Fun Fact of the Day: There is a crazy bridge here! Check this out: "Charles IV laid the first stone of this famous monument at 5.31 am on July 9, 1357. The notoriously superstitious king was into astrology and numerology, and chose this date because of its written form: 1-3-5-7-9-7-5-3-1 (year, day, month, time)." (Citation) Today we went out on our last day of the trip! :( I don't know what is sadder - being done with the trip or the thought of leaving the hotel before 4:00am tomorrow... probably both!! Our tour this morning was the "Hidden Secrets" of the Lesser Town. We had the same guide S (who we had for three tours yesterday! She's great!) again. She first took us down to the palace/gardens/crazyville that was Albrecht Wallenstein. Now, Wallenstein was incredibly rich - his gardens were gorgeous and today house albino peacocks, one of which almost pooped on us because we didn't see it somehow at first. And it also had a stage area to view the gardens even when it was raining with a gorgeous Torjan War moasic, and today has a cage of Horned Owls. But do you think this pleased him to show only THAT much wealth on top of a giant palace? No! He could not be outdone! So instead he made........ A giant DRIPSTONE GROTTO WALL! That's right folks, a giant man-made wall of fake stalagmites and stalactites. And just in case you weren't intrigued enough, he also had it built with hidden faces and animals in them. Yup, so you're just staring at this gargantuan wall of fake cave and then BAM! There's a creepy face leering down. And so now you think you are prepared when all of a sudden there is a giant lion checking you out. Not disconcerting at all. Afterwards we walked a stretch of town and to the Church of St. Nicholas, which houses actual windows used to spy on locals and the few tourists of the time up on the clock tower. Then we took a jaunt down to the Church of Our Lady Victorious. Here is where the famous wax figure of Baby Jesus lays. The story goes once there was a Monk in Spain who had a dream where Baby Jesus came to him, telling him to pray. He woke up and went to work creating a wax figure in his image. This made its way through history to Bohemia in 1526. Unfortunately, the religion at the time ended and all of the artifacts were lost for a time. Eventually after WWII, this wax figure was again found, but alas he was missing his arms. The night he was found, the Monk who found him had a dream where Baby Jesus said to him, "If you return my arms to me, I will bring you and your country Peace." This monk was able to replace the arms, and soon after miracles in the town began. Today many people from many countries come to see this wax Baby Jesus. The only slightly awkward part for me was apparently they were holding a religious mass early on a Thursday morning so while we went to see him people were trying to go about their service... eek Afterwards, we went towards to town to see the Black Plague/Death monument. Unfortunately here (not sure elsewhere?) when the second wave hit here, the healthy and the sick would both come to this monument to pray for salvation from the sickness, which - now that we understand modern medicine and health - actually spread the disease faster. Our next stop is a big shout out to my lovely CINDY!! It was a John Lennon Wall!! Originally it had a painting of Lennon and words to Beatles' songs, but through it's long and checkered history, it became a "grave" (someone made a 3D grave along the wall), and people used to paint and draw on flowers as a graveyard. Eventually it became just a wall where people add graffiti, song lyrics, etc but there is still the grave and some drawings/paintings of Lennon. From there we popped over the Devil's Canal (considered to have devils living there due to the creepy clicking noises you could here there - later recognized to be made by the mills turning), saw the Love Locks, and met the best friend of all fairy tales, Vodnik. Vodnik is considered a "water fairy", and he is used to scare off children who don't know how to swim. Parents tell them they will have their soul stolen by him. They also have a festival where there are ribbons placed all along the canal, and young girls come to put the ribbons in their hair. It is said that Vodnik wanted a beautiful young woman for his wife, despite being a nasty old man creature, so he would wait and pull a girl into the canal by the ribbons in her hair to be his wife. Also, there is another story of how much he loved beer. But because he was a creepy monster of the river, he was only allowed on Full Moons to come to the pubs and look like a regular man for the night. Rumors say you will know it is him however, because his coat will be wet and dripping, because if it dries out he will die. Not creepy at all, right? We then crossed the Charles Bridge (full of replica statues and tourists) to see another statue of St. John (remember him from yesterday? 5 stars?) before dropping by to see the famous peeing man statue. Yes, we went to go see a statue that was built of two guys peeing into a pond in the shape of the Czech Republic. It was supposedly to be referencing to the English phrase "don't pee into the wind" which in Czech is like "don't pee into your own pond." This artist, David Černý, is rather controversial. We later today also saw his famous GIANT babies (with creepy munched up faces) and Kafka statue. He has MANY other very.......interesting ...... statues so if you just google his name and statues in Prague you can see what I mean. If you dare. Here we left the larger group to do our own walking. We went to a Coffee in the Garden, overlooking the city for yummy coffee and teas. There was a black cat there that everyone kept trying to take pictures of. Finally it was sleeping and so we told L to take a picture. She got out her camera and was about to take the picture when all of a sudden the cat SHOT up, and proceeded to lick its genitals profusely. Needless to say we did NOT get that second desired photo!! Then we continued walking up to the Castle again, through security, to go to the "Best Christmas Store in Prague!". There was another one in town so it has to be the best now? Is that how that works? Next, we went through town, shopping, and stopping to eat at U Glaubiců, a really neat restaurant where we had the pleasure of eating inside the several hundreds of year old beer cellar. It was a nice way to get out of the chilly air but enjoy some history while munching down! We then took a break for people to relax and recoup (I waited on uploading blog pictures - thrilling!) and met again at 5:30 to go grab a small bite to eat. We ended up at a little pub just around the corner from our hotel where most of us grabbed a small meal or dessert. Well our trip has now come to its end! It is almost 9:30pm here which is terrifying since we have to have luggage out by 3:30 and out the door by 4:00. Here's to hoping for a safe journey home for 30+ hours....and that we don't get stuck in Amsterdam coming home ;) Thanks for reading! xoxox
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hew! So today was a really long, really awesome day for us. I will try my best to break it into the three different parts and not ramble on too long... PART I: City Tour Before I write about the historical stuff, I found it hilarious that our guide S started off by telling us, "Here when crossing the streets you are either fast or flat." She was not joking!! The lights are so short for pedestrians that you have to basically sprint them and cars/trams/bikes do not wait for you... We took a bus up to Castle Hill to visit Prague Castle, which, according to the Guinness World Records is the largest ancient castle complex in the WORLD! Maybe a reason over 1.8 million people visit here every year including us?? When you go, there is a moat which was used as a moat, and then later as a "stag moat" where royals went hunting. There are three entrances, so we went through the security stage (think of it as TSA-Light) and up through the courtyards. Inside was a chapel which, in the 14th century, was said to be the most powerful due to it having the largest collection of Relics (bones of dead saints and also animals!). It was powerful also because they housed the HEAD OF A DRAGON!! Okay so it was a crocodile but they believed it to be the ancient dragon. We were able to walk through several beautiful courtyards to see the architectural splendor. We then got to see the Gothic style Cathedral St. Vita, which was started in 1344 and it only took a few years before it was completed. Just kidding, it wasn't opened to the public until 1929. Can you do the math? This was due to lack of money caused by the many wars. On the side are many gargoyles, which were supposed to scare evil away....and also act as drainage systems from their mouths. Yum! The windows here are tall and pointed at the top, which I didn't know was to signify the shape of praying hands. Here we learned a funny thing - you know the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas"? It is about a Czech ruler!! Now that's not funny, but what is is the fact that most Czech people do not know that there is a popular Christmas song in English about it and that there is no Czech version of it! We also learned about Saint John of Nepomuk. He is the Saint Patron of Bridges and his story is interesting. The story goes that the Queen went to him for confession and when the King found out he was curious. He kept asking what the Queen confessed, thinking that she had confessed to having another lover. John refused to tell him, since as the main Priest it was forbidden, so the King had him murdered in the middle of the night and his body was thrown into the river. As his body sank, above him shone 5 bright stars. These stars represented that he had remained silent, so today if you go to Prague and see a statue with 5 golden stars above his head, this is who you are looking at! We also saw the Basilica of St. George (an early burial spot for royalty), Rosenberg Palace (where widowed aristocratic women went in order to be saved from being shipped to the countryside or ordered to be a nun in order to keep their "cost of living" down for families), and saw the Lion memorial (memorial to pilots in the air force lost in WWII) and Czech Flag monument (representing from 1938 - 1945). Lastly, we learned about the statue of Jan Hus (pronounced John House.. you can imagine how many versions of poor spelling I had for this in my notes). He argued similar ideals to that of Martin Luther (no, not Martin Luther King or Jr., Martin Luther the monk who started the revolution). Hus argued against indulgence of the higher ups, and against only the Priest partaking in communion. He ended up being burned at the stake by request of the Roman Catholics at the time. In this VAST!!! over simplification, the Czechs used to be primarily Roman Catholic, then Jan Hus and Martin Luther caused a huge upswing over to Protestants, which was quelled by the 30 years war and returned to Catholicism. This, paired with the later communistic regime, today led to the Czech Republic being one of the most non-religious countries in the world, with over 80% agnostics/atheists. We also had a nice lovely Czech lunch and were able to share it with an amazing Kiwi couple. As I remembered from many years ago, they were so kind and sweet and even offered me their place to stay and they'd take me around if I made it back again! <3 PART 2: Terezín We took a small bus an hour out of Prague to go to Terezín. Here, for those who don't know much about WWII and/or the Holocaust, was the site of a prison as well as a concentration camp. Over 60,000 people (they think more but this is the number people have agreed upon with the existing information to prove it) - including 15,000 children - were here. The concentration camp side was meant as one of the sending off points for people to death camps in the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" (i.e., complete genocide). Now, I am not going to do the history remotely close to justice so I decided I will not do so here. I will add some links to some great websites to get more information, or if you live in Idaho you can ask the amazing, incredible docents at the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights! I will add two short little bits that I found to be interesting. One of the teachers working with the children saw the dehumanizing of referring to people by their numbers. So when she worked with the children, she made sure that they knew they had names and were important. She allowed them to work with art, and at the end they all signed their names to their artwork. Since this was not legal to do, every day she went about hiding the artwork which fortunately today you can still go see. None of the teachers and only 100 of the 15,000 students survived. The other part was that here was the site of the Nazi Propaganda films. These films were created as part of a project to show the International Red Cross that Jewish people, and others, were not being mistreated in the ghettos. I highly suggest that you check out at least some of the clips available here. Overall, it was not what I really had expected but was still good. I feel it is incredibly important for people to go see, wherever they are able and however they are able, parts of our history. If we never leave our comfort zone box, then we will never be able to understand empathy, compassion, or others around us. PART 3: Traditional Czech Dinner, Music, & Dancing The last part of our crazy long day was going across the river to a new part of town to enjoy some local music, food, and dancing. Once we got there, we stood in line to get in, following other hordes of tourists. Inside, we sat down at long tables in an incredibly crowded room and got our drinks and bread. Now, it is almost impossible to express the din inside - the small band was playing music, people were talking, and there was a thick hustle and bustle in the air. The waiters were exceptionally fast, almost to the point of throwing things down at the table for food, and the drinks were filled frequently. If you ordered wine, you got it squirted at you from the wine guy, who shot wine at your cup from a large glass bulb attached to a very long skinny tube (photos below). It was amusing and kind of terrifying at the same time. The sole male musician I dubbed the "Shusher"; indeed he could have been a teacher in a past life ;) Every time someone was trying to talk into the microphone, there he was, "SHHHH!" and "SHHH SHH SHH SHHHHHHH!"ing away. It's important to note that there were hundreds of people drinking in a tiny room so being quiet wasn't a strong suite of this group. The female singer was hilarious, and they tried to incorporate the guests as much as possible into Czech songs we didn't have a clue what they were. For example, she would teach us how to "YYIIIIPPP!!" (think high pitched yipping) and then when she sang and gestured at your table, you would all YIP. I am proud? ashamed? to note that our table won the yipping out of all of the groups. You're welcome for that. Additionally, another song was like the Czech version of our chicken dance? So you would sing "hop hop hop hop!" (no idea what this translates into, think it was just more of a sound to go with the beat) and flap your arms like a chicken. If you didn't flap and "hop" well enough, she would smack you with a wooden spoon. This poor ancient man in the front got smacked by the spoon and gave the world's saddest little birdie flaps with his fingers, which resulted in more spoon, which led to him just holding his arms up in surrender. It was amusing to say the least, poor guy! The dancers - one male, one female - did some good traditional dances while we nommed away. Our appetizer was a mashed potato with ham and sauerkraut, our main course was different meats roasted on a stick, deep fried potato balls, and a potato and cream "slab", while our dessert was fresh strawberry and apricot crepes with ice cream. As you can imagine, I was purely delighted by all of this. Especially being from the great potato state, I found the generous amounts of potatoes delicious. At the end, they played some English songs (including Hallelujah, Amazing Grace, etc), some classical pieces to calm everyone down, and then some fun songs as we left the building back to our hotel. All in all a great day! Fun Fact of the Day: There is a teeny-tiny street in Prague that is just shy of 20 inches wide but still has its own little traffic light! Today we finally made our way to Prague! We got up early to grab breakfast and then went on a 4 hour tour (yes, think of it in the tune of Gilligan’s Island, despite being a titch longer!). Otherwise known by normal people as a four hour bus ride. Anyways, there we were and we stopped one place halfway through for a “comfort stop” – which is a bathroom stop. Only problem, one which is well known among females worldwide? ONLY TWO STALLS FOR ALL THE WOMEN! I tell you – who designs bathrooms?! We decided to let the guys go through and then took over the bathroom as well. I’d say I felt bad, but the owners of the comfort stop gas station / store place got a lot of customers for coffee, ice cream, snacks, drinks, etc. So it all worked out. We went to the hotel (Intercontinental – not my favorite hotels by any means) and got set up for our tour immediately upon arrival. We went with our guide to go around the city to look for delicious bites to eat. And by look around I mean we followed the guide to the pre-determined places. Now if you thought you heard about food from me, oh my you were WRONG! Food galore today! Nothing to write about EXCEPT for food today! Why can’t someone pay me to travel and just eat and write about food?? We started off learning that people here are really moving towards eating more locally and more “with the season”; this means berries in summer not winter. We started at a former 80’s DiscoTech boat that a man had converted into a Brewery Boat! We were told that lunch here is taken seriously. People love to eat lunch as the bigger meal. We also learned that beer in bottles is considered a huge shame. So of course instead we tried a Pilsner (yes Pilsner is from around here), apple lemonades, deep fried pickled fish cakes (yes.) and pickled oiled cheeses. It was amazing despite the strange concepts – it was the perfect mix of salty and sour and crunchy. Plus the bread in Europe is to die for. If you’ve only eaten sad bread from America, I’m sorry, but Europe bread wins! I am not sure why but it’s true. So soft. So delicate. So delectable. From there we went to our second stop – a wine shop. We tried a dry white wine and a deep velvety red wine. For those not drinking, they provided two types of grape lemonade. One was dark and tasted like grape juice, the other was pale yellow and tasted like lemonade plus sweet grape syrup! Now we had to have food with our drinks, so we started with open faced sandwiches.
Rankings? N and I agreed the beetroot was out of this world (especially as someone who is afraid of beets…), and the third was an insane flavor explosion in your mouth – creamy, soft potato salad paired with the rough cooked egg… mmmmmmmmm!! The celery one was good, but it had a clash of sour and wet that was a little much for most. Now of course we might have been starving at this point, so we had a butcher’s plate. It had wheat bread, homemade sweet mustard, pickles, beef ham, Prague Ham, Bacon sausage, and Kielbasa sausage. Did I mention the butcher shop made ALL of those things?? The sweet mustard paired with the salty, garlic crisped bacon sausage melted in your mouth. The tart pickled danced with the soft Kielbasa. The bread… the bread was heavenly. At this point the weather turned on us (caught up with us from Austria!) and we got to eat and drink while watching a torrential downpour take people by surprise. We were lucky some of us had rain jackets as we dove from our covered mall area and went into a local gingerbread shop for our last treat. We tried three different types of pastries (gingerbread with plum jam, gingerbread with poppy, and a shortbread) as we were so full we could barely breathe. We went back to the hotel, dodging people and dogs and cars as we sprinted (read: walked slowly on cobblestone while being drenched) between buildings. Back at the hotel we did a little rest and relaxation before coming together to decide what to do with the now nice again weather. We ended up walking down to the local Hard Rock Café (yes, we have officially hit the big ones in all three countries now for those of you counting) before seeing a strange absinthe shop and splitting off. Part of our group went back while the other half went to a ….. drum roll please …. A PUB!! FOR FOOD!! I am not joking. We ate some potato soup in local bread bowl, pork ribs (enough to feed a small army), Sparrow (pork with potato dumplings and sweet sauerkraut), and Pilsner Goulash with potato pancakes. And A got his bowl of yummy ice cream. 😊 All in all, it was a great time and we got to meander our way back for the night. Tomorrow is a FULL day about adventures through Prague, with more history for some to delight in and others to skim over 😉 Fun Fact of the Day: The monks here, in their aquarium, have a giant sturgeon named Harry. If the sturgeon were allowed to live naturally (no with all the locks, fishing, etc.) they could grow up to 2 tons heavy and get to be 100+ years old! Today we arrived at the gorgeous tiny little village of Engelhartszell back in Austria again (movement due to the lack of river depth). While some others took an entire day to travel up to Regensburg, our group all opted to stay in town for a more calm, relaxed morning. Engelhartszell breaks into pieces to mean : Engel [Angel] hart [forest] szell [cell for monks]. Our guide S told us that this village has a whopping 989 inhabitants and the only male Trappist Monastery in Europe. There are two churches – a Roman Catholic one and an Abbey Church. It also has a K-5 school, a police station with 2 policemen, a small company that makes highlighters, and the home to schnapps (the joke about schnapps is that alcohol content is so high that technically it is “medicine” instead of alcohol.) The biggest draw to this area is the Trappist Monks. They believe in “work and pray”, which leads to praying 6 times a day between 4:00am and 8:00pm and when they are not praying they are working. Although there are currently only 5 monks and 10 employees, they have a farm, aquarium, greenhouse, wood business, hydropower station, and produce schnapps, beer, cheese, and honey. They also have a nursing home (30 residents) and home for children with mental disabilities (70). What is nice is with less than 1,000 residents they are all very close and take care of one another. The abbey church was the only part we were allowed to go into, and inside there were many relics (bones of dead saints covered in riches and glories, intended to bring more people to the church) and a gorgeous fresco. Now, in the 1950’s, there was a huge land movement causing a crack to go through a large portion of the ceiling. They ended up hiring a local artist who, in 1954, used the same colors and did a “Picasso”-esque fresco showing the story of Virgin Mary being surrounded by angels. In the beginning, it was highly disruptive and controversial. Nowadays, the locals think it is very nice. Afterwards, we went down to a local restaurant where we tried some of the Trappist Beer (it must be made within the walls of a Trappist Abbey to be considered this type of beer). We started with a 4.6%, then 6.9%, and ended with a very dense 10.5%. For non-beer people, that means a very light mellow beer up to a very dark, rich beer. We were also fortunate enough to be able to taste some of the cheese that they made as well! Our afternoon was split up between wandering this tiny village (absolutely stunning – I would definitely move there to raise a family) and seeing the other little church and either napping or taking a bike ride. The bike ride took several people in our group to the border of Germany before they came back in the evening for dinner. With my knee going out, I took the sad route of icing and resting. I swear for as much as I am needing to use Salonpas they should be sponsoring this blog 😉 I would let you know that we ate an insanely delicious meal, but that would be beside the point because 1. You already knew that I would have a delicious dinner and 2. You have no way to actually enjoy any of the delights for yourself 😉 So I will leave you with some photos and salivation! Fun Fact of the Day: Passau is home to the largest pipe organ in all of Europe! It is parked in St. Stephen's Cathedral and has 17,774 pipes in total! Check it out for yourself here. Everything is a bit off with our schedule, and the fact that we didn't have internet for several days so here goes! In the morning we took our ship out to Passau, which is also known as the "City of Three Rivers". Here is where the Danube (where we have been sailing) meets up with the Inn and Ilz. It is important to note that this is in the state of Bavaria - and the locals prefer to talk about themselves as Bavarians instead of Germans which I found very interesting. In 2013, Passau was devastated by the floods. Our tour guide was a fascinating local man named S. Now, S seemed to derive a sick pleasure from doing "role playing" with his groups, meaning that he would select people out of the group to represent or "act" out specific people in historical contexts. This inevitably led to my family's delight and my horror as I was deemed to be one character. Sigh. Now, this small town in Bavaria is over 2000 years old and was originally founded by Romans. It is a VERY Catholic (89%) town, and leans very conservatively. Here there is the famous Wallfahrtsstiege, which is a covered walkway of ~321 steps to the Mariahilf Kloster (Monastery). It became popular when Leopold took up his third wife (wife one and two had died and neither had produced heirs) and after stopping at each step to pray and kiss the step, his third wife went on to produce 13 children, 4 of them survived and of the surviving 3 were MALES, so the best of news in the olden days. S also took us into the St. Stephen's Cathedral, a church from 1688, that houses the largest organ in the world. Now this "organ" is actually 5 different organs, with almost 18,000 pipes, 260 registers, and over 1,500 buttons!! If you sit in the middle - or as close to middle as possible - you get a "surround sound" effect. This is because there is a giant grate in the middle of the ceiling that allows the fifth part of the organ to be pumped through to your ears! It truly was a beautiful, ornate building. I just wanted to add a funny side note - our guide S joked that "WC" didn't stand for Water Closet here, it stood for "What Coin?" since the bathrooms were all pay bathrooms. In the past they were known for "white gold" (salt), today they are known for their overpopulated university (built for 5,000, now has 12,000), the only Dachshund museum in the world?, and for their castle on the hill. We did - Of Course! - take the 30 minutes to climb to the top of the castle to see the splendid views. Our guide, S, said it would be about 100 steps and an easy hike - WHY oh WHY do I keep thinking Europeans understand the word "easy"? After almost 300 steps and several steep inclines we made it near death to the top to rest at a cafe and drink some iced chocolate. I then found a group of very elderly (80s+) non-sweaty people at the cafe ... and realized that there was an option to take a bus to the top! Smart Move! Afterwards we strolled down the mountain (i.e., nearly tripped and fell down the mountain repeatedly on the uneven, slippery ground) and through the town. We stopped accidentally in the other church in town which happened to be open before the WORST THING HAPPENED!! Here I was. Minding my own business. Calmly walking down the cobblestone path. THEN. OUT. OF. NOWHERE. I was quickly and violently attacked by a ginormous wharf rat! It scuttled out of nowhere and ran straight for my feet, which were in open sandals. I ran away, almost knocking over others before narrowly escaping! It was such a close call I wasn't sure I was going to make it. (there is a photo included below) But fortunately I did, and from then on we were able to go back to the ship and do a Bavarian beer tasting. We tried three beers - ranging from light to dark - and had a presentation to go with it that was really good. We learned that if you look at just Bavaria, it is the highest percentage of beer drinkers in the world. Afterwards, since we hadn't eaten in all of five minutes ;) we were able to have a nice dinner and enjoy the views! Apologies again for the lateness of the text and photos; we didn't have internet for several days so now I am trying to play catch up!! Fun Fact of the Day: Linz, the third largest city in Austria, is known for its Linzer torte. This torte is supposedly the oldest cake on record in the WORLD, first dating back to 1653. This morning we woke up like usual but this time in the port of Linz. We showed up in Linz today because we are attempting to figure out what to do and adjust our schedule. The choice was between Salzburg (already been there) and Český Krumlov (in Czech Republic). So of course I opted to go head out to Český Krumlov! We were sent out 1.5 hours by bus, crossing the border between Austria into Czech Republic, where we ended up seeing areas that were closed off by the Iron Curtain until 1989. We ended up going to the Bohemian Hills, also known as the granite mountain area, despite the fact that “mountains” here are definitely more of the “hill” caliber. There was a lot of movement of population within what is now that Czech Republic. In the 15th Century, the 30 Year War killed off over 30% of Europe’s population due to religious disputes. In 1917, this part of Europe lost WWI, followed by being taken over by Hitler’s regime in 1938. Afterwards, from 1947 – 1989 communism in two different forms (ranging from severe to disturbing severe) took over the country. In 1989, people here were scared to leave their country, not knowing what laid beyond the walls, and people from outside were curious to come into their country to see what life had been like for them. At this time the Czech Republic and Slovakia split into two separate countries instead of Czechoslovakia. It was great to hear our information and get a tour inside Český Krumlov by a woman who was born and raised there. She was 16 when the Iron Curtain fell, and so she had a lot of interesting perspective on freedom. She was trying to explain how she never felt free – the high percentage of propaganda, not being able to leave – but she was not directly suffering. The castle and walled city of Český Krumlov fell deep into disrepair, and it wasn’t until much more recently that it was restored to its current beauty. As you go around the city, hugged by a sparkling meander (almost an oxbow lake but not quite, making this feel like walking into an island), you see the giant castle guarded by a moat. But oh no, just a normal moat of mere WATER. This moat is guarded by a terrifying live brown bear!! They used to have three, but two died in the last few years. Later this year they will be getting two baby bear cubs from Slovakia to help “protect” the castle. It was charming to walk around in the sunshine, taking in the cobblestone streets, avoiding the ever growing throngs of tourists by attempting to take a meander down quieter side streets. It was fun to go eat as many places as possible 😉 Kidding, but we did grab a yummy Czech lunch of potato soups, local breads, rump roast, roast beef with tartar sauce (!), and local dessert of apricot-filled dumplings topped with butter, powered sugar, and shredded cheese. We got to go around the 5 different courtyards of the Castle and up to the viewing deck to take some incredible pictures. Afterwards we took a quick walk back for a 1.5 hour ride back into Linz. Our tour guide was kind enough to take 5 of us back into Linz to give us a short tour. Linz is most well known for being one of Hitler’s favorite cities. He grew up 30 km away and spent much of his younger life in the city. It was one of his goals to make Linz one of the greatest cities in his reign, but this never came to fruition. Due to this, after Germany lost WWII, over 90% of the city was actually destroyed. Today all that is left of the original city is a small row of houses around a square. We took a break to relax, hear about our upcoming days, and do a dinner (yes, food is the number one most important thing if you have not understood this yet!! Haha), and walked around Linz part II. There was a Renaissance Fair we slowly walked through (weird comparison – here is a showing of culture and history, unlike the “feel” of Renn Faires in the states), tasted local wines and cake, and watched part of a show? It was a weird stage with a TV background, someone narrating in German, and a few people running around attacking each other. It was kind of like seeing part (through the tall people) of a strange soap opera you don’t know what is happening on. There was supposed to be a light show on the technology museum center in the evening, so we stayed up late but it never came on, disappointingly. We are leaving here at 4:00 am to make it to our next port. We will be spending the morning on the move and the afternoon in Passau! Stay tuned for our next crazy adventures. (And food choices) Fun Fact of the Day: Dürnstein has a famous old stone castle that is the reason for the city's name! The name is German for "dry" and "stone". In the morning, feeling refreshed after sleeping off the Tower hike, we grabbed breakfast and set out by 8:30. Dürnstein is a tiny village of 200 people most famous for its connection to King Richard the Lionheart. In 1192, King Richard the Lionheart (Richard the I of England) was held captive here for a time in the castle by the Duke of Austria, Leopold V. The castle itself was destroyed by Swedish troops in 1645, so today there are only the ruins to go visit. Now, we had a morning tour in Dürnstein that included a "20 minute moderate hike". Once we met our guide, L, she explained that it was a intense hike up 150 uneven steps, through dense foliage, and up to the castle ruins. One woman was turned away who was wearing thin flip flops since it was too dangerous to wear. And oh boy they were right about the warning! About halfway up this steep cliff of broken steps, over rubble and tree roots, I was sweating bullets. At the top I was pretty much done, despite it being easier than yesterday. The very top of the castle offered absolutely spectacular views of the village, Danube, and the other side full of stunning vineyards. For anyone who stumbles on this small town (now not really a hidden gem - it can get upwards of 5,000 tourists over a few days) it is worth the hike - but I wouldn't suggest trying to do it in a 20 minute sprint! Afterwards we grabbed lunch and headed down the river to the second small town of Melk. Melk has a population of roughly 2,500 people and is best known for the Melk Abbey. The Melk Abbey is a massive baroque style monastery. And when I say massive, I mean massive! It has hundreds of rooms, including a school for 900 students, a marble hall, a church, and a library that houses over 100,000 books and manuscripts to name a few. You can imagine my delight to be able to drool in the library, where there are thousands of beautiful volumes to gaze at. Even more grand than the library in Beauty and the Beast! :0 Currently 23 monks - ages ranging from 22 to 96 - are still working there. After our tour, we popped over to the gardens, which were incredibly beautiful until you started to look closer into the garden to see the artwork. At first glance, there were these pop out paintings hidden around of animals - cute, right? WRONG! There was a baby chinchilla just chilling by the bushes....awwweee....UNTIL YOU LOOKED AT ITS FACE, which was HUMAN! Then you started to see the other animals, all with human faces built in. Makes me shudder. Still the foliage was lovely. ;) We walked back down from the abbey through the small town of Melk. It was nice and quaint, but overly touristy, in my opinion. Many shops and food restaurants with food so good smelling that you'd want to live here forever, but still the main stretch of this tiny little town was very much so set up for the thousands of tourists a day! We got back on the ship to do a local Wachau wine tasting - over 90% of their wines are white, so we were able to taste a light white wine, a Riesling (very very dry, not sweet at all unlike our variations), and one red. While we drank them, we were able to get some of the history of the wine making from the locals who were there to serve them to us. This region is also known for apricots, so there was apricot liquor (very sweet, high alcohol but you can't really taste it) and schnapps. It was very delicious! The rest of the evening we had a nice dinner including local quail, and then were briefed on the upcoming changes - long story short the river is too shallow so we will have to do some adjustments!! Fun Fact of the Day: Austria is where the very first postcards were used! Today was such a great day! We were in Vienna for the whole day so we were able to experience not only the history but also have time to go out and explore on our own. Only downside? It was 32 degrees Celsius - or 90 degrees F. If you are thinking, well that’s not too bad, quit your whining (probably still true!) it is also 80 - 90% humidity. So if you live in the South you can understand, otherwise think of super hot sauna that you are walking and hiking around in! Needless to say my 6.5 miles of walking yesterday produced just a little bit of sweat ;) So now for a little history... Austria is a country of nearly 8.4 million people, with 1.9 million of them living in one of Vienna’s 23 districts. The most “important” district is District 1, which is the city center. People here speak German, but our guide T told us that even he struggles to speak with people in Germany and other parts of Austria sometimes (he is Viennese) just due to dialectic differences. One of the most famous people from Vienna, or Wien as it is written in German, was Johann Strauss who was known first and foremost for his musical prowess and secondly for being a renowned womanizer. He was engaged 13 times and married 3. They are also known for Mozart as well. The Opera House is a gorgeous building that apparently is always losing money since they put on different operas every night (costumes, set, people changed) but the people feel it’s important in the city to introduce their young people and others to music. Once a year they have a ball there, which is for just the best of the best at a whopping 20,000 Euros a ticket ($23,418). Vienna is also known for Lipizzan horses – these horses begin as brown foals but by the time they are 10 years old they are fully pure white. Some of us decided not to take the bus back, so we stayed in the city the entire afternoon. We were able to hit up some amazingly famous sites, such as Cafe Demel (a 1786 cafe famous for its iced coffee and pastries), waited in line to get a slice of the Viennese Sacher-Torte from the famous Cafe Sacher (known for its most well known visitor - our friend Sigmond Freud), saw corpses of saints in St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, and hit up the “Toilet Guy” house. Now, “toilet guy”... Toilet guy’s name is actually Friedrich Stowasser, but he was better known as Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser - but due to my laziness I’ll just refer to him as Hundertwasser. I first learned of him on accident; one of my Hungarian friends I met while living in New Zealand and I went on a long trip around the country and he told me we had to take this long detour to see some toilets. To which my response was, “........WHAT? Toilets?!’ Because really, going out of your way for a day to see toilets seems...odd? Crazy? Creepy? He kindly explained to me that this famous Viennese artist, Hundertwasser, lived in New Zealand and had designed some infamous toilets and urinals there. So, not thrilled, we took off to Kawakawa, New Zealand to see some toilets. In the end they were actually kind of cool - no doubt they are considered the most photographed toilets in NZ (which you would kind of hope ... do people photograph their toilets normally??). Now this brings me 8 years later to today. Hundertwasser was born in Vienna and designed a house, “village”, and a building that now houses his other artwork. My family was gracious enough to go way out of town, utilizing the really nice public subway, to find this little gem. It was really cool to be able to walk on the strange bumpy landscape (he added to facades and the ground, never taking away anything that already existed), check out the wavy detailed facades, and see the bright, fun colors. I even got a squished “penny” (European 2 cent piece)! We ate some delicious local foods at a terrace cafe in the village before hitting up the outside of the museum and heading to St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Cathedral. The inside of St. Stephen’s is beautiful and insanely ornate, but as wonderful as it was to see the intricate insides, that was not our purpose. Our purpose was something much more sinister. In St Stephen’s there is a massive South Tower that took 65 years to complete! It was used as the main observatory and command post over the city, as well as an ancient fire notification system. This was done until 1956, when they retired it and opened it up to the public. Today, for 5 Euros you can climb up 343 stairs to a viewing deck, HIGH above the city. Now at first I was thinking (dumbly), “Oh 343 steps? That can’t be too bad! I can do that” which was the WRONG thing to think. My thinking should have changed once I saw the first set of incredibly sweaty, red faced tourists coming DOWN the stairs into the entryway but again I was feeling confident. That was a TERRIBLE decision! Kind of. The first 100 or so of the narrow (I wear size 6.5 shoes and they fit but anything bigger would not have fit on the steps) steep stone spiral were okay. By 101 I was having some issues breathing and needing to stop. By 200 I was concerned someone might find my corpse along the way. By 300 I was sweaty, exhausted, and a red-faced tourist. By 343 I nearly collapsed and kissed the landing’s ground like a pirate who had been at sea for 20398 years. It was an astoundingly gorgeous view of the city - you could see all around you and it was definitely worth the view in the end, and luckily there were places to sit and attempt to catch your breath. The joke about climbing church towers (no, this was not my first one, and no I didn’t learn from the other difficult climbs apparently) is when you are going up people always seem to say, “You’re about halfway up!” And you believe them. Until 15 minutes later someone else comes and says, “You’re about halfway up!” And you begin to doubt that people understand how to measure what halfway is. N and I joked as we attempted to not roll all the way down 343 steps to our deaths that this was going to be a Twilight Zone episode: All of the visitors went up, but none of them came back down. This isn’t possible in the real world, but it is here in the Twilight Zone... (cue Twilight Zone music). But really. We thought we might not make it back down either. Sadly, my knee went out approximately 2 steps into the descent so by the bottom it was fully swollen and bruised. I hobbled my sad little self back to the subway and we got back to the boat. We enjoyed a nice meal (I’ll add food names once I get access to my photographs again) and I went straight to bed exhausted. Tomorrow to see some more cute tiny Viennese towns! Fun Fact of the Day: Vienna has the world's oldest zoo! It was built way back in 1752, making it now 266 years old. Today will be a respite from my long posts! We spent most of the day in transit from Budapest to Vienna, passing through Bratislava, Slovakia. We were able to see many things - such as dozen of beautiful dilapidated stones (they swore at one time were fabulous castles), many low bridges (they were so low the top deck was closed and the awnings had to be lowered - D and A tried and were almost able to touch the bridges from the highest deck we were allowed to be in), and many miles of greenery on the edges of the water filled with local fisher(wo)men. We also got to eat some more delicious food and relax finally! ;) Many years ago, I had the opportunity to go to Vienna. My dream was to be able to attend a concert - Vienna is rightfully known as the City of Music - unfortunately, my dreams were crushed when I was not able to go due to not having enough time. Not this time! (pun intended) We got the opportunity to see a concert and it was spectacular. We got driven into town to this amazing old concert hall - it was covered with gorgeous old wood paneling. We saw the Vienna Supreme Concert, which had a small orchestra, 2 opera singers, and 2 professional ballet dancers. They played music from The Bat (famous Operetta by Johann Strauss), The Sound of Music, The Magic Flute (Wolfgang Mozart), the Turkish March (Wolfgang Mozart), Blue Danube Waltz (Johann Strauss Jr.), and the Radetzky March (Johann Strauss Sr.). What made this concert different from any I've ever been to - especially when you think of more "stuffy" formal classical concerts - was that it was upbeat and very interactive. For example, during one of the waltz, both dancers selected people in the crowd to come up and dance with them. The percussionist was silly and did interactive clapping and then a percussion battle with the flutist, and the singers picked people in the crowd for this "jealous" love song from an opera. All in all it was incredible. We got back to kind of plan our next day (Vienna tour and then free exploration time!) and decided on a couple of "must see" spots! PS You're welcome for the brevity of this day. ;) Fun Fact of the Day: In, 1991, a 15 year old Hungarian girl named Judit Polgar, achieved the title of female GrandMaster in Chess! After a very rough start (was supposed to get a wake up call to be able to get everything I needed to get done but didn’t get one), I grabbed a quick bite and we were out the door. Stop one, the beautiful Dohány Street Synagogue, which is the largest synagogue in Europe. During WWII, despite 26 bombings the Synagogue was damaged but not destroyed. In 1991 - 1996 they began an extensive renovation which is what we can see today. In the synagogue, the men sit on the main level and the women sit in the upper balconies on either side. There is a gorgeous pipe organ which is normally not allowed, but it was constructed in a way that the organ is technically in the room behind it. Due to strict rules, Jewish persons cannot work on their Sabath, so during the two holidays it is permitted (Jewish New Year and Yom Kipper) a non-Jewish person has to play the organ. You can see three really important symbols of Judaism: 1. Star of David (in the lights, stained glass, everywhere), 2. Menorah (chandeliers), and 3. Tablets of the 10 Commandments (shapes of the windows). The Star of David is considered the symbol of the Jewish nation, while the 10 Commandments are considered the most important religious symbol. I also found it interesting that inside the Arc holds the Torah - in a normal synogogue you would have anywhere between 4-8 depending on its size, but here had 16!! The Synagogue was within the Jewish Ghetto during WWII. Inside the ghetto 70,000 Jewish people at the time were kept there. This was the LAST ghetto to be opened and it lasted until January 18, 1945 until it was liberated by the Soviets. There were more than 7,000 bodies found immediately and 3,000 of them are buried inside the Synagogue’s garden. Since it is against their religion to have a cemetery that close to a Synagogue, the people added another wall and moved the seats inside to meet the minimum distance needed. Outside is by far one of the MOST STUNNING memorials. It is called the Tree of Life, and it is a silver metal weeping willow tree. Each leaf has the names of those Hungarian Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, and some empty leaves are there to represent those who died but we do not know their names. I also learned that it is in the shape of an upside down menorah, to represent the light (or life) being extinguished. Across from this sits the Circle of Hope and a beautiful stained glass artwork. The Circle of Hope is where names are listed of the non-Jewish people who helped during the Holocaust. The stained glass art work was created by a survivor. The woman, Clara, was taking art classes which ran 30 minutes later than the rest of her family. One day when she came home she discovered that her entire family had been taken away. She managed to escape to a friend’s house, only to have to escape a second time. After the Holocaust she designed only one piece that represented it. In the stained glass you see a black snake, head held high into the sky, being consumed by flames. She created the black snake to represent evil, and she believed that evil can never win, because in the end its own badness or evilness will consum and kill it. Next, on a lighter note, we headed over to Szimpla Kert, a famous ruin bar. I have only seen ruin bars here - they are eclectic bars with interesting and sometimes a bit insane decoration. This is a place I had been to before, and it has multiple floors with at least 6 bars within it. If you ever have the pleasure of traveling here, I would more than suggest this as a destination. Lastly, we continued our city walk to the New York Cafe. It was the antithesis of Szimpla - ornate and decorated as a fancy Cathedral. The ceilings were high, the furniture was plush, and the food was fancy but at least normally sized (usually posh places have tiny food!!). We dined on our fancy goulash, ice creams, lemonades, and incredibly bread. Now, my (hot!) lemonade was a tart plum and lime flavor, which was delightful. After you finish the drink, there is a small spoon to scoop out the large chunks of yummy fruit inside. Now, being silly and not thinking of the consequences, slurped up a large piece of plum that had been sitting in the tart juices next to limes for quite some time. Much to my surprise, it was insanely tart!! My jaw began to ache, my eyes watered, and I could barely swallow it before it fully consumed me. I began to laugh and cry, but no one believed me! :( After the tears were wiped away and I could see the world once more, we took off and headed back to the hotel to be picked up for our ship. Once on the ship we had our mandatory safety drill before a (long) briefing and dinner. Dinner was a mix of local delicacies - the appetizers included goat cheese salad, Hungarian meatballs, or bell pepper mousse; soups included cauliflower or lamb chowder; mains included chicken, Langos (!!!!), Hungarian noodles, or river perch; desserts included Hungarian crepes, Hungarian vanilla ice cream, or fresh fruit. Now off to sleep before it starts again! By tomorrow we will be in Vienna! |