Infinite Improbability: European Cruise wrap-up

Overall impressions. Favorite places. Trivia. Ideas. Low points. Highlights. Whatever.

Budapest: big city. Ok, not great. Interesting tour. Sad political situation.

Danube: favorite passages of the cruise. Against the current but better it happening here than on the Rhine.

Vienna: big city but not a big city feel. Favorite city. For a big city, very clean. Amazing sights.

More Danube: after Vienna the scenery ramps up. Hills come down to the water. Many castles and old churches. Curvy.

Passau: our first stop in Germany. Still very close to Austria. And the Czech Republic. Built on a peninsula which means frequent flooding. Cathedral had amazing frescos on the ceiling. Perhaps the most impressive overall.

Scharding: small border town. More flooding issues. Also big in the salt trade in the 15th century. Has a granite museum. A couple of rooms with some rocks. Of granite. Cute.

Regensburg: built on a river delta. Has Roman history. First contact with stumble stones, brass plate covered stones in streets or walkways honoring Jews murdered by the Nazis. Cathedral interior is mostly silver not gold. Still very impressive. Baroque style.

Nuremberg: 97% destroyed in WW2. 93% in one air raid. Center of Naziism. Rebuilt to look like it did pre-war. Gothic and Baroque churches. Interesting contrast. Hid art work in bunkers. See 'Monument Men'. Amazing hot chocolate.

Bamberg: much newer city than the previous ones. Started in 1060. No industry in area so no WW2 bombing. Fires through the ages, however. Hilly. Drank 'smokey beer', the memory of which grows worse with the passage of time.

Wurzburg: the Prince-Bishop Residence was the most opulent building we visited on this cruise. Not a church but the home and offices of the head of the political and church world. 2 of the 3 wings were severely damaged in the bombing but the center section, although damaged, mostly survived. Too much to see. Gold everywhere. Statues and other stunning artifacts. Info on the idea of the Prince-Bishop: do you remember (from school) the Holy Roman Empire? Interestingly it was neither holy or Roman or an empire. Although it covered a very large part of Europe it wasn't quite an empire. It was Germanic not Roman. And it had little to do with the RC Church. The bishops were Catholic, however. At one time, when they were bishops of the Church hierarchy, they became political leaders also, and became quite powerful. For about 600 years.

Wertheim: on the Main River. Flooding issues here, too. Has a leaning tower. More sad Jewish history. Our guide, a retired German Army Colonel and about 4 years older than us, was born here and told us about the immediate post-war history. The pre-war and wartime Jewish atrocities, too. He told us as children they did not learn anything about history after the 1930s until the 1960s. Just a huge gap. In the 70s kids started learning about the war and all the terrible things done in the name of National Socialism and Hitler. Our guide had to study this on his own to become a great guide. His talk on Jewish history was sobering and very moving. You could tell, this military officer, was struggling to control his emotions. Perhaps a tear or two might have slipped down a cheek. We're not telling. Children are now required to visit a concentration camp as well as learn about other atrocities committed.

Rhine River and Marksburg Castle: the Rhine River is beautiful. Stunning scenery. Castles literally every 10-15 minutes or so. Some closer. Gorgeous. Mountains come right down to the river and it is very curvy. However, as a matter of opinion only, I think the Danube (the part we saw) was more beautiful although with fewer castles. Rocky mountains and cliffs coming down to the water versus tree covered (still steep) hills coming down to the water. A close call but, hey, it's opinion. Mine. We walked up to Marksburg Castle after a bus ride to the base. Very strenuous. There is a reason it was never conquered. Well, two. One: the approach is extremely steep and narrow. River to the front, mountains to the rear. Two: too insignificant politically at the time. Little strategic value overall, militarily, to people like Napolean, etc. It showed us how authentic Gillette Castle on the Connecticut River is. Well, except for much narrower passages inside and out at Marksburg. Gillette was not worried about invading armies in Connecticut.

Cologne: extremely large gothic cathedral. So large that it could not be covered in gold like others were. A lot, of course, but not wall to wall. Interesting how it was not destroyed in WW2 because pilots used its distinctive twin towers as guideposts and didn't want to ruin their reference points. Inside are the remains (probably) of the Three Kings, the Magi. Stolen from the people who stole them from what's now called, and was during the time of the Crusades, the Holy Land.

Kinderdijk: our first stop in the Netherlands. We had a tour of the dikes and windmills. The windmills still play an important function. Besides grinding grain for the millers they also pump water from the land side of the dikes to the ocean side or onto the marshes. The marshes act as sponges holding water and keeping back the floods. These very old windmills are still powerful machines that are quite scary to be near. They reroute the walkways depending on the wind direction and the sails (blades) pass very closely over your head. And they are sails. Cloth is furled or unfurled to get the blades moving. There are a lot of forces involved. Operating skill, too. There have been fatal accidents, even recently.

Amsterdam: Holland. Yes, Holland and the Netherlands are different. Holland is part of the larger country of the Netherlands. Amsterdam is a very large cosmopolitan city in Holland. Not as clean as some of the others we visited. About 900,000 residents including maybe 10-15% students. It has a great public transportation system and terrible bike riders. Rude and dangerous. Thoughtless and indifferent. Biggest (but accurate) insult: worse than Germans. There are about 2 million bikes for the 900K residents. Nonetheless we liked the city a lot although it was not our favorite. A lot of museums. Beautiful canals. There was so much to see we didn't go in one church. Gasp.

Overall impressions: loved the cruise. Would do it again although Carol wants to do the Basel to Paris cruise first. Recommend taking our direction, Budapest to Amsterdam. It has a slightly different itinerary than the reverse although that is the standard voyage. 14 days is the just right amount of time but I could have turned around and started sailing back to Hungary immediately. Highly recommend Viking but we are not cruise people with expectations found on ocean cruises. A max of only 190 passengers (we had a little under 180) and crew of 53. We were impressed with all the staff. Food was great. Free flowing wine and beer without buying the Silver package which had unlimited, anytime alcohol. Detox may be in our future. Or AA. So is a diet. This was not unlimited buffet food all the time but 3 sit down meal times where it rained drink and snowed food. All were 3+ course meals with many, many options plus standard meals on the part of the menu that didn't change. We tried to stay with the inovative daily changing menu but once or twice when the seafood choice wasn't something we liked we went to the so-called standard menu. It was awesome. Difficult choices every day. Often several times a day. The optional (extra $$$) tours looked interesting. We talked to folks who took them and they loved them. We only took two and were happy about it. It could be overwhelming. And tiring. Too many options. Too much to do. One extra tour and canal cruise at Scharding and a canal cruise in Amsterdam was enough for us. There were several bike tours in Germany that (new) friends of ours loved. Seemed like work to me. Again, don't feel you are missing out by skipping the extras. They are nice. Great. But not needed for enjoyment of the cruise.

One more note on Viking service. We were met at the Budapest airport by a Viking rep. Got us on a shuttle (minivan) to the ship. Almost daily they got us on the bus to our tour beginnings (busses not needed every day). Everything was very organized but with plenty of free time for independent wandering. At the end of our cruise they got us on a group minivan to our hotel where we were met by more Viking staff that oriented us and got us to the morning tour we had scheduled. That night they got us on another shuttle to our canal cruise locations where we were met by more Viking people. Same for our departure day. Got us on another van and then got us to Shiphol airport where, one more time, Viking staff met us and walked us all the way to the KLM airline automated luggage and check-in area. She showed us how things worked and didn't leave us until we were at the first security check point. Amazing. And appreciated. What a difference when we got to JFK and we were met by nobody and treated like schlubs. Ah, reality. Back to normal.

This obviously cost us a lot of money but it was nice that we were not nickle-and-dimed for extras. No casino. No kids. No formal dress events. We were treated the same as those who had paid for the high-end cabins. No one tried any upselling or made us feel we were missing out. A very positive experience. Since we only take a cruise every 25 years or so (last one - 1999) we can spend the money. One problem... someone was so spoiled she wants another cruise sooner than 2049. Sigh. Maybe.