We have done many cruises but had not done a river cruise so we chose a Danube cruise from AMA Waterways. You can go north or south and we chose one that started in Budapest, Hungary and ended in Prague in the Czech Republic.
We arranged for two days in Budapest ahead of the cruise. We stayed at the Sofitel Hotel right on the Danube and had a couple of outings into Budapest arranged by AMA. AMA did a great job of arranging things including a welcome dinner and helped us get our bearings in this city.
Budapest, Hungary
Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and Pest separated by the Danube on which sits the beautiful Hungarian Parliament Building which is always the center piece of the Viking River Cruise ads on television. We also had time to wander around the city which still has a lot of architecture from the 18th century.
We did a walking tour of the old part of Buda and saw Mathias Church which is not done justice by the picture. We could have spent a week in Budapest but will have to find a way to return. On the third day in town we sailed for Bratislava in Slovakia.
While both cities had been under the Soviet assault on architecture, Bratislava seems to retain more evidence of the time they were occupied. There are many old monument of the kind the Soviets liked to erect: large, heroic and dedicated to the worker or the revolutionary.
Bratislava, Slovakia
There is a very modern bridge over the Danube at Bratislava which is the first thing you notice when you arrive. The second thing you notice is that there are some old remnants of the Soviet monuments. Fortunately, there are not too many reminders of the past and some of the older parts of the city have some nice old buildings.
They also have some whimsical statues some of which just seem to come out of the ground.
Each day on the cruise we had a choice of several excursions all of which were included in the cruise cost. There was usually a couple of walking tours and depending on the town, a bus tour or in some cases a bike tour. Everything AMA did was well coordinated and timed. During our walking tour of Bratislava, we saw a wall plaque dedicated to Franz Liszt who lived there for some time.
We left Bratislava in the late afternoon and had a leisurely cruise up the Danube to our next stop, Vienna.
Vienna, Austria
There are probably few cities in the world can compete with Vienna for its combination of culture, history and architecture. You could easily spend a month here seeing everything and hearing everything this city has to offer.
Given that we only had part of a day, it was impossible to get even a taste of what the city had to offer. We did a bus tour of the city in the morning followed by a tour in the afternoon of the Schonbrunn Palace, where they hold summer concerts of Mozart and other composers who spent time in Vienna.
Behind the palace is an enormous piece of land containing gardens, fountains and even a zoo. We strolled around the grounds until it was time to go. We had already done a tour of part of the inside of the palace which was amazing. You easily could spend a couple of days in this palace.
Vienna requires a lot more time than we had and ends up on our list of European cities to which we have to return.
Durnstein, Austria
The next stop was a small town called Durnstein in Austria where after our walking tour we had a tasting of Austrian wines especially the Gruner Veltliner. This town according to legend is where Richard the Lionheart, King of England stopped on his way back from the Crusades.
This town is like many along the river; a small town set up the hill a little way with an old church or castle sitting up on top of the hill. We walked about a mile to get to the walking tour of the Melk Abbey. This used to be a castle and was donated to the church in 1089. We did a walking tour of the abbey and the town. The interiors of the abbey are just amazing with each room more opulent than the last.
Linz Austria and Passau Germany
The next day we visited two towns, one in Austria and then one in Germany. Linz is the third largest city in Austria and in 2009 was chosen as the
European Capital of Culture. Passau is on the Austrian border and sits at the confluence of the Danube and Ilz rivers. We did a walking tour of Passau where the streets are very narrow. The highlight of the city is St. Stephen’s cathedral that contains the largest organ in the world. We did not get to hear it but took their word for it.
In Passau, if you look high up on the hill across the Danube, you will see the Oberhaus Castle which seems to glow in the late afternoon sun. During this part of the trip it was warm and sunny and we would sit on the upper deck of the ship and watch the Austrian and German countryside go by. It was hard to beat.
Nuremberg, Germany
One of the pitfalls of traveling on the Danube late in the summer is that the water level may drop. This happened to us after we arrived at Vilshofen. We were supposed to travel on to Regensburg and Nuremberg via the river but instead the ship stayed in Vilshofen and we took the bus to these two cities
The Nazi Party Rally Grounds shown on the right is where Hitler gave his famous speeches to hundreds of thousands of people. Our tour stopped there long enough to take this picture. The grounds are no longer kept up and the whole place looks pretty forlorn.
There was a nice museum in Regensburg where you could see some history of the region especially during the war. Regensburg also had some nice restaurants and a lot of old buildings to see.
Pilsen, Germany
After leaving the ship behind in Vilshofen, and after visiting Regensburg and Nuremberg, we embarked on the final leg of the trip toward Prague in the Czech Republic. On the way we stopped in Pilsen which is the home of the brewery that makes the famous Pilsner Urquell beer.
Pilsner beer is named after the town of Pilsen (Pilsn in German) which is where it was invented. Needless to say, we sampled a few.
We even had a lunch in Nuremberg where it was served as part of the lunch.
Prague, Czech Republic
Our final stop on this trip was the city of Prague. We had never been here before and were dumbfounded at how beautiful the city is. It was one of the few cities in Europe that did not suffer major damage during WWII so all of its 18th and 19th century architecture is still there to see. It is surrounded by a river which the Charles Bridge spans. The Charles Bridge is famous for its sculpture and other art and it could easily take you an hour or more to cross the short bridge if you stop to look at everything.
The bridge dates from 1357 and was originally called the Stone Bridge. Looming over the city is St. Vitus Cathedral which dates from the 14th century
and by the look of it, still has some of the grime from that period. It is part of the castle complex and is pretty much a must see.
From there, you can stroll down the hill and across the Charles Bridge into the Old Town and the square of the same name. There you will find sculpture and
other attractions in an area that never seems to quiet down. We stayed at the Inter-Continental Hotel on Paris street not far from the square.
Prague is like Paris in that it requires a lot of time to see and appreciate. We would very much like to go back and spend at least a week there.