Tag: cruise

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Melk & Dürnstein

We made a quick stop in Melk and walked through the abbey, then cruised through the Wachau Valley (a UNESCO world heritage site) to get to Dürnstein where we went to a wine tasting. My young tastebuds do not really enjoy the taste of alcohol so I didn’t really like any of the wines, but it was a fun experience. I do quite enjoy that we are able to make stops in these little towns instead of just being in the big cities with tons of tourists, they are quite quaint and beautiful. Also, apricots are really big around here, so I got an Austrian cake sort of thing filled with an apricot spread and at the wine tasting they had an apricot dessert paired with an apricot rum.

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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 –  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.

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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.

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Amsterdam > Regensburg

It was a long travel day today, we took a car from Amsterdam to Regensburg. We made a stop in Würzburg for lunch and stopped by the Residenz Palace. In Regensburg we met our cruise ship going down the Danube, The A with U by Uniworld, and got situated and then went back out and explored Regensburg a little bit.