KTMusings

I finally slept well on Tuesday night - yay!  We woke up Wednesday and had breakfast, then bundled up and headed to the deck. We sailed for roughly 90 min through the Wachau Valley and George (the Program Director) provided commentary from the bridge. It. Was. Cold. The temp was probably 50*, but there was a stiff headwind that was brutal. All 8 of our group were outside at one point, but most lasted less than 10 min. Jeff was smart and we packed our rain pants and both put them on. I had on a wool sweater, down jacket, rain jacket /windbreaker, cashmere scarf, hat, and gloves. And a blanket from the deck on my lap. Brrr! We did have a clear day and were able to see a lot! At one point they served a shot of apricot schnapps to everyone to warm up.  We arrived in Krems around 11am and disembarked at 11:30 for the Goettweig Abbey. Viking apparently has exclusive rights to bring river tour groups there, though we saw other individuals  visiting as well. The Abbey is known fo...

We spent most of the day in the Czeck Republic! (And yes, T-Mobile texted me when we crossed the border 😂). Got up after a terrible night of sleep (Jeff slept fine) and went to breakfast a bit earlier today. Then 45 of us headed to a bus to take us north to Cesky Krumlov. Our tour guide, Stefan, was fabulous. He talked about Linz (where we were docked) for a bit and then gave a ton of history about the Czech Republic, his own personal stories about the fall of the communist party (he was 4), his grandfather’s story of emigrating to Switzerland by posing as an airline steward, etc. Fascinating. Was about a 75min drive.  Some other interesting things we learned on the drive:  Passed the continental water divide - everything south runs to Danube and Black Sea and Mediterranean. Everything north runs to North Sea .  There were lots of farmers out with their “Poop spreaders”, as Jeff calls them. Smelled like home!  Biggest Lego factory in Europe is just outside of Prague...

I think almost all of us woke up between 1 and 2am and had varied results getting back to sleep. We went up for breakfast at 7:45 and just beat the rush. At 9am we had a walking tour of Passau for 90 min. Our guide was fine, but not great. They do have very cool Quietvox devices that you register with your guide and then can hear him talking in your own ear piece as you walk around. He took us through town, showed us where multiple high water marks are from the floods, and talked about how Passau is the city of 3 rivers. We dropped off the tour about 15 min early to walk up to the fortress. 250ish steps and then a beautiful panoramic view of the city. And you could see the color difference of the two main rivers - the one coming out of the Alps has a lot of limestone sediment and is lighter in color.   After we hiked back down, we sat and had a beer. Then we walked around town a bit looking for an ATM and some wine to bring back to the boat. We were successful on the later. Wine is...

We left our house about 2pm (the girls kept asking “when are you leaving?!” because Carol said she’d take them to the park when we left - not sad to see us go! Uneventful flight to Chicago and then a 4 hour layover at O’Hare. We ate dinner at Chili’s (not a lot of options), got some Garrett Chicago mix popcorn, and waited for our 9pm departure. Between the earlier setting sun and the lack of lights at O’Hare, it felt like midnight at 7pm! I started and finished One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid about an hour into the flight.  Neither Jeff nor I slept much on the plane. We were happy to have an empty seat next to us so we were able to spread out a bit. I was surprised they fed us dinner (pasta, salad, roll) since we didn’t take off until 9pm, and then breakfast (fruit and muffin) before we landed. Jeff’s bag came pretty quickly (I carried mine on) and there was no line at passport control or customs, so we got out quickly. We found the Viking rep, got a coffee, and waited about ...

Jeff and I leave on Saturday for a week long Viking River cruise on the Danube, from Passau, Germany, through Austria, ending in Budapest, Hungary.  The girls will be home with Carol and Mike who are gracious enough to spend the week with them and get them to school each day!