Sept.3 Melk Abbey

The Melk Abbey is in Austria and has been a working Benedictine monastry since 1089. Originally, it was the residence of the ruling Babenberg family but was given to the monks in 1089.  It currently runs a school of around 900 students. We passed students leaving school for the day as we were climbing the stairs. It is a continual climb from the river through the town up to the abbey. The streets are cobble stone and the steps are craved out of rock.

Austria is slightly smaller than the state of Maine and has a population of about 8 million. There are 9 independent states within the county.  They use the Euro as their currency. Approximately three quarters of the population are Catholic.

Melk Abbey

View of Abbey gardens

Bicycles have the ride away everwhere. This one was decorated with macramé.

Sept 1 ,2013

We overslept, the intercom woke us up announcing last call to board buses for a tour of Budapest.
To give you an idea of the speed of this group, there are probably 10 people my age or younger the rest are Jim's age or older.  The other travelers are from the US, Britain, Australia, and a few Germans. We did not make the tour, but I enjoyed watching the scenery and drinking coffee on the deck. the boat left port at soon as the tour group got on board the buses, and we traveled down to Visegrad to pick them up.

In the afternoon, we all were on board  and the staff had sessions planned based on several topics. I learned all about Viennese coffee and how to make strudel.. I then got a tour of the galley (kitchen).
The chef only cooks fresh vegetables and they flight the beef in from Texas. All the fish is local catch. He  said they promote from within. He had had one young man that started as a dishwasher, and ten years later is chef on another Viking cruise. It was also interesting how they deal with the left over food. They dump all the leftovers into a vat which has very sharp blades, it chops the food very finely. Then the liquid is squished out and there remains a small block which is removed at the dock. They are very Green, and there are stiff fines if they do not follow codes. He said ten years ago they threw everything in to the river.

Breakfast is in two locations, on the front deck and in the restaurant. You can choice from a continental or order  from the chef. Lunch is in the restaurant, and you have three choices for each course and there are three. I have ordered everything I did not recognize and all have ben good. Yesterday I tried carrot and grapefruit soup and a cottage cheese ball with raspberry sauce for dessert.

Unfortunately, my tablet does not have a port for my SD card, but I am going to try loading pictures from my iphone.

Saturday , August 31st, 2013

We  slept 12 hours and awoke at 9:00 am local time which is 2 am EST.  We walked from the hotel across the bridge to Margaret Island. In the 12th and 13th century there was an Dominican Nunnery there, but all that is left is the foot print of the ruins. The island is now a public park. Individuals and families were running, playing soccer and participating in music fests.

We returned to our hotel , cleaned up and packed. This time we used the hotel cab which delivered us within  15 yards of the boat gangway. We walked through the door and in 10 minutes we were in our room. The room is about 15 ft. by 10 ft. including the bathroom. We have 2 extra feet with the veranda which has chairs.  We can sit out  and enjoy the scenery.

We left the boat and spent the afternoon walking the streets on the Pest side. Budapest is divided by the Danube river. The first night we stayed on the Buda side which has the hills, the Pest side is flat.
Hungary is slightly smaller than Indiana and is divided by the Danube River geographically. The Danube River is 1,775 miles long and flows through 10 countries.  Ten new bridges have been built across the Danube in the last 10 years, but many of the much older ones are still in use. Our boat was moored by the Bridge of Chains which was one of the older ones.

The architecture  and age of the buildings are very different than home , but the dress and interests of the shoppers were not different than what you see in any large American city.

We returned to the boat, ate dinner and attended an Hungarian music program on board.

Thursday, Aug. 29 and Friday August 31, 2013

Cailyn delivered us to the Jax Airport with time to spare. We had no problem checking in and the flight to Atlanta  was uneventful. The International course there is very new. We ate lunch and sat in the Delta VIP lounge next to some people who were on the way to a BIG game hunt in Africa. One guy said it was his 10th time going over.  The flight to Amsterdam was smooth and I saw the sun come up in Holland. The runway to the gate was at least 3 miles, the longest I can ever remember. Inside we went through customs again and walked to the assigned gate for our flight. There we discovered the plane we were to fly on had been hit by lightening and they would have to find us another plane. Most of the people at that gate were older than us and somewhat discouraged when the gate for the new flight was changed twice to different concourses before we finally found the one we were to board. Two hours later we were in Budapest. Thank goodness our baggage arrived and we walked out of the airport, there was no security check. One door said "do you have anything to declare" and the other said "declaring nothing", so out we walked. We took a gypsy cab to the hotel, which had Jim a little nervous when we had passed most of the town. We did see where our boat was moored, however, so that made him feel better.

Friday night we were on our own at the hotel Jim had booked on Hotwire.The room was small but clean and once we remembered (from the Ireland trip) that we had to leave our room key in the light receptacle the lights stayed on. We ate dinner in a little palazzo area which consisted of duck pate, fresh bread, cucumber, tomatoes, sausage and duck cracklings. The cracklings were not as good as our pork cracklings. We went to a pub for dessert advertised as pancakes, but they were crepes with stuffed with vanilla cream.

All the service staff we have encountered speak some English and all  of the instructions everywhere are in English, German, and Dutch.