Roaming Reimer's Blog

What can we say? This River Cruise was very spectacular! It was all we had hoped for and more!!!

Since we have never been on a large cruise ship except to see them in our town in Alaska, we weren’t sure what to expect.  We were attracted to this River cruise because it was smaller boats with only about 160 guests and 40 some crew. We had the opportunity to sit where we wanted for dinner and could intermingle with all the guests better that way. A lot of stuff was already included and it was a more intimate and peaceful feel to it. I liked the fact to that it cruised during the day, sometimes so you could enjoy the beauty around you.

So we started off in Budapest. We had been there already for two days but had not gone to the spots that the cruise city guides went to on purpose. So on Sunday afternoon we went to get settled into our rooms and have a quick bite to eat on the ship as we were instructed. People were still arriving all evening.

We had heard of a OLD coffee house and looked it up. It was one of those that were lavish inside. We took some pictures but all the patrons were eating and having coffee outside..as it was such a nice spring day.

The next day we had a English speaking city tour guide and bus to take us around the city. We saw by Heroes Square, where all the Hungarian Heroes were in Statues, and the beautiful Art Museum. We also got to see the beautiful Mattias Church on the hilly Buda side. I was so glad that we also got to see the inside of it. They drove us all around the city and we saw many beautiful buildings. They were quick to tell us the Hungary used to be a large empire before communism that is. That was a bit of history that I learned.

We ended our day back on the ship and some Hungarian entertainers with their typical music. It was a good first day. We sailed away from Budapest at night. What a beautiful night time scene.

The second day found us in Bratislava the capital of Slovakia. I loved this quaint capital. It was smaller and less commercialized and we had a wonderful witty, city guide. we still saw old building We also made some new friends from our cruise.    

Our 3rd day we went to another capital, Vienna, Austria. It was a cloudy day but thankfully did not rain on us. But again beautiful old buildings, coffee houses and in the evening Kent and I went to a concert to hear Mozart and Strauss music at a concert hall in Vienna.

Our fourth day we cruised through the day in the beautiful and scenic Wachau valley. Many old buildings and a few castles and vineyards dotted the landscape. We did have some rain so the pictures are not as bright as they might have been.

We then stopped at the town of Melk and were taken to see the beautiful Franciscan Melk Abbey on the top of the hill. WOW! See for yourself. The second picture is the ceiling of the chapel

Day 6 Docked at Linz, Austria but we had an all day trip by bus to Salzburg. Much of the movie “Sound of Music” was filmed here as well as many old buildings and history.

Although it was a rainy day you could see the tops of the Alps mountains on our way.

Our last stop was in Passau, Germany. This is a small town on the border of Germany with Austria. It was a nice small town to end our journey. We had an entire day here and so were able to see

Sauerkraut at a Farmer’s Market that we got to visit.

We also got to have a free Organ concert at the local cathedral. Beautiful! It was also the actual day of our 40th Anniversary and so we had a special time with our new friends. We also said goodbye to the crew as we all were leaving in the morning.

This was the end of our cruise. It was a great time. We still had three days in Germany to enjoy before heading back to the United States.

For those that want more pictures I have put a video together and here is the link for that. Enjoy!

https://vimeo.com/132347784

Jan for the Roaming Reimers

This entry was posted on July 1, 2015 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Celebrations, Rest and Relaxation, Scenery, Special treats, Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.