their little home that was several hundred years old and is now used as a bed and breakfast.  They were having a special family event, so we did not stay long and headed back to Krems to catch the train.  We were able to get off the train, hustle back to the ship and board right before they took off for Budapest.

Budapest, Hungary

On the thirteenth day of our cruise we arrived in Budapest around 8:30 in the morning.  You definitely want to be awake when the ship comes into (or out of) this city because you get some great views.  After our arrival we took a city tour that took us to the Hero’s Square City Park, Opera House, Zoo, St Stephens Basilica and then on to the Royal Palace.  We broke away from the main group in the bus when we got to the Royal Palace area to cover some more ground on our own.  We were able to view the Matthias Church from several angles and its shingled roof was very unique.  We spent some time at the Fisherman’s Bastion that has a great overlook of the city on the other side of the river. 
 
As we were walking back towards the Royal Palace we just happened to get there when the Royal Guard was changing at noon.  The changing of the guard here was as or more impressive than the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace in London with a lot fewer people in the way.  If you ever get a chance to see it, don’t leave just after the two guards are exchanged.  Wait until the eight soldier formation comes all the way back around.  When they get back in front of the two new guards they put on quite an impressive show of rifle drills.  If you get an opportunity to see this, it is worth waiting to watch the procedure.
 
We were able to view the funicular from up on the hill top and was surprised to see a long line of people waiting to come up.  Although the funicular is an easy way to get up to the top and see the palace grounds, the walk is certainly not that bad and has some great views along the way.  The Palace  grounds were nice but the views on the back side were really great.  We took a picture of the Hungary’s Statue of Liberty at the far end of the palace and then walked back down to the river from there.
 
The views from the bridge we crossed were also very nice.  The weather was perfect with no rain and plenty of sun.  Our ship was in easy view from across the other side of the river and we were able to see a couple from our group having a little lunch as we looked down upon them from the bridge to our ship.
 
That night after dinner we went out to take a few sunset pictures.  The sun set behind the bridge and palace making some nice views to remember Budapest before we headed out the next morning for our last stop at Prague.  This was also our goodbye to the Viking Skirnir where we had made home for over two weeks.
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Sharon and Greg

Passau , Germany

On our ninth day we visited Passau which is a medium size city of 50,000 people in Germany on the border of Austria.  This is a very heavily populated university town with 12,000 students in the city. It is known as the “City of Three Rivers” and originally started as a Roman fort in 739.  The town is very picturesque like so many other small German towns. On the side of some of the buildings close to the river are markers.  These markers identify the height of the water during some of the major floods that have occurred over the last 500 years.  Many times the buildings were totally flooded even past the second floors.  Overlooking the town is the upper fortress which is now a restaurant with a great view of the city below.

The most interesting building in the city is St Stephen’s Cathedral.  After the church was originally built a fire destroyed most of it in 1662 and when it was rebuilt it was larger and made as a baroque masterpiece.  The organ in the church has the most powerful bell chimes in Germany and has 17,734 pipes.  It is located in the center of town.

In the afternoon we took an optional excursion to take a Bavarian Cruise and visit the baroque town of Scharding.  The drive to the cruise boat took us back and forth between Germany and Austria.  Even the river we cruised on had Germany on one bank and Austria on the other bank.  The cruise was interesting and we were given an Austrian pretzel and beer to enjoy during the cruise.  After the cruise we went to the small Austrian town of Scharding.  It had an interesting town square with many shops surrounding a unique fountain. 

Passau was another nice German town that we visited along the river.

Melk, Austria

On the morning of our tenth day we visited Melk which is known for the large Abbey built between 1702 and 1736.  Originally the Abbey was a palace built back in the 11 century but was eventually given to the Benedictine monks.  Today the Abbey stands as a magnificent building overlooking the town of Melk.  It contains many priceless pieces of artwork and books.  There are 365 windows in the Abbey, one for each day of the year. It even houses a private high school that is priced reasonably for most students to be able to attend and has 700 students.  We were unable to take pictures inside the Abbey but there were many photo opportunities outside the Abbey. 

It was a nice quiet walk through the city on our way back to the ship.

Danube Scenic Cruising

On the afternoon of our tenth day we cruised the Danube through the Wachau Valley.  This was another beautiful scenic cruise like we had done on the Rhine earlier in our river cruise.  Unfortunately the weather was not as sunny this time but we still were able to take some great pictures of the towns, churches and castles we saw as we went do the river.  We also saw all the vineyards in the area which was especially interesting since we had planned a bike tour of these vineyards when we got to Vienna.

The one castle that really stuck out was where Richard the Lionhart was kept in a dungeon by Leopold, the king of Austria.  The two kings were not on good terms, and when Richard was found trying to get back to England through Austria, Leopold captured him and held him for ransom.  Richard’s mother paid the ransom of 32 wagons of silver and Richard was released.  There were other more beautiful castles viewed during this cruise but this ruin had the best story associated to it.

We have really enjoyed our days of scenic river cruising.

Krems, Austria

On the evening of our tenth day we stopped at Krems for a quick visit in the evening.  This was a nice town to take a quick walk through the shops and see some of the churches but there really wasn’t much to see in this town.  We enjoyed a nice walk through town.

Greg & Sharon
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