Hello everyone, We have been a bit slack with our blog the last few days, by the time we have our huge breakfasts, lunches and dinners and do all our sightseeing we are exhausted! As we travel along the Danube (it's not blue, looks about the same colour as the Yarra) we have seen some amazing places and passed through many locks (there are 68 locks to go through on the whole trip). We have had perfect weather, just the occasional shower as we travel along, but when we stop it all clears up to lovely sunny days.
Vienna 27 and 28 April
Our first stop after Budapest was Vienna where we were treated to a classical concert at the Leichstenstein Palace, then the next day we did a tour of the city before going to Schonbrunn Palace. You run out of superlatives when trying to describe some of the buildings we see, but the palace certainly was special and so were the gardens. We probably did not have enough time to see the city fully but we certainly got a hint of its grandeur.
Durnstein and Melk 29 April
Durnstein is a typical charming small Austrian village on the river with its large church, where we were given an organ recital played on an organ built in 1725. We then wandered through the cobbled streets and bought a bottle of apricot liqueur as the region is famous for its apricots and other stone fruits. After that we continued on to Melk passing steep hills, which were covered with terraced vineyards, small towns which seemed to come along every five minutes, and lots of old castles. It was very picturesque as we lay on our deckchairs on the sun deck. We then arrived in Melk where they have this enormous Abbey with over 600 rooms for visitors, and with large reception rooms with frescoes which have recently been cleaned and the paint was as good as new. They also had a massive library with over 16,000 books from the 10th century onwards.
Linz, Cesky Krumlov and Passau 30 April
We arrived in Linz this morning, we were organised for a tour of Cesky Krumlov a small city in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic, best known for the fine architecture and art of the historic old town and Cesky Krumlov Castle. Old Cesky Krumlov is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was given this status along with the historic Prague Castle.
Our tour guide was a lovely girl called Sabine we thought this quite funny, very intelligent lady she is an architect but everyone here seems to have a few jobs. It was the most senic drive about an hour and half from Linz, we did our tour of the town had lunch at a beautiful hotel built in the 18th century. Charles and Camilla had their honeymoon there, we though this quite fitting as it was the day of the Royal Wedding. We then had some free time before we caught the bus back to Passau in Germany. Our ship had sailed to Passau while we were out for the day. When we arrived back we took a walk thru the town absolutely beautiful we went thru the Cathedral St Steven's located on the highest point (naturally) it had been burnt down and almost completely devestated in a town fire in 1662 it was rebuilt by famous baroque architect Carlo Lurago. Most stunning frescos and the largest organ in the world 17,974 organ pipes and 233 stops just amazing. Our drive from Cesky Krumlov was breathtaking just too much to take in really. We left in the evening and sailed on to Regensburg.
Sunday 1st May - Regensburg
This is a special holiday today, MayDay with the May Poles and Mothers Day here, Mary's Saint Day. We had a Bavarian Brunch and we arrived about 12.30 then set off for a walking tour. The guides are all terrific. We continued on after the tour hada coffee in one of the many squares. We have just made our way back to the ship and catching up on all our emails etc. It is all totally amazing what is organised for us and how well we are taken care of.
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