Drove up north of Galway. Saw Kylemoor Abbey, Connemara National Park, and Killary Fjord.
North of Galway
Munich, Last Day
We took a couple different routes on the Hop-Off-Hop-Off buses so I feel like we really got to see a lot of the city. That includes Marienplatz, St. Michael’s church, the eternal flame monument for those lost in WWII, Nymphenburg Palace, Olympic Park where we went to the top of the tower, a market where we saw a maypole,  Odeonsplatz, and the English Gardens. The gardens were beautiful, and we stumbled across a place where apparently a lot of people go to surf the little waves coming out from under the bridge.
Margaret Island
The cruise is over but we are still hanging around Europe for a little while, so we checked into our hotel where we got a very fancy room for just one night. We explored the city a little more and visited the oldest church in Budapest, the Roman ruins of which can be seen through glass in the floor of the new church built over it. We took a tour of Margaret Island on some electric scooters – the traffic was crazy but it was quite a fun way to get around. Margaret Island is located in between Buda and Pest (on one side of the Danube is Buda and the other is Pest – the two cities joined a while ago, first being called Pestbuda, but since Buda was the previous capital they decided to put that first). The island is so beautiful, basically just a giant park as there are no residences and no cars are allowed to drive around, and it contains an English rose garden, a Japanese garden, a zoo, and a waterpark, as well as a fountain that does a light show in the evening and lots of green space.
History in Budapest
We visited the Rock Hospital which was not what I had expected but was extremely interesting. They didn’t allow us to take photos inside, but they had wax statues all through the tunnels in the cave to represent how it was used in WWII as a hospital and later as a potential nuclear shelter for the threat during the Cold War. We went to Gellert Hill and visited the church built into the stone, and then I hiked up to the top and the views were spectacular (you can see a more detailed story of that adventure by searching “Hiking Gellert Hill”). We also walked through a local market (located in a very large, grand looking building) and got some fresh fruit. And finally, as it is the last night of the cruise, they led us into town to the street filled with all the nightlife and bars and we hung out with some of the friends we have made.
Bratislava & Budapest
We had a short stop in Bratislava, a cute little town hit hard by multiple wars, and you can see the newly renovated buildings right next to those damaged by war. Some of those that haven’t been renovated yet have numbers next to some of the damaged parts, because they want to preserve some of that history in which the buildings were destroyed, so those parts will not get renovated. They also have multiple statues representing their freedom, like Man At Work, and there is a compass embedded in the ground with many different large cities from around the world and how far away they are. In St. Mark’s Cathedral they have glass in the ground to show the crypts below. We then had a long boat ride to our final cruise stop, Budapest. Everyone gathered on the deck to watch as we sailed into the beautiful city lit up at night.
Vienna
We spent all day in Vienna today. Walked around and took a Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour to be able to see more of the city, had lunch in one of the many cafes, stopped by St. Stephen’s Cathedral and saw the floating rocks, and then visited Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, and Strauss (they have a special section in the cemetery for the composers so they can all hang out together). We also got to take a tour of Schönbrunn Palace after hours; you can see the extravagant palace with beautiful (and huge maze-like) garden, but some of the extravagance is not what it appears (most of the gold inside is only a gold leaf coating so it is cheaper than it appears, and there is a whole porcelain room except that only 2 things are actually made of porcelain while the rest is just wood painted to look similar). Even though they didn’t have a lot extra money, they took a lot of pains to make it look like they did so visitors would be discouraged from attacking this “rich” army. There are also paintings from Empress Maria Theresa’s wedding, and every person has a small number beside them and are labelled as to who they are; Mozart is in one of the paintings, but he was actually never there and was added in later (bit of old school Photoshop) once he got famous because Maria Theresa wanted people to think he was there.
Sailing to Linz
Most of the day was sailing, and we learned about what a lock was and got to experience what it was like to go through one. Since we were onboard for a while, they had a foosball tournament and I competed with newfound friend and fellow youngster (most of the people on the cruise were couples ranging from honeymooners to 60s) Alexis from Montreal, and we made it to the semi-finals but lost by one point after making an amazing comeback. When we stopped in Linz we took a tour around the city – inside the town hall the floor is covered with a map of Linz as seen from above in a helicopter – Â and we went into some air raid shelters built during WWII. Apparently even most of the locals don’t know they are there, and a woman on one of the previous tours told the tour guide that she was actually born in there. We went in the “luxurious” part of the tunnels layered with bricks because that was where the officers went during the air raids, but most of them are just the plain sand carved out of the hill. They have some original stuff in there still too, like old tracks for the wagons, the original electricity lines, and original pipes they used to bring fresh air in.
Passau
We docked in Passau this afternoon. We walked around the city, as we were walking some of the stones were painted and apparently they show where art galleries can be found, and we went to where the three rivers converge as Passau is also called the “City of Three Rivers.” For lunch we went to a little cafe looking out on the Danube where I had some typical Bavarian food: juice with sparkling water and a sort of strudel with spinach, egg, goat cheese, and yogurt. We visited St. Peter’s Cathedral which has the biggest organ in a cathedral, and then I hiked up to the fortress Veste Oberhaus. On our way back to the ship we stopped by a local beer festival.
Venice
Drove like 5 hours to get to Venice, Italy, and we only got to spend a few hours there in the very hot weather, but it was still fun. There are no cars there and has around 340 bridges connecting the 180 islands that it’s made out of, so it has a lot of small alleys to walk through, and they’ve had to put tiny bridges in between some of the buildings so that they wouldn’t squish together. Saw and sung (shoutout to Little Women) in front of the Bridge of Sighs, got some gelato and pizza, and saw the choir perform in the St. Marks cathedral. We also saw a glass making demonstration that was really cool. We had another 5 hour drive back, and got our first bad weather driving through the rain.
Innsbruck
We went to the Wilten Basilica and the choir got to sing in there. Then we went to the Olympic ski jump place (the Olympics have been held here twice) and actually got to see someone jump which was really cool. In town, we saw the golden roof and looked around Swarvsky in which there is a exhibit of everyday items like cereal and laundry detergent covered in jewels. We also got an Austrian apple strudel. We came back to the hotel pretty early, so we played cards before going to our concert.
