Bratislava

Here are some pictures from our day in Bratislava.

Starting our walking tour of Bratislava. Bratislava has a fairly compact old town that is quite walker-friendly.


Most cities here have a monument to the plague or Black Death, thanking God for the end of the plague. Most of the monuments share some of the same visual elements based on the monument in Vienna.



The building with the white walls and red roof is the Bratislava castle.



This is St Micheal's Gate, one of the original entrances to the old city.





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Slovakia and Hungary

Today is Friday and we are docked in Mohacs in Hungary near the border with Croatia. We are enjoying the river cruising experience. We have had a day in Bratislava, two days in Budapest and today we visited the Hungarian city of Pecs. So far we have done most of our cruising at night. Basically, we wake up docked in the city. In both Bratislava and Budapest we were docked close to the main pedestrian streets which are lined with cafes. There is a nice balance between guided tours and time on your own to explore.

The ship's crew is very hard working and the ship seems to run smoothly.
The food is good and the service is excellent. Our room is fairly large, but it looks a little tired. It kind of reminds me of staying at our cottage in PEI.

The tour leaders are very good, everything is well organized and the local tour guides have been excellent.

We've been too busy the past couple of days to go looking for WiFi sites. I am not including any photos with this post.

The weather has been good. Temperatures in the high 20's and low 30's. We find it a bit too warm, but we are thankful that we are not experiencing the weather they had last year at this time, temperatures up to 40.

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Monday - First Full Day on Board Ship

Yesterday was our first day with the WAI tour. We've gone from independence and self-reliance to being members of an organized tour. It has taken us a little while to make the adjustment. There are advantages and disadvantages of both ways of travelling.

We started our day by joining a small group for a mini-bus ride to the village of Morbisch to meet up with the main WAI group who had been on a pre-tour optional trip in Italy. It seemed odd to be walking around a small town in such a large group (about 40 people). Our walk was lead by some members of a local walking club. Morbisch is on the Hungarian border. We saw where the old border line once formed part of the iron curtain between the West and the Soviet block. There once was barbed wire and mines where families were picnicing. Many people risked their lives here trying to escape to freedom in the west. The local people still have vivid memories of the Soviet era.

After Morbisch, we boarded a tour bus for the drive back to Vienna and to our ship, Der Kleine Prinz. We had been thinking about river cruising in Europe for a couple of years and had attended a couple of presentations by some of the big river cruising companies, AMA and Viking. We knew that we would be on a smaller ship without the same level of luxury as we had seen on the presentations. However, despite that, we were still a little disappointed with our ship. It is fairly small and old. The cabins are a reasonable size and functional, but they are very basic. We were docked a long distance for the interesting sections of Vienna.

On Monday, we had a busy schedule. A bus tour of old Vienna and a guided walking tour of the old town. The tour guide was excellent. There are so many remarkable buildings in Vienna. The walking tour took us into the Hapsborg's winter palace








We were brought back to the ship for lunch, the off again for a tour of the Schonbrunn Palace for another tour lead by the same guide.




The palace was built as a summer residence for the Hapsborgs and has more that 1400 rooms including just one bathroom. Once again, our guide was excellent. No pictures were permitted of the interior.

Here is a picture of the back yard.







We had a late dinner on the ship and then watched the ship depart from our dock in Vienna and sail for Bratislava in Slovakia.

After a full day with the ship as our base, we are starting get into the swing of things. Monday was fun. Tuesday we tour Bratislava.

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A Day in Vienna

Our cycling tour included a pass on the giant Ferris wheel at the Prater which was near our hotel. The Prater is an amusement park that was opened by Emperor Joseph II in 1766. The Ferris wheel was opened to the public in 1897.









After our ride, we used U-Bahn and a bus to transfer to our new hotel. The public transit system here is just excellent. We bought a 24 hour ticket last night that is good for the subway, trams and buses. There is no ticket checking. You just get on the subway. Someone may or most likely may not ask for your ticket. However, if they ask you for a ticket, and you don't have one, you get a 100 Euro fine and a free trip to the police station.

After we checked in, we headed back down to the old city, this time by tram. I wanted the authentic Viennese coffee house experience, so we went to Cafe Central.






This ain't no Tim Hortons. The waiters are formally dressed and a bit pretentious. I decided not to ask for a Double Double.

Cathy had seen a dessert earlier that she just needed to try.



This was a day on our own in Vienna. Tomorrow morning we meet up with our Walking Adventures tour group. It will be a different sort of holiday from here on.

There will be no Internet access on the ship, so I'm not sure when I'll post again.

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Final Day on the Bike - Tulln to Vienna

We spent a good deal of time last night reviewing the trail to Vienna. The guide book provides directions to the Old City section of Vienna and to the train station. Our tour notes provides directions that veer off the main trail and directs us to our hotel. The main trail follows the Danube canal in to the old city. We had to find the correct point to veer off and then follow the bank of the river until we are all the way downtown.



The first part of the ride out of Tulln was quite nice. We had a sunny day with comfortable temperatures in the high teens. As we approached Vienna, we were all about navigating. The last thing we wanted, was to find ourselves lost in the middle of this big city in heavy traffic.

The directions in our tour notes were minimal but accurate. The most challenging part was the last section, when we had to leave the river edge and travel into the city. The street names didn't seem to always match our map, or maybe the street changes names randomly. Anyway we had to back track a couple of times before we finally found our hotel.

It was about 1:30 we arrived at the hotel. We turned in our bikes and officially ended that part of our holiday.

We really enjoyed the cycling holiday. We met people from all over Europe and we saw Austria and European society in a way you just don't when you are part of a 'tour' group. People were very friendly and helpful. Just stop and open up your map book and someone will stop and offer assistance.

Austria has amazing infrastructure to support bicycle tourism and cycling in general. For all we've talked about getting lost, the signage on the Danube Trail is very, very good especially considering it was mostly under water a few weeks ago.

In the cities and towns, on a typical road, there is the road for cars, there is a bike lane raised a couple of inches above the road level, and next to it, raised a couple more inches is the sidewalk. There are even separate traffic lights for bikes.

Along the Danube Trail there are also many signed bike trails that head off into the countryside. The whole trail is paved. Bikes seem to have priority. And everybody cycles. All shapes, sizes and ages on all styles and vintages of bicycles. We in Canada could learn a lot from these Europeans.

With most of the afternoon available, we decided to explore the old city. We caught the U-bahn (subway) from the hotel to Karlsplatz and started walking.

Here is St Stephan's cathedral.



The buildings in Vienna are grand.


I think this is one of the Hapsburg Palaces. We will get a city tour in a couple of days.



There are hundreds of out door cafes and restaurants we found one to have supper.



Tomorrow we will start our second stage of our trip by moving to a hotel booked by our other tour operator.
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Fourth Day of Cycling - Mitterarndorf to Tulln

The tour package included tickets for a boat ride from Spitz to Krems. We decided to skip the boat ride and cycle this section instead. We were really glad that we did. This section was by far the highlight of the trip. The Wachau valley is vineyards, wineries and one incredibly quaint village after another.

We started our day by taking a ferry across the Danube to Spitz.



Spitz has its own castle ruin up the hill.



The trail took us through twisty narrow cobble streets and across vineyards.














The castle ruin at Durnstein is famous as the place where King Richard the Lionhearted was captured and held for ransom while he was returning from the crusades in 1192.




Durnstein is considered to be one of the most quaint villages of the Wachau.





There are countless stores selling local wine from various local vintners. Here at one store Cathy found a cat on top of a barrel who apparently had too many wine samples and was sleeping it off.






People keep their properties so nice. There are window boxes filled with flowers everywhere.



We stopped for lunch at pub right on the trail in a village just beyond Durnstein. There was almost a continuous stream of cyclists passing by as we ate. This time for a change I had a schnitzel.



After lunch, we had a look at the map and we realized that the day was half over and we had a lot of riding left. We continued on to Krems, the city we had visited yesterday. We got lost trying to find our way out of Krems and had to retrace our path. Finally we got through Krems and got to a nice open section where we could make up some time. The traffic, noise and industrial parks we experienced going through Krems was such a contrast to the idyllic villages of our morning.

We crossed the river at a power dam to get to the south side where Tulln is located.




Here Cathy had our only real mishap of the trip. She caught her handle bar on the gate exiting the dam and crashed her bike. Fortunately, she escaped with a skinned knee.

We still had another 20 kms to get to our hotel. Off we went again.

The ride on the south shore to Tulln was a little tricky and we had to be careful not to get lost.

We rode through Tulln's waterfront on our way to our hotel. It seems nice and a bit newer than the other places we've visited.

It was a 65km day with some real highlights and some real challenges. We were glad to see our hotel.



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A Rest Day

We spend two nights in Mitterarndorf, so this was a day without cycling. The Gastof zur Wachau is another nice family owned inn.



We took the bus into the small city of Krems. What fantastic public transportation system. There is an efficient and convenient bus system that services the villages along the river from Melk to Krems. The old town in Krems is a maze of narrow streets lined by these beautiful old buildings. This street was one of many that juts of the main pedestrian street.




We are in the heart of the Wachau valley, famous for the vineyards on the hill slopes by the river.


It is very picturesque and the wine that is produced is excellent. The distinctive veltliner white has become our favourite. A glass costs less than a coke! (I think I could give up my diet coke habit if I lived here! But one only replaces one habit with another. Not sure which is better for me! Cathy)

When we got back from Krems, we took a walk around our village. The homes are so well maintained. It appears so affluent that it looks like a well-to-do bedroom community, but I think it is a working village with farming and wine growing the major industry.




Besides wine, apricots are a major crop.



Another comment on food. No schnitzel or strudel on tonight's menu. A nice change. Soup was different as well. All was delicious. Got a chance to try some of the famous Viennese speciality, sacher torte. This is a dense chocolate cake with a layer of something (maybe apricot jam) in the middle. It was quite good.


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