The Hochmuth Adventures 2018 - CAFE - California, Australia, Florida and Europe

Danube River Cruise - Day 10 -- Friday, November 2, 2018 - Bratislava, Slovakia

Late morning for us since we set sail at 7:00 am for Bratislava. We had a little later breakfast and then I went to the disembarkation talk so we could find out what the time frame and procedures were for departing from the cruise and continuing our tour in Budapest. Last night we did sign up for another optional tour in Budapest so I think we are all set. Lunch was at noon and at 1:30 we left the ship for our tour of Bratislava, a small town of 550, 000 people. Our guide Katarina lives about 1/2 hour from here so she had lots of insights to share on her country and the splitting of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

At 1:30 we met our guide Marten, an associate professor who was our tour guide for Bratislava. It is a small city with 400,000 people. Like so many of the towns we’ve been to there is a town square and pedestrian streets filled with shops,restaurants and bars. We heard about the split of Czechoslovakia and now what their main industry is. I had no idea that they are the largest car maker They do high end vehicles i.e. Bentleys, Porsche etc. We saw St. Marten Church, the tower, the town hall and the opera house. We went to the beer palace in search of some Slovak beer - we have been pretty successful in our beer quests. We came back to the ship at 6:00 and had our port talk and dinner. Tonight the crew put on the entertainment for us. Our ship left tonight for Budapest and we are expected to arrive between 8 - 9 am tomorrow.

Views as we sailed to Bratislava

Lunch

Views of Bratislava

Bratislava Castle

Trinity Statue

Streets of Bratislava

Mozart was here!

Bratislava Town Square

Opera House

Michael's Gate

Danube River Cruise - Day 9 -- Thursday, November 1, 2018 - Vienna, Austria

Happy All Saints Day!

As I mentioned before this is a bank holiday in Austria. Since a majority of the people are Roman Catholic they go to church and visit the cemeteries to remember their deceased family and friends. We drove about 1/2 hour from the boat to get into the city center. Austria has 8.7 million people with 1.9 million in Vienna. We first drove around the city as the guide pointed out different landmarks and then we took a walking tour which took us to the royal palace, the statue of Maria Theresa, the museums, the stables of the Lippanzers and St. Stephens Cathedral. The architecture in these old cities is so interesting. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed different types of sausage, pretzels, cabbage, spaetzle, and beer. From there we made our way to the subway to head to Schonbrunn Palace. The outside of the palace while impressive in size was quite plain on the outside but it was elaborate on the inside. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed. It has been very interesting learning about the history of the Hapsburgs. The home of Maria Teresa with 1400+ rooms is spectacular. It would be wonderful to see the gardens when they are in full bloom.

Maria Theresa

The Royal Palace

Statue in front of the Royal Palace

Flags of many nations at the Royal Palace

Inside the courtyard

A famous Lippanzer

Streets of Vienna - need a teddy bear?

Notice the year - the US is such a baby

Another Trinity Statue - Trying to keep the plague away

St. Stephen's Cathedral

Enjoying Spaetzle

Bavarian Sausage

CiCi's twin

The gates of Schonbrunn Palace

Schonbrunn Palace

Schonbrunn Palace Garden

Nice wedding venue

Back to the ship

We came back to the boat for happy hour, we have found a German wheat beer that we love and then had our nightly port call and then a typical Austrian dinner. The food has been sensational. We have really been spoiled.

Danube River Cruise - Day 8 -- Wednesday, October 31, 2018 -Melk, Austria

Happy Halloween! FYI Halloween is not really celebrated here although it is getting a little more popular. All Saints Day, November 1, is a bank holiday since Austria is a predominately Catholic country. Ate breakfast at 7:00 so we could go on the morning walk with Amir. We only walked about 30 min. but it was a sunny, crisp, and cool morning. At 8:45 we took the bus to the Melk Abby. It is a beautifully impressive building now lived in by the Benedictine Monks. There are 30 monks now with 15 that stay there and the others are assigned to parishes. The building with 7 courtyards is amazing but the library with its collection of 100,000 books is most impressive. The cathedral was the most beautiful we’ve seen thus far and I wish we had had more time to explore. We made a quick trip to see the town but including our tour we were only there for 2 hours. After we came and were on the deck as we traveled through the scenic Wachau Valley. I even saw the town of Spitz. At noon they had an hour of free drinks. This is the last trip of the season for the Monarch Baroness so they were clearing out the alcohol. At 1:00 we had another delicious lunch - we especially liked the cream of horseradish soup. Then it was nap time since we didn’t arrive in Vienna until 6:30. I did sneak up on top deck as we went through a lock. It was really quite interesting to watch the process. We also got to watch the locks a second time before our arrival to Vienna - fascinating! Another great dinner.

Melk Abbey

View of Melk

Melk Abbey

Old Town Melk

Views from the Wachau Valley

On the left side of the Danube, an old market village

Beautiful sunset from the deck of the ship

Going through the locks

Katarina, our Cruise Manager

Danube River Cruise - Day 7 -- Tuesday, October 30, 2018 -Linz, Austria

Got to sleep in today as we didn’t have to meet our guide until 9:00. We walked into the city of Linz, which has a population of 205,000. Our guide said that there are 200,000 jobs in Linz so people are flooding into the city everyday looking for work. It is located in upper Austria and is the Industrial heart of Austria. At one point in history Linz was divided - one side of the Danube the Russian occupied and the other the Americans. Our tour took us to see the old town and pointed out places we could visit independently. We went to the Schloss Museum and saw some art work and an exhibit about the years between the war. From there it was to the tram to take a 20 minute ride to Postlingberg. It is 539 meters above Linz. In Postlingberg we got an amazing view of Linz and the surrounding mountains. We went to the Church of Mary of Seven Sorrows while there. Each church we visit is so beautiful in its own unique way. We stopped for lunch and had some great beer, sausage and fries. We took the tram back to the town square (Hauptplatz) and walked a mile to the botanical gardens. In late October it wasn’t as brilliant as it would have been earlier in the year but there were some fantastic plants and the roses were still lovely. Heading back down hill we went to the New Cathedral which is the biggest in Austria. It supposedly holds 20,000 people. It had more stained glass than we ever seen in one church. It was back on the boat for some martinis, our port talk and then dinner. Once again Irwan the chef outdid himself with the goat cheese in phyllo dough, broccoli soup, lamb and creme brûlée. Since we were sailing at 9:45 we went out on the deck to watch how they did it. It was complicated by the fact that another even bigger cruise ship tied off next to us for a while. He headed off and our captain made a 3 point turn in the Danube. It was impressive. Early day tomorrow so heading to bed.