Author: admin

Contributed by: filbert Tuesday, July 05 2011 @ 08:11 AM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Four

June 5 (Sunday, Day 11, Budapest, Hungary, 182 forint to the dollar) –

Hungarian Parliament Building. Very spikey.

We cruised into Budapest in the morning and everyone went to the skydeck to see Budapest’s beautiful architecture. Budapest, population 2 million, used to be two cities, Buda (the hilly side) and Pest (the flat side), separated by the Danube. So, it really is ON the Danube and seeing it from a ship is quite a neat experience. We docked literally across the Danube from the Budapest Intercontinental which would be our hotel for our final two nights in Budapest.

More after the jump . . . It was a hot, sunny and humid day and we had a 3-hour bus and walking tour. We drove up the hill to Buda Castle where we were able to have great views of the twin cities spread over both banks of the Danube. We also climbed the stairs to Fisherman’s Bastion.

Inside Buda Castle

Fisherman’s Bastion

Cathedral within Buda Castle

Old car. In castle. With headlight wipers.

Then we got back on the bus and drove by the Royal Palace, Parliament and St. Stephen’s Basilica. During the last 15 minutes of the bus tour, it started pouring rain. The tour guide said that was normal and that it would quickly stop and no one would even give it a second thought. Sure enough, locals used umbrellas or stood under awnings and after the “monsoon” passed, continued their walking. Everyone got back to the ship just in time for the 1:30 lunch. Lunch was a Hungarian lunch and Snookums really enjoyed the cabbage soup and pork goulash. The food on this cruise has not been very special or creative and this themed lunch was much appreciated.

Old cars. Painted in a black and white checkerboard pattern and welded together. In a lake.

Most passengers, including us, stayed on the ship the rest of the day since the heat zapped everyone’s energy. We spent time on our PCs and watched the French Open Men’s Final “live” which was nice. We finally decided to pack our luggage. That was easy since most of our clothes were dirty. (The ship didn’t have any self-serve laundry facilities and charged by the piece [$5.10 for a pair of pants]).

Snookums spent $70 in the gift shop since we had that much shipboard credit remaining and unlike ocean cruises, AMA Waterways will not give cash back at the end of the cruise. She bought an incredibly overpriced rayon pashmina-type shawl, a Murano glass cocktail ring, a tea towel with the map of Germany on it, a German wooden musical Christmas tree and three postcards to use up all of the credit. (The wooden Christmas tree on display was broken and didn’t play any music so Snookums is not too hopeful about this decoration.) Snookums tried to get Filbert to choose something, but just like on ocean cruise ships, the Amadolce’s gift shop really didn’t have anything of interest for men.

After the stressful shopping trip, we continued to relax until Roland, the cruise director, annoyed us with yet another announcement. This time it was, “Sooooooooooooo, make sure to pick up your passport at Reception.” That was followed by another announcement 30 minutes later with him saying, “Sooooooooooooo, the gates to paradise are open”, which meant it was time for dinner. Obviously the clocks in the cabins were not sufficient for people to know when it was 7 PM.

Speaking about the announcements, Roland told all the cruisers at the beginning of the cruise that to hear the announcements in the cabin, turn the TV to channel 1. Otherwise, they wouldn’t broadcast in the cabin. The problem with this was that the cabin doors were paper thin and EVERYTHING that happened in the hallway within 20 yards of the cabin door, we easily heard. This included the hallway speakers that seemed to be everywhere. Not only did he make announcements regarding the start of lunches and dinners (which were always printed in the daily program) but he also would do at least two announcements per tour to make sure people knew how many minutes were left until the tour left. His announcements always started with “Sooooooooooooo” and that was really, really, really annoying. Filbert really wanted to go up to him and say “Sooooooooouuuuuuuuullllllll Train”[*1] , but he never did.

Besides having paper-thin walls and doors with a cruise director that made constant announcements, there was another thing that bothered us about AMA Waterways. The dining room service was inconsistent. The dining room seemed short staffed since the wait staff was constantly hustling. Given that this cruise was 50% more expensive than our ocean cruises, we expected good service (and good food). Lunches were a variety of cold salads and a hot dish on the buffet as well as a menu that had two soups and two entrees listed that the waiter would deliver. On three different days, we were never given menus for lunch. This wasn’t that big of a deal since we could easily consume enough calories from the salads, but the menus should have been presented to us. A waiter didn’t even show up during these three days. Our water glasses were filled when we were at the buffet and other than that, we never had a waiter stop at our table. Dinners were somewhat similar in that we would get menus and get our food delivered, but after the entrees were delivered we noticed that the wait staff would walk around and offer the steamed vegetables. However, there were three nights when the vegetables were not offered to us. And, if one of the three steamed vegetables ran out before the pan was offered to you, it was not refilled. Snookums had brussels sprouts one night and since Filbert was the last person at the table to have the vegetables offered to him, he didn’t get any since they were all gone. We didn’t even realize this until a few days later when we were talking about brussels sprouts and he commented that he never saw them at any dinner. There definitely needed to be more waiters.

Dinner was a Hungarian dinner and Filbert thought it was the best meal of the cruise. Snookums still thought this afternoon’s lunch was better. The appetizer was a pancake stuffed with minced meat that had a paprika gravy on it and a dollop of sour cream. It was kind of like a Hungarian burrito covered in salsa. The soup was a fish soup that looked like a thin cream of tomato with some fish stock flavor. The entrée was pork loin on a sauce made from red and yellow peppers, onions, paprika and tomatoes served with mashed potatoes. Dessert was mousse mixed with pieces of cake and the red wine was from Hungary.

During this dinner, the table next to us had four people at it. We were talking and realized that they are two other couples that signed up for this cruise with our friend, Carl. One of the couples has cruised with Carl several times before and said that if Carl had been on the ship, he would have made sure that all of the couples would have had at least one dinner together and some happy hours. We all traded “Carl stories”.

Although the ship was overnighting in Budapest, the captain gave us a 45-minute cruise of Budapest at 9 PM when it was dark. The beautiful buildings are lit up at night so this gave us another nice memory. Filbert went to sleep during this evening sightseeing cruise, but Snookums enjoyed the sights.

Hungarian Royal Palace at night

June 6 (Monday, Day 12, Budapest, Hungary) –

After breakfast the cab that was ordered for us came. Although our hotel was directly across the river, the cruise director said that we should take the pre-arranged $21.65 cab to the hotel rather than flagging one down and haggling over a price since we would definitely get ripped off. It seems ludicrous that we couldn’t have negotiated a better fare for the 5-minute drive, but whatever. At that point all we really cared about was getting away from AMA Waterways.

We got to the Budapest Intercontinental around 9:45 AM and our upgraded room wasn’t ready yet. After a short 25-minute wait, it was. During the wait Snookums looked on the Priority Club website using the hotel’s iPad to find the rules about getting Lounge access for having Platinum status. She thought that Lounge access was a Platinum perk, but the front desk clerk said that only the room upgrade was. The iPad flustered her and she couldn’t find what she was looking for and settled for just the room upgrade.

We loved our 8th floor room. The huge picture windows had the best view imaginable of the Palace and Chain Bridge. We unpacked and stopped at the Concierge before leaving the hotel for a lunch recommendation. We made that restaurant our goal and headed out of the hotel, umbrella in hand. It started to rain quite heavily right then so we stood under the hotel’s awning and watched all of the police motorcades. We later found out that the many, many motorcades with lots of police cars with flashing lights was because Hungary is the president of the EU and a conference was being held at various locations around the city, including the Budapest Intercontinental. The motorcades were going the wrong way down streets and one of the motorcades was probably going around 75 MPH on the rain-slicked road behind the hotel. That was actually scary to see. The hotel was also hosting some kind of NATO meeting for doctors and we were in the elevator with some doctors (colonels) from Bulgaria in uniform.

The rain let up and we continued our walk to the restaurant while stopping at several little convenience stores along the way. Downtown Budapest has a bunch of super markets and even more 24-hour stores that are smaller, but still sell all of the essentials. Normal sized cans of vegetables were around $1.25 at all of the stores which is much more expensive than in the US. We also noticed a ton of liquor stores.

We found the restaurant that is family owned and specializes in Hungarian food and sat outside under the umbrellas. We decided to order an appetizer of the pancake stuffed with minced meat that we had on the ship last night to compare. We ordered chicken paprikash and cabbage rolls for our entrees and split them. The chicken paprikash was not very flavorful but the cabbage rolls were very tasty. However, the $80 bill made us realize that we should never ask a hotel Concierge for recommendations. (We knew this, but obviously lost our mind momentarily when we asked for restaurant recommendations!) We would have been happier eating at one of the dumpy little places we passed.

We decided to walk to the train station since we needed a destination. Along the way we saw St. Stephan’s Cathedral. We stopped at a super market and Filbert bought a Coke Zero and Snookums bought a puff pastry danish (it looked like a burrito) filled with a heavy, curdly cream cheese-like filling that was topped with wonderful cherry preserves. It was delicious.

After reaching the train station, we headed back for the hotel. We stopped in a super market to buy paprika. Snookums asked a man for advice and he explained the different types and suggested the correct brand to buy. We bought two packages of spicy paprika and Filbert bought some beer.

We continued our walk and then it started raining a lot. We decided to go into an office building and wait in the lobby on the nice leather couches. There were even copies of a weekly English-language Budapest business newspaper for us to read! We read for about 30 minutes while it rained. When it stopped, we continued back to the hotel and came upon a large protest march. A man told us it was one of the police unions protesting since the Prime Minister recently suggested that the retirement age be increased as well as the pension decreased. It was a large and loud (and orderly march) and made the front page of the paper the next day.

We got back to the hotel at 5 PM and Snookums talked to the front desk clerk about using points to get lounge access. He had the manager deal with her. The manager said that we could buy lounge access at the reduced rate of $30 per person per night (from $60 per person per night) due to Snookums’s Platinum status and Snookums had her hopes on the Lounge so she agreed! (For those of you who know Snookums, she is the cheapest/thriftiest person around and this was totally out of character for her.) Therefore, we went to the 1st floor Lounge and enjoyed the free Internet (which would have cost $20/day/person). With her PC, Snookums searched for the wording that gave free lounge access to Platinum level people. She found it in the Member’s Guide. It stated that Platinum guests would be upgraded to THE best room type. She accessed the hotel’s website and pretended to book a room that included lounge access so she was confident in her assertion that Platinum members should get lounge access for free. She spoke to the lounge receptionist and a meeting with the hotel manager was scheduled for the next morning to discuss getting complimentary access.

While in the lounge Filbert enjoyed the red wine during happy hour. We ate dinner there, too, of pork meatballs, mozzarella sticks, fried zucchini, vegetable soup, raw vegetables, potato salad, little sandwiches, and small pieces of various cakes. The floor to ceiling windows offered great views and we stayed until 9 PM, just relaxing after our 6-hour walk (and lunch) around Pest.

When we got back to our room, we were pleasantly surprised to find a bottle of Hungaria brand sparkling wine and a small bottle of merlot. We’re not sure why they were delivered, but we didn’t complain. We sat in the window seat and gazed out at the lights on the palace, the castle and Chain Bridge. We walked a ton and looked forward to the king bed after having the queen bed on the ship.

June 7 (Tuesday, Day 13, Budapest, Hungary) –

We woke up and made sure that we were in the lounge for the meeting with the manager. We also ate a large breakfast there. The manager explained that lounge access is not considered a room type so that is why a Platinum member doesn’t get free lounge access. Snookums decided not to pay for another night in the lounge.

Budapest Great Market Hall

After breakfast, we walked to the Great Market Hall which is the biggest indoor market in Budapest. Most of the people buying things were locals. There were stalls selling sausages, produce, fresh meat, caviar, liquor, fish, cheese and then tourist items like tablecloths, tshirts, and pictures. We bought a handpainted print of the palace for our travel wall at home. Around 11 AM, Filbert enjoyed a Freher Bak (a dark Hungarian beer) and he wasn’t alone. There were five groups of Hungarian men drinking that early, too!!

Inside the Great Market Hall

We left the market and wandered around Budapest for another four hours. At 3 we returned to the hotel and went to the lounge. The manager said we had access until 4 PM so we figured we needed to get our money’s worth. We drank a lot of Coke Light and ate the various little nibbles that were out. We were hoping to be able to stay for happy hour/dinner at 6, but at 6 the receptionist asked us if we had changed our mind and wanted to pay for another day. We left!

We were hungry and tired and decided to walk until we found a restaurant that looked good. We ate at one of the many outdoor restaurants at Vörösmarti ter, a large and lively square near our hotel. Snookums ordered beef paprikash with noodles and egg (it seemed like a beaten egg was stirred onto the homemade cooked noodles [kind of like spaetzle]) and Filbert had bacon wrapped turkey which came with five small scoops of mashed potatoes. We were happy with our orders (and the bill!). On the way back to the hotel, Snookums wanted to see the desserts at Cafe Garbeaud which has been around since 1870 and is famous for its plum pie. Fortunately (or unfortunately) nothing jumped out at her.

Old car. Green. Without headlight wipers.

June 8 (Wednesday, Day 14, Trying to get home) –

We bought the hotel’s buffet breakfast at the reduced rate of $17 per person due to our Accenture room rate. It was a very bountiful spread and even had miso soup and congee for Asian appetites.

Our airport shuttle arrived promptly at 10 AM and we got to our gate with plenty of time for our 1 PM flight to Munich. There was a lounge right next to the gate that we were entitled to use from having a certain credit card. It had every liquor imaginable plus all sorts of individually wrapped candy bars and cookies and had free wifi and three different English language papers. We happily settled in for our wait.

We went to the gate only to be told that there were mechanical problems and an update would be given in 30 minutes. That led to a 2-hour delay. The lounge receptionist was used to seeing us come and go. We finally decided to stand in line for new tickets and were given business class tickets to Frankfurt. We were told that we wouldn’t be able to get a flight to the U.S. from Frankfurt today, but to get new tickets to the U.S. after landing in Frankfurt. We were just happy to leave the Budapest airport.

It was now 3:45 PM and although we had candy bars and junk in the lounge, we hadn’t eaten any lunch since there was no time between all of the delay updates. Snookums was really looking forward to the business class food. It ended up being smoked tuna (raw), two pieces of Brie cheese and a tiny fruit cup. It was definitely a pricey lunch, but Snookums hates raw tuna and Brie cheese. The flight attendant came by with various rolls and Snookums took two. She ate some of the candy bars that she took from the lounge, too.

We landed in Frankfurt at 5 PM and found the right place to go for Lufthansa re-ticketing. We were given a hotel and dinner voucher as well as new flights on Thursday through Washington, DC. We tried to sweet-talk our way into business class tickets, but could only get exit row seating in economy. We walked to another part of the huge Frankfurt airport for our toiletry kits. (When you get stuck overnight, you are not allowed to get your checked baggage. So, we needed toothbrushes and toothpaste and stuff from Lufthansa.) Filbert realized he needed distilled water for his CPAP so then we went to the full-size grocery store in the basement of the Frankfurt airport. He also bought beer there. Our toiletry kits contained white t-shirts in them so we had clean shirts for tomorrow but Filbert also wanted clean underwear. We went to several stores looking for men’s underwear and finally found them in the Levi’s store. One pair of Levi’s underwear cost $31.70. Our cruise insurance will come in handy…

We exited the airport at 8 PM and waited for the shuttle bus to the hotel. We had just spent three hours in the airport walking all over it and were very tired and hungry. We got to the hotel and dumped our stuff in the room and went to dinner. Snookums was hoping to order some German food, but it ended up being a buffet. It was a good buffet, but the only German thing on it was the potato salad. Oh well. We enjoyed dinner and returned to our room. Snookums called the front desk to ask how to use the air conditioning and was informed that a room with air conditioning would cost an extra $30. We decided to stay where we were and opened the window instead.

It had been a long day and we went to sleep in the hot room.

June 9 (Thursday, Day 15, Flying home) –

Neither of us slept well due to the stuffy room, but we survived. We showered and put on our thin white t-shirts, compliments of Lufthansa, and went to the breakfast buffet. To access the dining area you had to swipe your room key in the turnstile reader and then go through the turnstile. This system was not used for dinner, but the hotel must have a problem with people coming in for the breakfast buffet so they installed the turnstile. It was strange, but it worked. We caught the shuttle to the airport and got to the gate about an hour before the flight left.

We boarded the plane and enjoyed our exit row seats that literally had no seats in front of them. We had plenty of leg room. Snookums watched four films on the 8-hour flight and Filbert watched several Discovery nature shows. The two meals were okay, too. We landed at Washington and only two of our three pieces of luggage were there. Oh well. We went through Customs and went through security again and Snookums found one Chinese yuan ($0.15). We looked at the Departures board and saw that our flight to KC was delayed two hours. United lounge, here we come! Filbert enjoyed a beer and got the snacks of cheese, crackers, cookies, yogurt covered raisins, trail mix and fresh vegetables while Snookums called Mom. We had free wifi, too. Life was good and then Snookums noticed that our flight was no longer delayed two hours and was getting ready to board.

We went to the gate and boarded the flight to KC. It was a regional jet with a total of three seats across and we were in the very last row and the lavatory was behind us. A little boy had a difficult time getting out so the flight attendant came and got him out. We learned that on every airplane, the lavatory doors have a little silver plaque above the area that says “Occupied” or “Vacant”. If you lift up this little plaque, you can unlock the door from the outside! After flying all these years, that was new information for Snookums. Later on in the flight, the flight attendant locked the door (while the lavatory was empty) and we couldn’t figure out why until the pilot walked down the aisle to use it. On such a small plane, no one gets up to use the lavatory until it is vacant so if it says “Occupied” then the pilot can use it without any wait. That makes a lot of sense.

Our flight ultimately landed a little more than a hour late and our third piece of luggage wasn’t there so we had to file a delayed baggage report. We got home around 6 PM, unpacked, showered and went to bed around 10 PM. We left the Budapest Intercontinental 39 hours before finally making it home!

Note: Our third piece of luggage was delivered on Saturday afternoon after Janet was told to replace required items. United reimbursed her $125.45 for the required items that she bought Saturday morning.

[*1] http://youtu.be/nFRy4f73HTg?t=41s

Contributed by: filbert Monday, July 04 2011 @ 05:15 PM CST

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Oh, and in case you’d like to know:

Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job[*1]

Contributed by: filbert Sunday, July 03 2011 @ 12:24 PM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Three

June 4 (Saturday, Day 10, Vienna, Austria) –

Krems, in passing

Before we jump into Vienna, one picture of a town along the way from Melk to Vienna–Krems.

More after the jump . . . Welcome to Vienna!

Vienna strikes up the band for us

The guided tour started with a bus ride around Ringstrasse (Ring Road) which is a grand boulevard constructed along the old city walls. We saw many beautiful buildings including the Rathaus [City Hall], the Austrian Parliament, the Hofburg Palace, the Natural History Museum, the Museum of Art History (Kunsthistorisches Museum), and the Vienna Opera House. Vienna is a stunningly beautiful city and has a population of around 1.7 million.

The bus let everyone off at St. Stephen’s Cathedral and after listening to our monotone tour guide for about 10 minutes, we decided to just walk around ourselves. We did learn that St. Stephen’s Cathedral is covered with 230,000 colorful glazed tiles.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral roof tiles

Flower clock, Stadtpark

After that, we quit listening. We knew what tram to take to get back to the ship and had all day so we weren’t concerned about getting lost. We enjoyed a stationary marching band that was made up of men and women that appeared to be in their 40s and 50s that for some reason was playing in front of St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

We walked to the famous wiener schnitzel restaurant, Figlmüller, and each ordered a huge wiener schnitzel and a potato salad with field greens. Filbert also had a stein (yep, a mug) of some kind of wine that the waiter recommended would go well with the wiener schnitzel.

Figlmüller food

It was the best $57.16 we could have spent. We sat on the outside of the restaurant, but luckily for us, there was a wooden wall about chest high that prevented the numerous passersby from reaching over and grabbing our great food while still allowing us to people watch. It was funny, though, to watch people’s reactions as they saw the bigger than plate-sized wiener schnitzel. For the record, the other 8 people eating in our section also ordered individual wiener schnitzels and side salads so we weren’t the only pigs!

After lunch we continued our walk to nowhere and ended up at the Vienna Opera House. Hotel Sacher was just across the street and that is the hotel that created Sacher Torte. Of course we had to have a piece. So, we shared a piece of Sacher Torte and Filbert ordered a glass of apple spritzer (non-alcoholic, kind of like sparkling apple cider – it seemed to be THE non-alcoholic beverage of choice in Germany and Austria). Snookums tried to order a glass of tap water since she noticed that many people had little juice glasses of water in front of them but the waitress quickly informed her that those glasses of water only come with an order of coffee. Gee, you would think that they could have provided a little juice glass of water, but nope! And, Snookums will not spend money on water in Europe since it is often very minerally or else carbonated. Snookums just wants plain old tap water… The Sacher Torte was okay and that bill at the outdoor café was $12.25 – ouch!!

Sacher Torte–the original

Hotel Sacher

We continued our walk and saw Hofburg Palace and a brass band was playing in front of it, too. We also stumbled upon a country music festival that was just about to start in front of the Rathaus. The definition of country music probably meant traditional since many, many people were wearing lederhosen (men) or dirndls (women). By now it was very hot and Filbert was happy to buy a beer from the beer stand set up just for the festival.

We kept walking around and decided it was time to head back to the ship. We found the nearest D Tram stop only to read that it was closed for two hours due to the “country” music festival in the middle of the city! So that’s why we kept seeing bands playing in various places. We finally figured out what metro to take to one of the open D Tram stations and made it back to the ship around 4 PM. We were hot and tired, but had a great day.

The ship left the dock and after about 30 minutes had to dock again at a different location since our passports needed to be checked. The World Economic Forum was being held in Vienna and that meant that the borders were closed. Normally you can travel from Austria to Hungary without any passport check, but the World Economic Forum nixed that. It didn’t interfere with our trip, but was an interesting development.

Contributed by: filbert Saturday, July 02 2011 @ 12:34 PM CST

The Legendary Danube, May 26-June 8, 2011, AMA Waterways Amadolce

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Two

(June 1 (Wednesday, Day 7, Regensburg, Germany) –

We woke up to rain and drizzle and mid-50 temps. We went on the 90-minute walking tour (tours are included in the cruise price). Pope Benedict XVI is from Regensburg and we saw the house that Oscar Schindler lived in for four years after World War II. We saw a bunch of other old stuff, too, including lots of towers since this town wasn’t hurt by World War II and a lot of it dates back to the 1100s.

More after the jump . . . We woke up to rain and drizzle and mid-50 temps. We went on the 90-minute walking tour (tours are included in the cruise price). Pope Benedict XVI is from Regensburg and we saw the house that Oscar Schindler lived in for four years after World War II. We saw a bunch of other old stuff, too, including lots of towers since this town wasn’t hurt by World War II and a lot of it dates back to the 1100s.

After the tour we ate lunch at the historic sausage kitchen (Historische Wurstkuchl). This restaurant claims to be the oldest sausage restaurant in the world (just like Nuremberg’s) and it dates from 1135. That is older than Nuremberg’s. Per our Regensburg guide, there was a legal battle between the two restaurants but Snookums doesn’t know the outcome. Regensburg’s sausage kitchen is next to the Stone Bridge which was built by the Romans in 1135 and this kitchen supposedly catered for the Romans workers. The Regensburg sausages look like the Nuremberg ones (short and skinny), but they taste different. The Nuremberg sausages are made up of a coarser grind and don’t have as much spices. The rolls in Nuremberg are softer and don’t have caraway seeds in them. The mustard in Nuremberg is just a tad spicy whereas Regensburg is famous for its sweet mustard and it is definitely sweet. (Too sweet for our tastes.) The sauerkraut in Nuremberg is a bit sweeter and that probably makes sense since the Regensburg sauerkraut is probably so sour to compensate for the very sweet mustard. The Regensburg German potato salad had slices of cucumber in it which gave a nice flavor. In Nuremberg, sausages on a roll purchased at a kiosk consisted of three sausages on a roll and a pump container full of mustard to help yourself. In Regensburg, you got two sausages and a choice of sauerkraut or not and a choice of mustard or not. Snookums liked the Nuremberg rolls, sausages and mustard better. Filbert liked the Regensburg rolls better but they were way too hard and crunchy for Snookums’s mouth and they had caraway seeds in them and Snookums doesn’t like caraway seeds.

We got back to the ship and Snookums tried to warm up. She went to the Bavarian lunch on the ship and tried the German potato salad. It was just okay. Filbert stayed in the cabin and worked on his book.

Soon it was time for dinner. Well, not quite. Before dinner every night the cruise director, Roland, spends 15 minutes explaining the next day’s itinerary. Although we get a daily program delivered to our room every night for the next day, we make a point of going to Roland’s speech. When he is done, dinner is served. We didn’t feel social and sat at a table for two. Filbert ordered both the red fish and the German wheat dumpling with mushroom ragout and Snookums ordered the German wheat dumpling with mushroom ragout. The dumpling, which was the size of a cue ball, was not very tasty. However, the mushroom ragout was very good and made a nice gravy for the steamed brussels sprouts and broccoli. Dinners haven’t been that impressive and the additional vegetables that they bring around each night have always included steamed turnips and steamed carrots with either steamed celery or steamed brussels sprouts. The vegetables are not very imaginative.

A famous Franconian singer was the post-dinner entertainment, but we didn’t attend her performance in the lounge. A lot of people said that she really was very good and sang popular songs. We went back to the cabin and since no tv channels were coming in, we watched one of the movies. The movie choices left a lot to be desired so we chose one of the classic movies, “A Bridge Too Far”. Unfortunately we didn’t realize it was a 3-hour movie and we were pooped after two hours. (I suppose you could say it was “A Movie Too Far.” — Filbert)

June 2 (Thursday, Day 8, Passau & Linz, Austria) –

We woke up and joined the walking tour of Passau. Passau has 50,000 inhabitants and its only industry is tourism. The Danube, Inn and Ilz Rivers form a junction in Passau and cause a lot of flooding. In addition to horrible floods, old town Passau has seen the Romans, Charlemagne’s troops, the crusaders, the Turks, and Napoleon’s legions. For 600 years, Passau was the largest sovereign bishopric, and the Bishops of Passau were very wealthy, powerful, and independent of the emperor.

Passau

Since it was Ascension Thursday, nothing was open. All of the churches’ bells seemed to ring at the same time and at one point as we were standing in the square in front of St. Stephan’s Cathedral, which has Europe’s largest church organ with 17,774 pipes and 233 registers, it was almost overwhelmingly loud.

Flowers in Passau

St. Stephan’s Cathedral

The opposite bank of the river from Passau

Leaving Passau

While we were eating lunch the ship left for Linz, Austria. We passed through several locks and there was a religious statue on the Danube’s banks after one of the locks and it is superstition to throw a coin at the statue and if you hit it, you make a wish. Filbert and Snookums stood in their cabin and the French balcony and threw their coins, one person at a time, but neither hit the statue.

We left our cabin since the cruise director was talking about seeing castles from the left side of the ship and since it was cold and overcast outside, we went to the Aft Lounge. We consider it our private lounge since our cheap balcony cabin is the second one from the back so the Aft Lounge is very close to us. People that we had talked to while we were crossing the Continental Divide were in there so I talked to them while Filbert wrote his book. We all enjoyed the scenery.

An ice cream social was during tea time so we all left the Aft Lounge for our ice cream. Six flavors of hard ice cream and 10 toppings made Snookums very happy!

Filbert doled out his next seven days worth of pills and realized that he left his prescription meds at home. He sent an email to Snookums’s sisters and Jean quickly got the prescriptions emailed to the ship. Roland, the cruise director, said he would try to fill them in Melk tomorrow. Filbert had enough through Saturday so if they don’t get filled, he’ll only be without his prescriptions for four days. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that an emailed prescription from the US will work in Austria!

The ship docked in Linz, Austria during dinner. After dinner a trio came on the ship to play Mozart and other music but we opted to get off the ship and explore Linz, Austria. It was 8:30 PM or so and all the stores were closed. Linz is the third largest city in Austria and it seemed to have a mixture of old buildings and new buildings with no rhyme or reason. There were a lot of people just walking around window shopping. McDonald’s and some restaurants/sidewalk cafes were open. We went in the McDonald’s since we realized we never went in one in Nuremberg (and there were at least three of them in the Old Town). Since we were in Austria, the McCafe sold all sorts of coffee drinks as well as fancy pastries. The restrooms had a turnstile on the outside that required a €0.50 coin to even enter them! We didn’t need to use them, but this is the first time we’ve seen a pay toilet in a McDonald’s in any of our world travels.

We made it back to the ship just as it started to rain. We’ve had a lot of drizzle/rain and cold, cloudy weather on the trip so far.

June 3 (Friday, Day 9, Melk & Vienna, Austria) –

Our tour started at 8:30 AM so we had to get up early. The bus took us to the beautiful, huge 18th-century Melk Abbey on top of the hill. It currently has 30 monks and priests as well as a day school for 900 elementary students. The various buildings and grounds were as impressive as a palace and the actual church was beautiful, too. After the guided walking tour through the abbey, we walked back to the ship. The morning turned sunny and warm and no one needed the jackets that they started off wearing.

The Prelate’s Courtyard of Melk Abbey

The four virtues depicted in the frescoes in the Melk Abbey Courtyard (don’t quote me on which legend actually goes with each picture–I didn’t take notes, OK?):

Wisdom

Justice

Fortitude

Temperance

Melk seemed to consist of one main street about three blocks long with two streets branching off of it for its population of 5,000. We walked it all. Snookums wanted to find a bakery and two of them were out of business. We never saw a bakery or a grocery store but we did pass a meat market and went in and Filbert bought two cold beers.

Melk, from the Abbey

The Adventurers at the Abbey

Unlike in Germany where there is an €0.08 deposit on every glass bottle and a €0.25 deposit on every plastic bottle and can, Austria doesn’t have any deposits. (We never managed to figure out how to get our deposits back in Germany and left our empty cans and bottles next to the hotel’s trash can. Hopefully the maid turned them in and made some extra money!)

The ship departed Melk during lunch and after lunch everyone seemed to be on the skydeck enjoying the sunny, warm afternoon. (Filbert stayed in the room writing his book until he finally had to see the scenery and went outside for a few minutes of picture taking.) The ship passed vineyards, castles and ruins and we were on the 20-mile stretch of river along Austria’s Wachau Valley. It is regarded as the most attractive part of the Danube.

Snookums read her paperback outside, under the canopy, for the entire afternoon. Every time the ship passed under a bridge the canopy had to be lowered so she had to move into the sun. The canopy isn’t that tall, but the captain never knows the height of the river’s water and to be on the safe side, everything is lowered and people are told to sit down. At some point in the afternoon, Kaiser Spritzers (elderberry juice and champagne) were passed around and Snookums took one to Filbert in the cabin. Around 4:30 it got very dark and cloudy and Snookums went inside. Then it started pouring rain!

We ate dinner with Claire and Andre from Montreal, Quebec and during dinner the head waiter made an announcement that it is standard practice on AMA Waterways to clean produce with a mixture containing 25ppm chlorine in order to kill any e coli. This announcement probably should have been made at the beginning of the cruise since the German cucumber/bean sprout/whatever contamination happened prior to us boarding the ship. Better yet, it could have been printed in the daily program every day.

During dinner the ship docked in Vienna but since the city center was a long tram ride away, we decided to just go to bed and be well rested for our tour in the morning.

Contributed by: filbert Friday, July 01 2011 @ 11:31 AM CST

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part One

(May 26 (Thursday, Day 1, Flying to Nuremberg, Germany) –

Over the top of the world

Our 1:30 PM flight to Chicago was on time and gave us just enough time to get to the Lufthansa gate while the flight was boarding. It was a completely full flight so we didn’t have an empty seat between us in economy class. Oh well. Lufthansa was generous with its beverages and Filbert enjoyed red wine throughout the flight. Our dinner choices were either Indian vegetarian or chicken. We each chose the chicken. It wasn’t too bad for airplane food and consisted of chicken and rice, a cold vegetable salad, a roll and a small brownie. The movies were the “Green Hornet” and “The Tourist” and since Snookums had no interest in either of them she tried to sleep.

More after the jump . . . Suprisingly, Filbert actually slept more than Snookums did. Towards the end of the 8-hour flight a snack was served. It was a roll, cheese, granola bar and fresh fruit cup.

May 27 (Friday, Day 2, Nuremberg, Germany – €0.70 to the dollar) –

We landed in Frankfurt 20 minutes early on Friday at 6:30 AM. That was a good thing since after passing through Customs, walking forever to our terminal and re-doing security, the bus was getting ready to leave to take people to the airplane to Nuremberg. Our 40-minute flight to Nuremberg was uneventful. It was almost 9 AM on Friday when we landed in Nuremberg. The weather looked a little cloudy but nice.

Nuremberg clock tower

We got our luggage and found an ATM to get Euros and went outside and downstairs to the metro. We couldn’t find the ticket machine anywhere and the train was here so we got on and hoped for the best. No one checked for tickets and when we transferred at the main station we bought our tickets for the rest of the journey (just two more stations). We were happy to escape the 40 Euro fine for riding without a ticket.The metro station was 2 minutes from the Holiday Inn and Snookums even had a detailed map. We rolled our suitcases behind us on the cobblestone streets and sidewalks and got to the hotel after about a 5 or 10-minute walk. It was only 10 AM and our room wasn’t ready so we stowed our luggage and went out exploring. We were hoping to get to our room, shower and take a short nap, but a traveler has to do what a traveler has to do! The Holiday Inn is located 2 minutes from the metro station if you go the straight route. Unfortunately, on our way to the hotel with all of our luggage we took the roundabout way. Oh well. We walked all over Old Town (Altstadt) with its surrounding walls, moats, gateways and watchtowers dating to 1452. It is very much a commercial hub now and the streets are filled with stores, fast food chains, bakeries and kiosks selling either Nuremberg bratwurst or pretzels (but no kiosks sold beer). Some of the streets are pedestrian only and all of them are cobblestone of some sort or another.After a couple of hours of wandering around, we decided it was time for lunch and with our jetlag and just feeling kind of crummy/scummy, finally decided that a Thai fast food chain in a food court sounded the best. It was actually made to order, very fresh and very good. Nothing like going to Germany to eat Thai food!On our way back to the Holiday Inn Filbert enjoyed a roll with three Nuremberg bratwursts in it for €2.50 ($3.60). There were many kiosks selling these small grilled bratwursts. Nuremberg bratwursts have to be able to fit through a medieval keyhole since that allowed pub owners to sell them during medieval times. Therefore, they are about the length of a cigarette and about as thick as three cigarettes. Snookums bought a huge piece of rhubarb strawberry küchen (€2.25 or $3.24) for later from a bakery in a grocery store in the basement of a department store. Filbert also bought two different .5 liter bottles of local beer to enjoy later (€0.89 each or $1.28). Snookums found €0.01 on the ground which means that she continues to find money in foreign countries. Tanzania, the Maldives and the Seychelles are probably the only countries she has been to where she hasn’t found money!Our room was ready around 2:30 and we took showers and napped until 6:30 PM. Due to the gabled roof, the shower curtain could not close all the way so the shower leaked all over the floor but Housekeeping brought us a bunch of towels. About a minute from the hotel, we had a delightful dinner at Historische Bratwurst-Küche Zum Gulder Stern. This restaurant is THE oldest sausage restaurant in the world and was built in 1375! Filbert ordered the fewest number of Nuremberg bratwursts, 6, and Snookums had the “city” bratwurst. Filbert ordered the sauerkraut for his side dish and Snookums ordered the potato salad. Filbert’s bratwursts were grilled over an open beech-wood fire that was almost the extent of the kitchen. Snookums’s “city” bratwurst was a larger sausage – almost like ½ of a thick ring sausage. They were both good. Snookums’s was a finer grind as compared to Filbert’s. Snookums tried to order water from the tap but the plumbing is so old that it is not safe to drink! (The waitress couldn’t speak a lot of English but we think she was saying that the pipes were lead.) Snookums choked down €2.50 bottled mineral water instead. Filbert enjoyed €3.50 beer, naturally. Filbert’s sauerkraut had lots of caraway seeds in it along with bay leaves and a couple of juniper berries. Snookums’s potato salad was pretty good, but not as good as her mom’s German potato salad.On the way back to the Holiday Inn we decided to explore the “red light” district that started four establishments down from the hotel. We saw at least eight businesses where the scantily clad women were sitting in the windows trying to entice the men that walked by! Snookums thought this only happened in Amsterdam, but obviously Nuremberg participates, too. Taking a left from the Holiday Inn got you to Old Town. Taking a right got you …..We tried to stay up until midnight, but Snookums fell asleep at 11 PM. It was a long day.

May 28 (Saturday, Day 3, Nuremberg, Germany) –

Nuremberg riverside

Filbert woke up around 8 AM and finally woke Snookums up around 10 AM. We explored the town and ate lunch at another famous bratwurst restaurant near the rathaus (city hall). Filbert wanted to order the Nuremberg bratwursts again but decided on the Nuremberg goulash. It was the Nuremberg bratwursts cut up in a paprika/tomato/red pepper gravy and served with spaetzle. It was okay. Snookums ordered penne pasta with tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella balls.We continued walking around and enjoyed the Hauptmarkt (main market), a farmer’s market. Lots of white asparagus, rhubarb and strawberries were for sale. Nearby was a church (Frauenkirche – Church of our Lady) and an elderly German man told us it was built in the 12th century. Then he launched into German and we said “English” and he would speak a few words of English before forgetting and lapsing into Germany again. Although we didn’t understand what he was saying, we could tell he was very proud of his town and his church.We continued our walk around the Kaiserburg (Imperial Castle) and enjoyed its gardens with roses and flowers in full bloom. Most of the castle dates back from the 15th century. We started getting worn out and headed back to the hotel. Snookums took a 3-hour nap!At 7 PM we decided it was time for dinner and enjoyed pan-fried matjes fish filets with fried potatoes at the “fish festival”. The “fish festival” was located at the part of Old Town closest to our hotel. There were several large banners that said “Fish Days” or something like that in German. 20 different temporary vendors were selling ready-to-eat fish items. Most of the vendors were selling a whole, cold fish (tail included!) with huge amounts of thinly sliced white onions on a roll or else they were selling various kinds of fish salad on a roll. A few vendors were selling fish and chips. We went to the vendor selling pan-fried fish and fried potatoes for our dinner. It was very good. There were also two carnival rides for children. Several of the booths had signs saying “Since 1953” or “Since 1951” so this must be an annual event. It closed at 10:30 PM on Saturday.The other unique thing occurring was “Blue Night”. This was a one-night annual event and lots of activities were happening all over Old Town starting at 7 PM. Some required tickets. We could not read any of the schedules so we just walked around. We did see that a lot of large, blue lights were at the base of most of the old churches and the castle and things like that in order to illuminate them in blue. The streets were packed full of people but everyone was nice and there wasn’t any rowdiness. The stores closed at 8 PM and most of the bratwurst and pretzel kiosks were closed, too. And, there were just a handful of places selling beer to people walking around. That’s probably why it wasn’t rowdy. Snookums found a bakery that was still open and bought a large Danish topped with what she thinks were currants. Filbert found a bratwurst vendor and had a grilled city bratwurst on a hard roll. Between the “Fish Days” festival and Blue Night, Nuremberg seems to be a city of festivals. In fact, we saw notices for the Africa Festival next week and the Beach Festival in mid-June. Germans know how to party!We got back to our room in time to see the last 10 minutes of the Champions League Final in London. Nothing like watching a sport you don’t care for (soccer), in a language you don’t understand (German) between British (Manchester United) and Spanish (Barcelona) teams. That’s definitely being international! (Note – Our friend Gary that we have cruised with on three occasions flew to London for this soccer match so we felt that we had to watch it. We were in Barcelona with him when he got his picture taken with Messi, Barcelona’s star player. His wife isn’t a soccer fan and stayed home in Phoenix rather than going to London.)

May 29 (Sunday, Day 4, Nuremberg, Germany) –

We woke up a little before 9 and decided to eat the hotel’s overpriced breakfast buffet (€15 or $21.35 per person). It is difficult to find an “American” breakfast in Europe. There are lots of bakeries and coffee shops but all they really sell are pastries and coffee. Pastries are fine for Snookums (and much appreciated!), but Filbert tries to stay away from carbohydrates in order to keep the pounds off. The breakfast was fine and had all the normal fixings, but wasn’t worth $21.

Rathausplatz

We tried to use the free wireless internet in the lobby but it was down and we were told it wouldn’t be fixed until tomorrow since the company that supports it doesn’t work on Sunday. We were also told that there was no manager on duty. Neither of these things went over well with Snookums.Snookums took a 3-hour nap and when she woke up, we went out and about for dinner. We walked to the main train station first in order to buy some beer (for Filbert) and a bakery treat (for Snookums) since all the stores on the street were closed since it was Sunday. Then we decided to eat at another famous bratwurst restaurant in Old Town but it was also closed. We started walking back to the hotel and looked at one restaurant that was open, but decided to eat dinner at Fish Days. We went to the sausage vendor and each bought a different kind of sausage on a roll (so much for fish!). Filbert also had fried calamari from one of the fish vendors since it was Fish Days. Filbert also had a radler which is a drink made up of ~1 inch of Sprite and the rest beer. He drank it but didn’t order another one and instead had a “normal” German wheat beer. We asked the barmaid about Fish Days and she said, in perfect English with no accent (and she only studied English in high school), that it was a 10-day festival that used to be held in October but it was too cold so it was re-scheduled for the end of May and the beginning of June. The festival first started in Hamburg, Germany.

May 30 (Monday, Day 5, Boarding ms Amadolce) –

We woke up, packed and took our luggage to the front desk. Snookums set up a meeting with the manager at 2 PM. Then we walked to the Das Bratwursthäusle Nürnberg (the restaurant that we tried to eat at Sunday night) and each enjoyed 6 bratwurst. Snookums ordered the potato salad and Filbert ordered the sauerkraut and also ordered horseradish. The horseradish was just like the kind that Snookums’s mom makes – ground up horseradish in vinegar and not cream. Filbert enjoyed it, along with his stein of doppelbock beer. We finished just as the Frauenkirche (church) bells tolled. Frauenkirche is a church built around 1350 and it has an ornate clock on its west façade. Every day at noon the figures of the Emperor Karl IV parade out of the Frauenkirche clock along with his seven counts. After seeing that “must see”, we went back to the Holiday Inn.

The Frauenkirche

The Clock Parade

When we got to the Holiday Inn, the free internet still wasn’t working and the front desk personnel seemed surprised to hear this. Snookums met with the manager and explained the problems with the internet and the shower and he discounted the room rate by 30% and gave the overpriced Sunday breakfast for free. We took a cab to the harbor around 1:30. When we were pulling up, Snookums was thinking that there must be a large dinner cruise business since there were three dinner cruise boats docked. Then she realized that one of these tiny ships was her river cruise ship for the next 7 nights! We boarded our ship (142 passengers, 74 cabins) and were the second couple to board. Embarkation wasn’t supposed to start until 3 PM and we waited in the lounge for about 30 minutes until our cabin was ready. Snookums enjoyed throwing pieces of bread to the small fish in the Main-Danube Canal. (We won’t reach the Danube River until Tuesday.)Our 170 sq. ft. room was ready and we unpacked in about 10 minutes. This is the smallest cabin we’ve ever had. There are four 210 sq. ft. cabins on this ship, but the cost for one of those didn’t seem to be justified at all. Our cabin does have a French balcony, but it is only about 4 inches deep. Filbert calls it a sliding door to nowhere. AMA Waterways calls it a French balcony. The third cabin type on this ship is also 170 sq. ft. but is on the lowest deck and has two windows towards the top of the wall.

Amadolce cabin

We spent five minutes exploring the ship and saw the lounge, dining room, store, fitness room (two bikes, a treadmill, a set of free weights, sauna, shower, toilet), sun deck and game room. The beauty salon is by appointment only. The ship can only be so wide in order to fit through the river locks so space is at a premium. We used the free WiFi in the cabin until dinner. Oh yeah, there is no room service and the ice machine is down the hall. The cabin is serviced twice a day, but you have to get your own ice. The lounge has coffee and tea 24 hours a day and also has cookies but they aren’t very impressive.Most of the other cruisers spent three nights in Prague, as part of the cruise package, and they arrived on the ship around 4:30. Prague was a 5-hour bus ride from Nuremberg so we felt we definitely made the right decision to fly directly to Nuremberg and explore on our own since we had already been to Prague. We saved a lot of money, too, compared to what AMA Waterways wanted to charge for those three nights in Prague. (AMA Waterways is considered one of the “luxury” river cruise companies.) We went to the Captain’s cocktail reception (free champagne!) and then dinner and were seated with two couples from Australia who had just met earlier in Prague. None of them had been on ocean cruises before so Snookums explained that everything and anything from the menu could be ordered. We had a nice time talking about American politics and travel. We felt that the dinner service and food were below average as compared to our ocean cruises. There were no bread plates. The waitress messed up the table’s order two different times. The food was so-so. There is free wine and/or beer with dinner and Filbert enjoyed the wine. Snookums ordered a large water with lemon and a straw…. It is open seating and everyone eats at 7 PM. It seemed like they started clearing the tables around 8:30. After dinner the only onboard musician (a piano player) played in the lounge. We opted to go to our room. We went to the 10:30 PM “late snacks” to see what it was. It was a chafing dish that contained a mixture of small meatballs, chicken nuggets and vegetarian patties. The meatballs were okay and the other two items weren’t very good.

May 31 (Tuesday, Day 6, Nuremberg & Crossing the Continental Divide) –

Breakfast is a buffet of cereals, fruits, breads, yogurts, bacon, scrambled eggs and an omelet station. One hot item changes every day and today it was mini pancakes. Oatmeal can be ordered and that it what Snookums had. Filbert brought his high protein instant oatmeal and ate that.Our great weather continued with a warm and sunny day for our tour of World War II sites. Since we had spent three days on our own in Old Town, we didn’t need to go back there. Instead, we saw Hitler’s Party grounds, Congress Hall (based on the Coliseum in Rome but larger since Hitler wanted to be better than the Romans), Zeppelin Field. We drove by the Justice Palace where the War Crimes Tribunal sat in 1946.

Nuremberg Congress Hall

Zeppelinfeld–the big square structure is where the Nazi swastika was blown up–if you’ve seen that film footage

The tour then went to Old Town and we had an hour on our own. We decided to go into a souvenir shop for the first time. Somehow we hadn’t gone into a single one during the prior three days. On our way out, we saw a nice little painting of the Beautiful Fountain with Frauenkirche in the background for our travel wall at home. What a nice way to end our time in Nuremberg.

Rathausplatz, looking the other direction

A pair of swans and their cygnets

We got back to the ship and everyone went to lunch at 12:30. Lunches are mostly buffet with the soup and one or two entrees ordered from the menu. Dessert was the highlight of the lunch since one of the three offerings was hand-scooped ice cream with eight different topping choices. Rather than going to the cruise director’s lecture about locks, Snookums took a nap after lunch and Filbert wrote his book. Then we went to the skydeck to watch as the ship went through several of the locks. Most of the skydeck was actually closed since the railings around it are too high for some of the bridges that we go under. In fact, the wheelhouse lowers in order to clear bridges. It’s funny seeing the captain’s head pop out of the wheelhouse’s sunroof when the wheelhouse has been lowered. When the ship was getting ready to go under one bridge, all of the passengers sitting on the open part of the skydeck were told to duck. We had also been told to keep our arms and heads inside ours rooms when going through the locks since there is about four inches of clearance on each side of the ship. The cement walls of the locks do look like they would hurt a lot if you got thwacked by one of them!

In a lock

During our cruise, the Amadolce has to transit a series of 16 locks over a distance of more than 100 miles to lift itself nearly 1,400 feet above sea level. At some point during the afternoon, we crossed the Continental Divide. It was represented by a concrete monument on the banks. The bar staff passed around glasses of blue champagne (blue curaçao was added to the champagne), too. We ate dinner with a couple that knows a mutual friend (Carl, a travel agent who owns www.findacruisedeal.com). (Carl organized this cruise and was supposed to come with us, but he had emergency back surgery one week prior to the cruise.) They are from Manhattan Beach, California and we had a nice dinner with them. After dinner the piano player played in the lounge, but we opted for our cabin and bed.