Danube Cruise

Hungarian Parliament building at night

Kali and I couldn't agree on a domestic destination for our summer vacation.  So, when Viking River Cruises offered free airfare to Europe as part of a deal, we jumped at the chance.  We decided to cruise the Danube from Budapest, Hungary upstream to Nuremberg, Germany during the last week of May.  Temperatures were around 65 degrees F (18 degrees C) and the first two days were rainy, but the remaining days were generally  just overcast.  East-central Europe had received a lot of rain before we arrived, so the Danube was running high, fast, and muddy.

Hungarian National Library on Castle Hill and famous Chain Bridge (oldest suspension bridge in Europe) linking Buda and Pest

Neither Kali nor I had been to Hungary, and I hadn't been to Austria; Kali's dad was in the Army and had been stationed in France twice, so Kali's family had traveled extensively in Europe when she was younger, so she had been to Austria previously.

Heroes' Square and the Millennium Monument in Pest

The first day, we got a guided tour of Budapest in the rain.

Matthias Church rooftop in Buda

After our city tour, we cast off from the dock and cruised all afternoon and overnight, arriving in Vienna in the morning.  Kali and I took the "Explorers' Tour" of the city, hopping the subway from our ship into the center with our guide.

Cafe in Vienna

After the tour, Kali and I stopped in a pastry cafe and had espressos and Sacher torte, a Viennese specialty.  Then, Kali and I took the subway back to our ship just in time for lunch.  (We ate and drank way too much on this trip.)  After lunch, we got on a bus for a guided tour of Schonbrunn Palace, the obscenely ostentatious Hapsburg palace and gardens built to rival Versailles (though it's considerably smaller).

The Hapsburg's Schonbrunn Palace and gardens, Vienna

After we returned from Schonbrunn, Kali wanted to take a nap, so I tucked her into bed and then took a vigorous 1-1/2 hour walk out along the Danube promenade and back through a huge wooded city park particularly favored by runners.  I needed an antidote to sitting on board the ship, eating and drinking too much, and taking slow guided walking tours.

The next day we spent mostly cruising along the Danube through the Wachau Valley, a region of Austria renown for its dramatic scenery and its white wine vineyards.

Church and vineyards in the scenic Wachau Valley section of the Danube

The Danube valley hosts many historic buildings from the Baroque era, but few medieval (or earlier) structures.  So, while we saw some ruined battlements and fortresses on the tops of strategic hills, such ruins were far more common sights along the Rhine when we cruised that river about a decade ago.

The incredibly ornate Baroque Melk Abbey, Melk, Austria

In the afternoon, we docked at Melk, Austria, a small town with an opulent abbey perched on the hill above.  After we toured the abbey, we walked downhill back to the ship.  While we were waiting to embark at a cafe and ice cream shop, we talked with Tommy, a young fellow from Berlin who was riding his bicycle as far east as he could get accompanied his golden retriever in a towed buggy.  His goal was central Asia.  We wished him well.

During our overnight cruising, we passed from Austria into German.  We docked in the morning at Passau, where the weather improved.  We took a (poor) guided walking tour, sat for a half-hour organ recital in the Passau Cathedral (which boasts the largest pipe organ in the world), and then enjoyed lunch with another couple from our ship who we found wandering the narrow streets like us.

Narrow street in Passau, Germany.  Sunny skies!

Kali and Scott lunching at a Passau cafe

The next day, we cruised to Regensberg with its famous Stone Bridge over the Danube.  Much of the bridge is being rehabilitated and is shrouded with scaffolding and tarps, but I did manage to find a section that was exposed in order to take a photograph (below)

Above Regensberg, the Danube becomes too shallow and unnavigable for ships the size of ours.  In order to proceed further "upstream," our ship left the Danube proper and entered the Danube-Main-Rhine Canal, a modern (1992) engineering marvel that links the Danube and Rhine Rivers.

A portion of the famous Stone Bridge in Regensberg, Germany

Since this blog is "It Just Comes Naturally," I had to add something natural.  This Blackbird (actually, a species of thrush like an American Robin) was singing from its lamppost perch in a Regensberg city park.  Its song was varied, melodious, and strikingly beautiful. 

European  Blackbird

One of the most famous bratwurst cafes in Germany at Regensburg

Our point of disembarkation was Nuremberg, Germany.  We docked about 15 minutes outside town, and then took a bus into town for an excellent guided tour.  Though Nuremberg was heavily damaged by Allied bombing during WWII, there's no evidence of the damage now.  The castle crowning a hill above the city looks like it did during medieval times, and there are beautiful, historic structures scattered through the city.  Much of the central city, however, is modern.

The Nuremberg Fortress crowning a hill in the eponymous city

A Nuremberg wedding (right side).  The half-timbered building in the center of the image was renown engraver Albrecht Durer's house

We had a good vacation and Viking Cruise Lines did everything in its power to make our trip exceptional and memorable.

Back from Vacation/"The Hacienda" (1997)

I've been back from vacation (southern Utah and San Diego) for nearly a week and half now, but am so busy trying to catch up that I haven't had a chance to post. Southern Utah was absolutely sublime; I'll write much more about that as the weeks go on and I get a chance to sort through the 1,200 images I made there.

In the meantime, a book I finished--nay, devoured--while on vacation: The Hacienda, by Lisa St. Aubin de Teran. A friend gave me this book several years ago, but it sat on my "going to get around to reading" shelf, but never made it to the top. Then, in casting around for a book to accompany me on vacation, I decided finally to tackle The Hacienda.

The book is a memoir, but sort of a dreamy, stream-of-consciousness memoir. It doesn't proceed chronologically, which was a bit of an affront to my arrow-straight, anal-retentive personality. And, realistically, it made the account a bit of a challenge to follow since time was mutable. But the book was a haunting and often harrowing recollection of a very young Englishwoman's transplantation to a decaying agricultural estate in the foothills of the Venezuelan Andes. St. Aubin de Teran tells an amazing tale of endurance by detailing her day-to-day combat with nature--human and otherwise.

Lisa St. Aubin was a romantic 17-year-old when she marries an exiled Venezuelan aristocrat, Jamie de Teran, 20 years her senior. Seduced by tales of his ancestral home, she leaves England for the Teran's vast Venezuelan sugar cane plantation. Soon after her arrival there, though, the fantasy disintegrates and Lisa finds herself trapped in an exotic and unfamiliar world, married to a man who grows increasingly unstable, and counting as her closest companions a pet vulture, two pedigreed beagles, and the illiterate peasants who live and work on the estate. Through the seven years that follow, Lisa discovers a reservoir of personal strength and, in the end, uses it to save her life.

In her review of the book, Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times wrote, "It reads like a combination of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Daphne du Maurier..." and I have to agree that she was spot-on in her observation. The story borders on the unbelievable and, for the first forty pages or so, I nearly put the book down because I just couldn't buy the Gothic quality of it all. But, after a while, the allure of the story drew me in completely and I honestly had to decide whether I wanted to keep reading or go hiking in the slickrock canyons just a few miles away. (Incidentally, the hikes always won out; I relaxed and read after dinner).