Amy & Andy Excellent Adventure 2025 Alaska Revisited Edition: Day 6 (July 26) – DENALI!!

Where We Saw Denali In All Its Glory Not Once, But Several Times

Spent A Few Hours On A Scenic Train Ride

And Finally Arrived In Anchorage

Denali

I’m trying an experiment with this post – deliberately adding a cover photo. I’ll see if it works.To

We knew today was going to be a busy, busy day.

It started off with our helicopter excursion that we had postponed from Friday afternoon, because we thought it was going to rain. It didn’t rain Friday afternoon, but it also was not raining on Saturday morning. A good omen.

We were picked up by the helicopter excursion company and driven over to the launch site. We had to sit through a 15 minute safety video and then be fitted with glacier boots. To say that the glacier boots felt odd is an understatement.

The next issue was climbing into the helicopter. There was one giant step up onto the step on the landing skid. Then there was the even bigger gap into the machine itself. With help from one of the other passengers (Mike) and Andy, it was a ONE-TWO-THREE UP!! maneuver and I was in. The additional challenge was that we were doing a “hot turn” – we were boarding the helicopter while it was still running. The wind from the spinning blades literally sucked the air from my lungs as I was helped on board – I was still gasping for air for another few minutes.

Stunning scenery along the way for about 25 minutes:

A glacier. There’s a lot of them around here.

We landed next to a large pool of glacier water.

Andy and our other two passengers walked down to the pool’s edge. It was a bit too step for me, so I just toddled around on the glacier near the helicopter.

These are frozen air bubbles in the ice. Those are my feet.

Here’s Andy drinking the cold, pure glacial water.

This is for perspective – the relative size of 3 teensy people next to the glacial pool

After about 20 minutes, it was time to head back. This time, because the engine was off, it was easier to tell Mike and Andy exactly what to do and when. A few more tries and I’ll have this down to a science!

On the way back were more spectacular views:

This is the beginning of a glacial river

But the most spectacular of all, was this –

Denali – view of 100% of the mountain (including the parts usually hidden from view on the ground) and 100% clear skies

It’s said that 30% of visitors get to see some piece of Denali – this view is in the 10% range. Our pilot was being a bit of a pain – we were all asking him to confirm it was Denali, because it didn’t really look like any photo I’ve seen. Finally, I asked: WHAT IS THAT GIAN WHITE MOUNTAIN. And he finally replied, “Well, some people call it Mt McKinley”.

Bucket list item checked! We can go home now!

Once we landed back where we started and returned our glacier boots, we were driven into “the canyon” – downtown Denali – where we met up with the rest of the group.

Our guide, Jade, herded us all to the coach that took us to the train depot for the Wilderness Express. We spent the next 5 1/2 hours driving through scenic Alaska until we arrived in Talkeetna.

And then Denali popped up again, and the rest of our group joined the “30% club”.

Hurricane Creek on the left and Denali on the right

During lunch, the train crew talked about a mixed drink called “The Grizzley” – kalua, vodka, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and a couple of other things I’m not remembering. It was tasty,

We did not spend any time at all in Talkeetna – we went from the train immediately to the bus. We drove another hour or so until the dinner stop, and then back on the bus for another hour or so until we finally arrived in Anchorage.

What a long day. The next three nights we will be hopping back and forth between Anchorage and Seward.

View from our window in Anchorage at 10:00 p.m.

Tomorrow (Day 6): Seward and Kenai Fjords National Park

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 – Alaska Revisited Edition (Day 5): Denali Day!

Where We Get Up At O’Dark Thirty (Only It Isn’t Dark)

And Play “I Spy With My Little Eye” With Grizzly Bears and Caribou.

And A Random Squirrel

We were up at 4:30 a.m. in order to have breakfast at 5:00 a.m. and be ready to board the Denali tour bus at 6:00 a.m.

Our lodge at 5:30 a.m. Not exactly dark.

We boarded the modified school bus that serves as the tour buses in Denali park. Private cars are not allowed in the park, except for specific circumstances.

It was all so, so beautiful!

We did luck out early with spotting wildlife – our driver, Jason, spotted Dall sheep. I know I saw the little white dots that were moving around on the mountainside.

There’s a couple of teeny white dots in the middle of this photo. They could be Dall Sheep or they could be rocks. Your guess is as good as mine.

And then we saw caribou. I had better luck with this.

And eventually we hit the jackpot and saw a mama bear and her two yearling cubs!

Eventually it was time to turn around and come back. Here are some photos that other people in our group were able to snap:

A Willow Ptarmigan, the Alaska State bird

An Arctic Ground Squirrel, which can lower it’s core body temp to 27F during hibernation

I snapped this one myself:

Arctic fox – it was walking away from us with its kill in its mouth

Endless beautiful vistas

We were only missing a moose, but that was not meant to be. We considered this a successful Denali Day!

We were back at the hotel before noon, and then off to lunch.

This afternoon is at leisure. The next two days are a bit crazy. We have a helicopter excursion tomorrow morning, followed by a scenic train ride (to Talkaneetka? From Talkaneetka? Not sure. But then we are on to Anchorage.

Tomorrow: Not planes, trains, and automobiles, but copters, trains, and buses.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 Alaska Revisited Edition – Day 4 (July 24): On Our Way To Denali

Where We Take Our Time Getting To Denali National Park, But Finally Actually Do Get There

And As Is Tradition – A Bathroom Situation

Our local guide, Jade, has mentioned several times that there are only two seasons in Alaska: Winter and Construction.

With that in mind, we left a little earlier than the day before to allow for random construction traffic. And indeed, we were stuck in construction traffic a couple of times.

The scenery was very dramatic along the way:

We had one stop before arriving in Denali – in Nenana, AK.

If you are new to my blog, there is always at least one incident during any given adventure when the bathroom break becomes an issue. And so….

It was only going to be for 10 minutes and then we’d have our promised bathroom break, but it turned out to be a whole presentation on the Nenana Ice Classic. Mind you, we had been on the road for a good couple of hours up until this point.

The Nenana Ice Classic is apparently something that Alaskans do in late winter to entertain themselves. This event has been an annual event for 100 years. Each year people from all over Alaska buy (basically) raffle tickets for a pool to guess when the ice will break completely and the river flows freely in the spring. Proceeds from this event go to assorted charities for the disadvantaged in Alaska.

Everything about this event is “old school” – printed raffle tickets, manual tracking of all the purchased tickets, manual notification to the winner, etc. – including using a 30 year old computer system.

The “tripod” is that black and white structure on the left.

The “tripod” (which is not a tripod, because it has 5 legs, but whatever) is secured into the river ice sometime in March. The tripod is connected (via rope? wire? string?) to two clocks (the primary and the backup).

As the ice thaws and the tripod begins drift, it tugs on the string. When the tripod pulls so hard on the string that the string breaks – the clock stops documenting the exact time the river is flowing freely. The winner is determined as to who had the closest time (on either side). The earliest recorded date was April 19 and the latest was May 30. The most common dates were the middle two weeks of May.

We bought two tickets for $3.00 each. I picked 05/05/2026 at 5:00 a.m.

Now it was well past the promised 10 minutes. There was an exodus towards the old train depo for the bathrooms. By the time I got there, the line for the ladie’s room was very long. Since each bathroom was single occupancy, and the men had long since cycled through their turn, at some point the women took over the men’s room to speed things up.

We continued on to lunch, and then on to Denali National Park.

More views from along the way. It just doesn’t get old.

Our motley crew. Our local guide, Jade, is on the far left with the lollipop. Our American Cruise Line rep (Andrew) is the last person on the right in the very back row

We stopped at the visitor center (I still call them ranger stations), where we got our national park passports stamped, and we watched two movies. The first one was just music showing pretty scenes of the park. What a good nap.

The second one was about the National Park dog teams – that was much more interesting. We managed to stay awake for the whole thing.

We were dropped off at our room at the Denali Bluffs lodge, just long enough to drop off stuff and get back on the bus to go to dinner, which was at a dinner theater called The Alaska Cabin Nite Dinner Theater. It was a lot of fun!

Tomorrow: Our 5 1/2 hour drive through Denali National Park.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025 – Alaska Revisited Edition: End of Day 2 + Day 3 (July 22 and 23)

Where We Start To Notice The Pattern Of Grizzlies On Display And We Get To See The “Sheldon Car”

Part 2 of Day 2

Yesterday’s lunch was literally nothing to write home about, but after lunch we wandered along the street and stumbled across the “2nd Street Gallery”: a mini mall with interesting shops and self-announced “musher museum”.

As is tradition, we couldn’t resist buying some art from a local artist – possibly these items will become trivets, though we’ll just figure that out when we get home.

We took the lift up to the second floor for the Musher’s Museum – except the museum was up another 7 steps that I declined to climb.

Andy went up and saw a couple of interesting things:

If you can read the sign that describes what this is, you’ve got sharp eyes

On the way out, I felt obligated to take this photo:

Hopefully not the only moose we see. Be great to see one that’s alive.

Unfortunately, Andy didn’t have his music with him, or he could have shown off his skills.

Also in this mini-mall was a Romanian/Moldovan restaurant. Considering out lunch experience was less than stellar, we decided to come back later to have dinner there.

At 3:00, we joined some of the people on our tour in the lobby for a meet and greet with our local tour guide, Jade, and the American Cruise Line representative, Andrew. They handed out our packets with info for the coming days, and explained how things will work for the next week. The goal is to replicate the ship environment while on land – after today, all our meals would be taken care of (a question we had). Everything sounded promising!

Around 6:00, we walked back across the street for dinner at the Romanian/Moldovan restuarant. Andy ordered a traditional Moldovan dish called Mamaliga and I had a beef rib with potatoes, carrots and pickles. They were both excellent and made up for the lackluster lunch.

Day 3

Today was “Getting To Know Fairbanks” day. Our original concerns about being shown the local Home Depot and McDonald’s blessedly did not happen (though apparently Fairbanks’ Home Depot and McDonald’s are the most northern in the US).

First we went to the Museum of the North, which had excellent exhibits of Alaska’s history, going back to pre-historic times.

This is Otto, the second display of a brown/grizzly bear.

This is a settee made of dall sheep horn, caribou antler, and fake leather. I’m not sure if this looks comfortable or not. I’d be concerned about being poked by an antler.

Upstairs was an art gallery. One piece was a highly entertaining outhouse.

No guarantee of privacy even with the door closed.

We also watched an interesting 30 minute video on the Aurora Borealis. Apparently the Aurora season doesn’t start until mid-August when there’s enough actual darkness to see it.

Our next stop was lunch. Jade (our local guide) kept saying that they were taking us to the best restaurants that Fairbanks had to offer in an attempt to duplicate the ship experience, but somehow I got the impression that maybe this restaurant might not live up to that standard.

Andy enjoyed his roast beef dip sandwich, but my garden salad with chicken was fairly tasteless. The chocolate mousse pie was fabulous, though.

Next up was a close up and personal visit with the Alaska pipeline. This originally didn’t sound particularly interesting, but it turned out to be more impressive than I thought it would.

Apparently this is the traditional pose, akin to holding up the Tower of Pisa:

This section of the pipeline is above ground to avoid melting the permafrost.

This flower is called a fireweed. It has all of a two week season in the Alaskan summer, and we lucked out to be able to see it.

One more stop before heading back to the hotel was an antique car museum. Once again, it was more interesting than we thought it would be. All but 3 of the cars in the museum actually run and are driven upon occasion. All of these cars are impressive – some of the cars from the 1930s are HUGE (e.g. the Packard). My favorite car, though, was the “Sheldon Car”.

We know for a fact that we can’t possibly be related. Though we wondered whether changed his last name to Sheldon from something unusual as is the case with Andy’s dad.

A car built by Robert (Bobby) Sheldon at the turn of the 20th Century – he had never seen a car and had no idea what he was doing.

This guy was a big deal in the Alaska car community.

There was one car that people were allowed to and encouraged to climb into:

This was our last stop for the day. Dinner was at a restaurant about 15 minutes from the hotel. We both had the halibut, which was very good.

On the way back to the hotel for the night, we received our final instructions for packing up and leaving our luggage outside our door by 7:30 tomorrow morning.

Theoretically, we’ll have wifi in our Denali lodging, but as is tradition with national parks, cell service will probably be close to existent.

Tomorrow, the real adventure begins! Who knows – maybe we’ll be lucky and catch a glimpse of Denali in all its glory!

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025: Alaska Revisited Edition – Day 1 and Some Of Day 2 (July 21/22 2025)

Where We Mostly Sat At Airports Or On Airplanes For 22 Hours

As is tradition, the first day of the current tradition is endless travel. To add to the fun this time, Alaska Air experienced a major IT network outage on July 20, grounding all of their planes for 3 hours.

And it probably would have made sense to check to see the status of our first flight on July 21, but we didn’t. So we got up at 4:30 a.m. to arrive at the airport by 7:45 a.m. for our 9:00 a.m. flight, to find out that our 9:00 a.m. flight was now 11:30.

Which turned out to be 12:15 p.m. The flight itself was a bit bumpy from all the storms in the atmosphere covering the eastern half of the US. It smoothed out a bit once we were over the western US. The pilot did their best to make up some of the time – the flight was 5 hours instead of 6 hours.

Fortunately, I had booked the two flights with an intentional 5 1/2 hour layover, so the 3 hour delay had no impact on our connecting flight at SeaTAC. When we walked off the plane, the Alaska Air app said our gate was D3. We had deplaned at gate N13. So we found our way to D3 – left-right-right-left-take a train-left-right-left – where we sat for a bit until we noticed the change to the departure time and the gate: now the flight was delayed an hour and the gate was N14, literally right where we had been when we landed!

So back we went. The N gates were a complete zoo. Nary an empty seat to be found and extremely noisy. We could not hear the announcements from the gate. Which is how we missed the start boarding announcement.

The second flight was a bit smoother than the first and we landed shortly after 10:00 p.m. Alaska Time.

An airport employee called our hotel to bring its shuttle to pick us up – something that the hotel’s website nor the cruise line mentioned.

We had booked a room for one night in this hotel, because it’s the same one where the land/cruise adventure will begin. This was the view from our window:

Our view of Fairbanks, AK. Notice how bright the sky was at 11:00 p.m.

In the morning (July 22), we checked out of the room and checked back in to the room assigned to us with the group. We have zero instructions as to what we’re supposed to do to find the group. Fortunately, the front desk staff was a little familiar with this drill. They suggested checking the common area around 3:00 p.m., which apparently is the typical time they are there.

The rest of today is a blank. Soon we’ll go to lunch and maybe we’ll check out the stores across the street.

Tomorrow: The Adventure Begins {whatever that means}

The official greeter at Fairbanks International Airport

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2025: “Alaska Revisited” Edition

As Is Tradition – Testing The WordPress Interface Before We leave

No We Haven’t Left Yet – That’s Monday, July 21

We were in Alaska in 2009 – our first “real” cruise on Holland America, cruising the Inside Passage. It was a great vacation that got us hooked on cruising, but it was too short (7 days). This year’s adventure is Alaska Revisited – we’re going back on a land/cruise combo, on a much smaller ship.

We’re trying out American Cruise Line for the first time. Technically this is a river cruise, not an ocean cruise. Maximum number of passengers is 160. Because it’s so small, the ship will be able to cruise into small inlets where the big ships can’t fit.

Approximate itinerary – the actual itinerary switches a couple of the ports

Sitka, Juneau, and Glacier Bay National Park are duplicates from 2009. I’m sure the glacier in Glacier Bay National Park hasn’t changed one bit since 2009!

We have some time in Fairbanks. Denali and Kenai Fjords National Parks are the land portion of this adventure. Then we fly to Juneau where we board the ship.

One of the challenges is figuring out the clothing layers to bring that are as flexible as possible – some places will be rather cold, and others will be just a little chilly, and good bet others will be borderline hot, because that is our luck.

Of course fun flights are involved, with stops in Seattle in both directions. We’re arriving (hopefully) one day before the scheduled start to give us a little breathing room just in case G0d forbid dumb things happen.

Unlike Viking, who picks us up at the airport and gives us cool luggage tags, American Cruise Line has us on our own to get from the airport to the hotel. Luckily, Alaska is still in the US, which means we *should* be able to figure it out – in English and US currency, for a change!

Stay tuned for more adventure!

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 3: Frozen Edition (Grand Finale)

Days 9 (12/24/2024) and 10 (12/25/2024)

Where We Have A Lazy Day In Linz And Then Freeze On A Short And A Bit Uninformative City Walk On Day 9

Followed By A Wonderful But Frozen Day In Salzberg

Day 9 Linz (December 25)

December 25 was a lazy day for us; other people went into Linz to attend church services at one of the two old churches. Spoiler alert: the services were in German, so the people who did attend didn’t necessarily get a whole lot out of it.

We had originally booked a private walking tour of Linz, because there was nothing offered by Viking. But just a few days before we sailed, suddenly there was an included (“free”) walking tour, so we decided to do that instead.

The challenge was: the tour started at 3:00 p.m., and it starts to get dark at about 3:30 with sunset at 4:15 p.m. The high for the day was around 35, and would soon start to plummet as the sun went down.

Ok the other challenge was getting off the ship: there was another ship between us and the dock, and it wasn’t a Viking ship. Therefore, we had to first climb up to Deck 4/sun deck via a flight of 13 outside steps (the elevator is only between Decks 2 and 3), and THEN walk across to the other ship and walk down 19 steps, and THEN walk down a steep ramp to the street. This was not fun at all.

But we did it, and met our tour guide on the pier. I don’t think we ever got his name. He was a little odd – his English was ok, but he spoke quickly and maybe a little mumbly. Even with the ear pieces he wasn’t 100% intelligible.

We were in the “leisure” group, so we were walking slowly. That was great, but we were also seeing not much of anything, mostly office buildings. I suspected that we were missing out on the actual interesting stuff because we were the “leisure” group. It looked like Linz was falling into the same situation as Bratislava: a 2-hour late-afternoon tour that did not do the city justice.

We stopped in the town square with the remnants of the Christmas Market:

In front of the Cafe Glockenshpiel, we were served mulled/heated wine in souvenir mugs – while standing outside. I had really hoped we’d be inside while doing this, but alas, no. The warm wine did little to defrost my toes; since I don’t like wine anyway, it basically went to waste. Janet had a better idea – to ask for the keepsake mug without the wine.

We now had “free time”, but considering everything was closed, it was getting dark, and we were all completely frozen, most people just headed back.

Side note: Tom sent me his photos of the Holocaust memorials that he saw in the not-leisure tour. In this photo you see a square delineated on the pavement. It’s the footprint of a house once owned by Jews who were murdered in the holocaust.

This is a memorial to the Linz Jews who were murdered.

Continuing on our way back to the ship, our tour guide did tell us that Linz was known for steel (manufacturing) and art:

Steel artwork along the road to the ship

Of course, we had to retrace our steps to get back onto the ship. It was even harder to climb the 19 steps up and 13 steps down while totally frozen.

We warmed up for a bit, and then it was time to get ready for dinner. Since it was also the first night of Hanukkah as well as Christmas Day, we wore our Hanukkah shirts/sweaters. Mine blinks! I had brought along a tiny electric hanukkiah. A couple of our new ship friends asked to be included when we lit it.

To our delight, our ship’s chef remembered our request for latkes for tonight’s dinner. We had asked about it back on Monday, and had no clue whether he’d actually do it or not. He did! and they were great latkes! We shared the 3 huge latkes between the 5 of us.

Day 10 Passau/Salzburg (December 26)

The Salzburg excursion originally was an optional (not-free) tour, that I don’t even remember seeing listed when we were signing up for excursions. For this cruise, Viking decided to convert the optional tour to an included tour (people will be refunded), because the Christmas market in Salzburg was still open.

It was a 2-hour drive through freezing fog:

The countryside and small towns were still scenic:

And then there were the Alps:

There was no “leisure” option for the 2 1/2 hour walk through Salzburg. Amazingly enough, this became a challenge for us to keep up.

First we walked through the Miriable gardens, where scenes from the Sound of Music were shot:

Down the street was the house where Mozart lived with his family until he moved to Vienna at the age of 25. This house was partially destroyed during WWII; it was carefully reconstructed after the war. The photo next to it is the house where Mozart was born. No surprise that Salzburg promotes itself basically as “Mozart-Central”.

If you look carefully, you can see the pale white vertical line just to the right of the door. To the left of that line is original house; to the right is reconstructed.

Salzburg also lays claim Christian Doppler (of the “Doppler Effect”)

Salzburg is just an incredibly scenic city. You could easily spend several days here to see everything.

Church with Christmas Market that we didn’t get to visit after all

Stumbling Stones commemorating Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust

The tour ended at the restaurant where we had lunch. The restaurant was located in the monastery, and reputed to be the oldest restaurant in Europe.

Of course, this meant that there was a full flight of stairs to climb, which was mighty painful after a couple of hours of toddling on cobblestones.

We were treated to a short review of Sound of Music songs – pretty much the same performance we saw on the ship the other night, even with a couple of same people.

After lunch, we had about an hour before our meeting time with our tour guide. First, we needed to buy more Euros, and then we were determined to buy original “Mozart {chocolate} balls”. We had to find our way back to the store that sold it. The store is so tiny, only a couple of people can fit in it at one time; therefore there’s a line. Luckily it moved quickly.

Any German readers out there, feel free to translate this.

At this point we knew we needed to get ourselves to the meeting point – Google maps to the rescue!

After another 2 hour drive back to the ship, it was time for our final cruise dinner, and pack up.

I don’t yet have the traditional photo of our table with our wonderful wait staff, but when I do, I’ll update this blog.

Thus concludes Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 3: Frozen Edition. I am sitting across from our gate at the Frankfurt airport. Our flight doesn’t leave for another 2 1/2 hours. In retrospect, I don’t know why we didn’t have a non-stop back from Munich to Dulles. I booked these flights so long ago, I have no clue. There must have been some reason?

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this blog. I don’t always finish them, but this layover gave me a great opportunity.

G0d willing, there’ll be another Excellent Adventure on the Danube in May, 2025. Stay tuned!

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 3: Frozen Edition – A Bit Of Day 7 and All Of Day 8

December 23 and 24

Where We Heard A Wonderful Concert And Had No Issues With The Elevators At The Melk Abbey

Day 7 Part 2 December23

When we arrived at the concert venue, there was a bit of confusion. Mario told everybody who was taking the elevator up to hit the button with the biggest number. A bunch of us landed on the 4th floor, which was obviously wrong. At some point Mario appeared and apologized – he should have told us floor “2”.

We were still seated in plenty of time. Very nice program – a flute, piano, 3 violins, a bass, and a cello. The first half was Mozart, the second half, mostly Strauss waltzes.

I did manage to get lost after the program – I found a bathroom on the 2nd floor with no problem. It was all the way down the hall on the other side of the building. But when I came out of the bathroom, the hallway I came from was blocked by a closed door. I ended up taking the first elevator I found and exited the building – around the corner from the bus. Eventually Mario found me and the bus pulled around. Always something.

Day 8 December 24 Melk

The morning was scenic sailing until we arrived in Melk at about 11:00. Mario told me that the abbey had reported to him that the elevators were all working!

When we docked in Melk, we were ready to go – it was a 10 minute walk from the ship to the bus parking lot.

When we arrived at the Abbey, the elevator was indeed working – but there was still quite a bit of walking to get to the Abbey entrance. Most of the surface was either small cobblestone, which was not suitable for the transport chair, so I did my best to get myself there.

The Melk Abbey is about 1,000 years old – one of the first abbeys established in Europe. There are 21 monks still living in the abbey.

We were not allowed to take photos inside the abbey museum or the abbey itself. The museum exhibits showed items from baroque to modern times, including an example of a reusable coffin that Franz Joseph I instituted as a cost saving method. I found this photo out on the interwebs:

There was a 16-paneled painting – 8 on one side telling the story of the crucifixion, and the other 8 telling the story of Jesus childhood. Below is a post card of one of the baby-Jesus panels

A postcard image of one of the panels of the 16-paneled painting

At some point we were outside on a terrace, where we could take photos of the view.

The Abbey library is stunning. It’s still an active library. There is one book that is almost 1,000 years old.

The room where Maria Theresa did her entertaining had a trompe l’oeil ceiling that looked differently depending on where in the room you were standing and the angle.

In this postcard photo, if you follow the marble columns up into the ceiling, the painted columns on the ceiling appear foreshortened. When you stand in the middle of the room on the grating, the columns on the ceiling appear much taller

The Abbey’s sanctuary is beyond stunning. Here’s two postcard photos.

One of the side walls with the sarcophagus of Saint Coloman, the patron saint of Melk

Once we were done with the abbey, we retraced our steps back to the bus.

On the way out through the gift shop, I took a photo of this thing that I’ve not been able to identify. Looks like a clock.

We were back in time for lunch, where we were able to watch a lock go by.

We had more scenic sailing for the rest of the afternoon. The sun sets around 3:30 in this part of the world.

Dinner this evening was a celebration of Austria! Which meant: mostly pork. Fortunately, there were alternatives. I had the char (a salmon relative), and Andy had the “taste of Austria” minus the pork sausage.

After dinner, there were assorted Christmas Eve activities. The best part (for me) was Mario showing us his ventriloquist talents!

Our Motley Crew. Doe we look cold? We’re cold.

Tomorrow: Linz

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 3: Frozen Edition

Days 5, 6, and most of 7 (December 21, 22, & 23)

Where I Ended Up With An Accidental “Day At Sea” (But Still Had Strudel), We Froze In Bratislava, And Saw A Snippet Of Vienna

Day 5 (December 21) – last day in Budapest

Originally 4 of us were booked for the 8:00 a.m. Budapest city tour. Andy was booked on a castle hike excursion. When Susie, Janet, and I thought about it, we realized the Viking excursion was almost the same as the tuk-tuk tour we took the other day. So we decided to skip it to avoid having to get up at oh-dark-thirty. Plus, Susie and Janet had the thermal bath excursion scheduled for the afternoon, and we were all booked for the included 2 hour walking tour to the Christmas Market at 5:30 in the evening.

This was all fine. It was a nice relaxing day.

To make a long story short: when Andy and I were all bundled up and ready to go to the 5:30 Christmas Market tour, we found out that there were many, many steps involved, making it impossible for me to go. Would have been nice to know that.

So Day 5 for me wound up being an accidental day “at sea” (at river?). Not the end of the world, just a little annoying.

Janet and Susie enjoyed the baths.

Here are some highlight photos of excursions I did not go on (from Andy):

View of the Chain Bridge from the Buda side – the ship is our ship, the Viking Tor

View from Castle Hill/Fisherman’s bastion

Lady of our Buda Church / Matthias Church

The good news is that Mario, our Program Director, brought me back a cheese strudel that I would have gotten if I’d gone on the excursion. Sorry, no photo. It’s already long gone.

Day 6 December 22 Bratislava

Unfortunately for us and Bratislava, we had a weird time slot. We docked at 2:00 p.m. with all-aboard for 11:00 p.m. Considering the sun starts to set at 3:30, we had all of an hour of daylight.

The weather was already threatening when we started our walk into the old part of Bratislava – it was very cold and felt like rain.

Also unfortunately, none of us really remember much of what the tour guide said.

Bratislava is old
It’s had many names (it still does)
Earlier generations spoke multiple languages because Slovakia has been shuffled around assorted empires
There are some Jews left in the city, but not many (we couldn’t find the big menorah she talked about).

There was this guy:

We stopped by a church to listen to a Christmas organ concert. Somehow in our minds, we were picturing a huge pipe organ with magnificent sound. It was a small church with a small organ. I was on the wrong side of the sanctuary to get a photo of the organ.

Church Altar. The organist and singer were off to the right

The organist and singers performed for about 20 minutes maybe? Their CDs were available for sale for 10 Euros or $15 (the exchange rate Euro –> USD is not 50%). It was pleasant enough, but somehow not what we were expecting.

When we came out of the church, it started to rain – at first just a drizzle. We started our walk around the Christmas market.

As we walked around the market, it started snow/raining harder. Even with my umbrella, I was getting pretty wet.

It was raining hard enough that we just toddled as fast as we could back to the ship. Andy did go back out in the rain to do some (successful!) shopping. I’m sure Bratislava has a lot more to offer than 2 hours in the cold, rain, and dark.

In the evening on board ship after dinner, we watched a performance of a local (male) chorus singing Christmas carols – from traditional Slovak to modern/familiar tunes.

December 23 Vienna (part 1)

We still have a Mozart/Strauss concert this evening, but I figure I can tack that on to the next blog.

We were on the bus by 9:00 a.m. We were in the “Leisurely” group, which meant that we missed St Stephen’s cathedral. G0d willing we’ll be back in Vienna on our next cruise in May, so we started a list of things we know we need to see.

It was gloomy and cold, but at least it wasn’t raining!

We drove around “the ring” road that circles the inner city. Many impressive buildings, many of them built by Franz Josef, who ruled as emperor for 68 years (out done only by Queen Elizabeth II). A couple of his fun innovations: reusable coffins (bodies were put into a coffin, taken to a cemetery, then the body dumped out the bottom into a mass grave), which is why nobody really knows where Mozart is buried; and all plays had to have a happy ending – re-written as needed.

Truly impressive buildings:

We walked through the courtyard of the Hofburg Palace, originally the seat of the monarch, and still used as a seat of government.

We passed by the stables of the Lipizzaner stallions. A couple of them stuck their heads out to say hello!

Many impressive statues as well.

Our tour guid gave us a brief intro to Hitler’s early life, and showed us the balcony where he announced the completion of the Anshluss. An unsettling feeling, if there ever was one.

The statuary in Vienna is amazing. This is Maria Theresa, the last empress of Bavaria. She had 16 children, 10 lived to adulthood, all of them in arranged marriages for political purposes. I’m sure some of her children married some of Queen Victoria’s children.

Unfortunately, we didn’t take any photos of the market as we wandered around.

Originally we thought we might take the shuttle bus back, thinking there’s probably a shuttle every hour or so. So we walked back to a big square that had a souvenir shop where we could get the requisite items. It was about 12:20.

And then we looked at the shuttle schedule and saw that the next shuttle wasn’t until 2:45! Oh no, that was too much time to be wandering around in the cold.

In a mad dash, we “zipped” back to the bus that was literally pulling out as we caught up to it – luckily, Janet asked them to stop, and we were spotted by Mario and our tour guide. Phew! Leave it to the Austrians to be so prompt – it was exactly 12:30!

We came back to the ship and had lunch. We’ll be having an early dinner so we can attend the Mozart/Strauss concert at 7:30.

Good thing we have plans to be back in Vienna in May 2025. This was barely a glimpse!

Tomorrow is Krems/Melk. The issue of the 65 steps up to the abbey has not yet been resolved.

Amy & Andy’s Excellent Adventure 2024 Part 3: Frozen Edition

Day 4: Where We Head Out Of The City To A Small Town, An Art Museum, Christmas Market And Chocolate Cake.

Many Cobblestones Are Involved

December 20

Today is the day we transfer to the ship, the Viking Tor (or Thor). After we had breakfast made sure our bags were out in the hallway before 10:00 a.m., all 5 of us in our group boarded a van for the same excursion to Szentendre (Saint Andrew), a town about 40 minutes from Budapest. The group was pretty small, so we had a van instead of a big tour bus. These vans are great, because they are easy for me to climb up and climb down.

The town seems to have one main street. Our tour guide told us all we had to do was follow the cobblestone road to find our way back to the bus.

Szentandre is a classic small town in Hungary. Some of the population is actually Serbian in origin (Eastern Orthodox) and some Hungarian (Catholic). We wouldn’t know the difference, that’s for sure.

The little booth is the beginning of the Christmas Market. More cobblestones.

We slowly made our way towards the Magrit Kovacs museum. I know I had never heard of her. She was famous in Europe in the first half of the 20th Century for ceramic art, at a time when the concept of “ceramic art” wasn’t a thing.

There actually is a remnant of the Jewish community still in Szentandre. This street is the entrance to the Jewish quarter.

When we arrived at the museum, we discovered that it was actually a house converted into a museum; therefore there were a bunch of steps and no elevator. I’m always at a loss when cruise ship excursion descriptions can’t seem to include this kind of info.

But our tour guide, Nickie, was able to talk to the museum staff, and they opened up a back door for us so we could enter without steps.

Here’s a link to some detailed info on her life. Magrit Kovacs was an artist who decided to turn ceramics (normally considered “just pottery” and therefore not “art”) into a true art form. Her work is amazing! Her bio says she was “born into a Jewish family” (I never really know what that means), but many of her works have a strong Christian theme. By the time the Nazis came to power, she was so famous that somehow they dared not murder her. This is pretty amazing, since that never stopped the Nazis before (e.g. they were after Einstein). She was essentially under house arrest for the duration of the war with a big yellow Star of David on her front door.

These are some of her works that we saw in the museum:

The people she portrays almost always have a little smile

The smiles disappear after her mother dies. This is a portrayal of Magrit and her sister with their mother on her deathbed

During the Soviet occupation of Hungary, she was instructed to create this map of the world that is missing the US.

After the museum, we went to a coffee shop and had a drink and some cake, which turned out to be “lunch”. We had time to wander around the town for a bit giving us the opportunity to contribute to the local economy, which we did. We walked back to the bus along the smoother-surfaced street down by the embankment of the Danube.

Now it was time to head to the ship. We made good time until the last mile, where it was backed up a bit.

It’s great to back on board a Viking ship!

We unpacked and tried to figure out what was going on with the excursions via the TV app. Nothing made sense. We went to the front desk and started asking questions of the young guy waiting there. He immediately sensed he was over his head and called for the Program Director Mario.

We’re guessing that because this is supposed to be a Christmas Market cruise, and many of the markets close by December 24, Viking did their best to rearranged things to maximize the Christmas experience. The end result is massive confusion.

The day we’re in Krems (12/24), we’re not doing anything in Krems, but going to a cathedral in Melk. Mario said there’s 65 steps to walk down to get from the parking lot to the church. We thought he was joking. He was not. We predict that about 1/3 to 1/2 the ship will not be walking down 65 steps (and then have to walk back up). Though Mario mentioned there is a path down, but it’s all cobblestones. And then the church itself has steps, though *maybe* the elevator will be working. This does not sound hopeful.

The day we’re supposed to be in Passau we will be going to Salzberg, because the Christmas market in Salzberg is still open.

Linz now has an included walking tour that wasn’t listed a month ago, and definitely not over the summer when we were deciding on our excursions. We had booked a private walking tour in Linz (though Viator still hadn’t confirmed they were actually providing a tour guide while happily taking my money). We all agreed there was no point in doing both, so we canceled the private tour.

Also, a new Budapest Christmas Market and St Stephen’s church walking tour was added for Saturday afternoon. Since the morning “Panoramic Budapest” tour in the morning is pretty much the same as what we saw on the tuk-tuk tour AND it starts at 8:00 a.m., Janet, Susie, and I opted to not go on that one. Andy had a castle hill hike scheduled anyway, and Tom said he was going on the panoramic tour so he could go into the church at the top of that hill. Many hills, many churches!

I think we have it figured out? It remains to be seen.

Tomorrow: last day in Budapest