Our RV Adventures

Melk, Austria  5/3/2019

Our ship left Vienna last night a little before 11pm and when we went up to breakfast this morning at 7am, it was very foggy, with castle after castle appearing out of the mist.

Even this one, that I’m pretty sure must have been home to Dracula at one time. Perched high on a mountain crag, and partially obscured by the clouds, he certainly would have felt right at home.

Especially since it looks like the only way to get up there is by bat.

And of course the many churches. Many, many churches. Just church after church after church.

It’s amazing they had time to do anything else besides build churches. And FWIW these are all in the Baroque style.

We arrived in Melk about 11am, and after lunch, we were off on our excursion to the Melk Abbey, possibly the most famous Abbey in Austria. And that’s really saying a lot since there’s a heck of a lot of abbeys over here.

And it becomes more impressive the closer you get.

Amazingly this place has been an functioning Benedictine abbey for over 900 years.

Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside the abbey, but obviously somebody was, or did anyway, since there are photos all over the Internet of it. So I thought I would share some of those.

It’s really hard to express how beautiful this place, almost overwhelmingly so. But two things bothered me about the visit.

First, they have added some sort of multi-media event, telling you about what you’re seeing, but mostly it seems to concentrate on the present Bishop and his background. The whole thing really clashed with the rest of the tour.

Second, adding even more to the ‘tourist attraction’ feel, is that you exit the tour . . . through the gift shop.

Getting back to the drop-off point for the 200 yard walk back to where our ship was docked, we noticed the high water marks from the Danube flooding the area.

Especially interesting was the one from August 15, 1501.

And just behind this restaurant was a small RV park.

Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to check out the pedestals to see about the hookups, but we were running late getting back to the ship. But we’ve noticed a number of small RV parks along the river as we’ve cruised.

The Skirnir cast off about 4pm heading up the Danube to our next port of call, Passau. And it didn’t bode well that within the hour, it was raining fairly hard.

Dinner tonight was with our usual group, and as usual, was delicious.

We started off with a real favorite of ours, a Wedge Salad.

And when they put bacon on theirs, it’s two whole strips, not some measly crumbles.

For the entrée, Jan had the Broiled Herb Marinated Jumbo Shrimp with Baby Vegetables,

while I got the Krustenbraten, which is Crispy Pork Loin, marinated in beer, with potato pancakes and Steamed Cabbage.

Then for dessert we both got the Lime Cake, with white chocolate and raspberry sauce.

This place is dangerous to your waistline.

You would swear that the 3 other couples at our tables, and ourselves, were all RVer’s since the staff pretty much have to close down the dining room around us because we’re having so much fun. Of course the free-flowing wine may have something to do with that.

I have become so frustrated trying to use my new laptop with only built-in touchpad, that I had been trying to find a mouse for it. When I bought it in Budapest, the dealer tried to sell me one, and I should have bought it. But I had forgotten how irritating it is to use one.

And I hadn’t had any luck locating a computer store near any of our stops to pick one up, so I ask Guest Services if they might had a spare that I could borrow, and they said they would check.

And when I went by later, Monika just handed me one. When I ask if I needed to sign anything, her voice dropped from her lilting Scandinavian accent into a guttural German one as she said, “Ve know vher you live’. And then smiled.

But I’m not taking any chances. I’m definitely be returning it before we disembark.

Finishing up, the last blog I posted took over 3 hours of starting and stopping to get it uploaded. So we’ll see how long this one takes.

More Tomorrow from the Blue (grayish, green) Danube.

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Vienna 5/2/2019

We docked in Vienna about 6pm last night, so we were all ready to go this morning for our 4 hour excursion of Panoramic Vienna starting at 9am.

Our bus dropped us off in front of the Kunsthistoriches Museum Wien, or the Vienna Art History Museum. All of these excursions are guided by locals, and we have radio headsets that allow us to hear him with no problems.

I wish we’d had more time to just wander from room to room, taking in all the fabulous artwork.

But we had to move on, next to the Hofburg Palace, winter residence to the Hapsburgs, the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire from 1438 to 1740.

But the Hofburg Palace has another claim to fame. It’s also the home of the world-famous Spanish Riding School and the Lipizzaner Stallions.

And below is either one very long horse or two regular ones.

Next up on our tour was St. Peter’s Catholic Church, which is right downtown. Built in the Baroque style (sadly enough, we can now tell you the difference between Gothic, Renaissance, Romanesque and Baroque architecture, and expound on the cultural differences that gave rise to each style) and consecrated in 1733, it replaced a series of churches on this location that have been built here since the Early Middle Ages, including one dedicated by Charlemagne around 800 A.D.

The main part of our tour finished up in front to the main square and the beautiful St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Built in a combination of Gothic and Romanesque styles (see I told you we knew the difference), it was constructed over a period of 200 years, starting around 1150 A.D.

And like other places, there are indications of religious buildings here since Early Roman times. Once they find a place they like, they don’t let go of it.

It’s really hard to imagine that they were building structures like this almost 1000 years ago. Personally I think Ancient Aliens are involved.

Since we now had some free time before the bus picked us, we decided to check out some of the Viennese specialties – pastries, of course. And coffee.

Several people had recommend Aida’s, right across the square from St. Stephen’s, so we thought we give it a try. And since they’ve been right here on this same corner since 1903, they must be doing something right.

We had so many choices it was hard to decide, but we finally went with a Cremeschnitte,

and the Viennese specialty, Sacher Torte. Probably the most famous of Viennese pastries, it’s made with Chocolate Sponge Cake, Apricot Jam Filling, and Dark Chocolate Icing, along with a serving of unsweetened Whipped Cream.

Delicious.

Of course it wouldn’t be complete with a cup of Viennese coffee, in this case a Mélange,

made with an espresso shot served in a large coffee cup topped with steamed milk and milk foam. Very strong and very good.

Looking through the multi-page menu, I came across this ad for cheesecake.

At least I think that’s what they’re advertising. They certainly don’t have any ads using scantily-clad young women.

Getting back to the ship and grabbing a quick bite for lunch, we went forward to sit out on the Aquavit Terrace that overhangs the bow of the ship,

giving us a view like this.

Dinner is served at 7pm, with only one ‘seating’, and no assigned tables. We’ve accumulated a group of 6 or 7 couples that we all kind of rotate through. And a pretty diverse group it is.

Starting on the left, Rob and Marie are from Perth, Australia, Jim and Deborah are from San Francisco, Larry and Artis are from Illinois, and of course Jan is from wherever we’re parked.

Jan and I both had the Caesar Salad, (lucky me, I got her anchovies since she doesn’t like them),

and the Stir-Fried Beef Tenderloin with rice.

For dessert, Jan got the Raspberry Sorbet,

while I got the Chocolate Bombe.

Sometimes these desserts are almost too pretty to eat. But just almost.

A few notes to wrap up.

Smoking here is about 20 years behind the US. It seems like about 50% of the people smoke, though many businesses are no smoking.

So far I’ve not had any trouble using my debit/credit cards over here, whether for purchases or getting Forints or Euros from an ATM. Hope it holds true the rest of the trip.

I’ve only had one small emergency at work, that luckily I was able to fix remotely. Our online website order processing system decided to lock everyone out, but I always have a backdoor to get in and reset all the passwords. Crossing my fingers that that is the only problem I have in the next few weeks.

It takes me about 90 minutes to upload a blog post due to all the photos and the slow connection. And it’s not helped by the fact that every time we go through a lock, our satellite data connection is lost and the signal drops out.

So I have to keep trying until it all makes it through.

More Tomorrow, I hope