Saturday, October 27, 2012
First of all, Happy Birthday to my sweet baby sister Bunny! Love you, Sweetie.
We are trying to recover from the trip. We both have "kennel cough" and Oliver has a bad cold. The dogs are still hung-over from their teeth-cleaning yesterday and I have had to make hamburger and rice to get them to eat. Marina won't drink so I am squirting water down her throat with a turkey baster! We have been up at 4AM the past 2 days-which is 11AM in Europe. Hope we get over THAT quickly. Here is a warning-what follows is just a smattering of the pictures we took but it is a LOT. You may have to come back a few times to get through them!
Here are some tired travelers in Frankfort, Germany, waiting for the flight to Prague.
From our hotel window in the beautiful Intercontinental in Prague
Hradcany Castle
Overlooking Prague from the castle
This is where the President of the Czech Republic works. He will be replaced next year in the first open election.
Lunch after our tour in Old Market Square
Church of Tyn
Parking is at a premium in Prague!
Here's Oliver shopping for his Plops! They cost $20 and he wore them the rest of the trip!!
On the Charles Bridge
A beautiful view from the bridge!!
Narrow little stairs to a restaurant. Notice the walk sign. There is a sign and a red/green light at the top and bottom of the stairs.
This really requires no explanation-except to say that these statues MOVED!!
This is our $4000 dinner check (good thing there are 20 US dollars for every Czech koruna!!!)
The street entertainers in Prague were just amazing!
There are somany boats on the river Vldava
Old Tyn Church
Here's some friends of Joe's in front of our hotel!
The Old Stone Bridge in Regensburg. the oldest bridge in Germany, built in the 12th century.
Our ship, the AmaCerto (Chair-Toe, as in concerto)
The wheelhouse
The bow-this ship is 500 feet long!!!
St. Stephan's Cathedral
The biggest pipe organ in Europe. Can you guess where the biggest pipe organ in the world is? No--you can't. It's Atlantic City!!!
Sharon and Oliver played a little (big) chess as we motored along the Danube.
Oliver rested while we were in the first lock. It's not really much different than the many locks we have done.
The trees were beautiful as we approached Linz, Austria
Old Market Square in Linz. It was Saturday, and there was a big flea market going on.
We took an airplane ride and saw this view of the local marina
No, we didn't really. This was painted on the floor!!!
For an optional tour, Joe and Rose and Paul and Sharon went to Salzburg while we went to Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic. We learned that Austrians cross the border for the casino, the dentist and, well,,,,,
Cesky Krumlov is a medieval town in the CR. This beautiful castle was taken away from the owners by the Communists. We came to understand that EVERYONE in the former Communist bloc nations is still extremely bitter about what happened.
This is actually part of the castle-too huge to get into one picture! One of the descendants of the last owner is running for Presdient of the Czech Republic.
We moved on to Melk and the amazing BenedictineMonastery
Part of the beautiful Abbey Church
The view walking back to our ship
We thought it was a bit cold but these guys swam up to the pool bar and seemed to warm right up!
The castle on the hill is where Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned until his ransom of 20 tons of silver was paid!
When we went under the low bridges, the deckhands had to take the wind screens down but there was still a center part of the pool for the group that was swimming (or drinking)
Beuatiful vineyards here in the Wachau Valley
Approaching Durnstein and Richard's prison
We passed our sister ship along the way!
This is our cruise manager Rachel. She is from Brazil and was a little whirlwind. She was with us from the time we arrived in Prague until we got on the bus for the airport in Budapest. She changed clothes about 6 times a day and was always appropriate for our location.
Approaching the dock at Krems, just past Durnstein.
Durnstein was our favorite stop.
King Richard I of England was imprisoned here in 1192 and the story is that his loyal minstrel went from town to town singing a song until finally he heard Richard sing the chorus and knew he had found his master!
Our next stop was Vienna. We all found it to be mostly just a big city, like Chicago---but older! After all the beautiful little towns along the Danube, we were a bit disappointed with Vienna.
This is where the President of Austria works and where we saw the morotcade of the Presdient of Khazikstan.
I did not know that the United Nations has offices in 4 other countries besdies the U.S. Here is the U.N. city in Vienna
In Vienna, Oliver found time for a nap on the sun deck
While Sharon read a book-this was literally our ONLY rest time on the whole trip!
Next stop-Bratislava, Slovakia- another former Communist country and more sad stories about how terrible it was for the people.
But they have cool tourist buses
And of course, a McDonald's!!
Mozart played here when he was 6!!!
Art work. Supposedly if you rub his head, you will come into money. If you rub his nose, you will have a baby! Guess which one I chose?
That night was the Captain's Dinner and Joe and Rose entertained us with some of Harry's wine.
Here we are at dinner
Our wine steward Reka, who kept us well supplied at all times!
Our waiter Bo is from Romania but has worked in the U.S. including at Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina!
Our last stop was Budapest.
This is Heroes Square, in the Pest side
The flag of Hungary has holes in it--where they took the Communist symbols out. We found the Hungarians to be the most bitter about Communist rule, perhaps because they only became free of it in 1989.
This is the Royal Palace, on the Buda side of the river.
Views of the Pest side
Meanwhile, back on the Buda side, we visited the Market, where they had the most amazing fruits and vegetables and paprikas, as well as Hungarian crafts and souvenirs
Our entertainment was wonderful. These ladies were able to dance with wine carafes on their heads
As I wrote in the blog, the most amazing experience of the entire trip was our cruise on the Danube in Budapest after dinner on our last night. It was the perfect end to a perfect trip.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Just a quick note before we fall into bed! We got home at 6PM tonight, some 22 hours after we woke up in Budapest this morning! The trip went well-no tornados this time, although fog in Dusseldorf delyaed our flight from Budapest