Passau is known as “the city of the three rivers” and founded more than 2,000 years ago, Passau is one of the oldest cities in Bavaria.
We had about a 10 minute bus ride to the downtown area from our docking area. Our tour this morning was a walking tour which was fine but there was a pretty steep hill in town and we went up and down it twice. We first walked to a church where we had a talk about making gingerbread, tasted the 3 kinds of gingerbread and watched how to make an evergreen wreath with candles. It was cold outside but it was slightly warmer in the church.
In Germany, the head “master” gingerbread person used to be able to do it with a 4 year level but now it was that plus 4 more years of training, plus 3 years apprenticeship plus another 4 months to learn about opening a business, etc. Until then, you can’t open your own business for gingerbread in Germany. You have to pass several different tests and if you can’t pass them in 3 tries, you can never open your own business unless you partner with a master who had passed it all.
They used to always be partnered with a candlemaker because they used the same wooden molds. Today, they don’t do that because the gingerbread isn’t made in the same molds. He told us there are three kinds of gingerbread, First kind they sweetened with honey, second with molasses, and now they sweeten with sugar and lots of spices. Each has its points and is softer depending on the sweeter – honey, molasses, or sugar. We got to sample each kind.
Being right on three river, there are occasional floods. There is a building near the river that they mark where the floods come up to and the years they had the floods. The last flood they had was in 2013 and it was their deepest – 10.04 feet! That flooded the bottom floor of any building near the rivers.
Saint Stephen’s Cathedral in Passau has the largest Catholic church organ in the world and the largest organ in Europe. It has 17,974 pipes and 233 registers. It is beautiful to listen to. The last time we were in Passau, they had a concert there every afternoon at 4 PM. We were really looking forward to hearing it again. Unfortunately, the city is having problems finding people who know how to play this beautiful organ and they have discontinued the daily concerts. They only have 7 people who know how to play it. We did get to hear a lady practicing several pieces as we were in the cathedral. The city is offering scholarships, etc. trying to entice more people to learn how to play that organ.
Their Christmas Market was at the top of the hill so we only had to walk down one more time to get to the bus. When we got back to the ship, they were gave us a warm wine punch which was very good.
The next day it was back to the real world! Bags put by 5 AM and our bus to the airport left the ship at 7 AM. They did have the dining room open very early for breakfast so at least we started with a good meal.
The flight home would have challenged a saint but that is for another time. Suffice it to say, we will have second thoughts about airline trips in winter.
There was an option today to take the regular tour or an easier tour. We opted the night before to take the easier tour and we glad we did. It was raining and cold – 28 degrees – when we left the ship. The regular tour walked the entire way. The easier tour rode an enclosed trolly from the ship to the center of town. It only took about 15 minutes off the tour but we were in an enclosed trolly and not walking. A definite plus! We did walk back after the tour (no choice) but first thing in the morning, the trolly was much better. The trolly was cute, colorful and dry! The rest of the tour was the same, trolly or walking. They called us the “Fast and Furious Tour”. Silly.
We went to the tourist information office which had an aerial view of Linz on the floor. You could see where we had been, where we were and where we were going. It was pretty interesting. We walked through the courtyard of the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s friend’s home where the Linz Symphony was written by Mozart. I guess you can tell we are somewhat into classical music.
We walked to lots of beautiful buildings, the Linz Castle Museum, the New Cathedral and to the Old Quarter to see Market Hall, the Landaus tower and the city’s main square. Then we walked in the snow back to the ship for lunch.
Later in the day, we walked up to the Linz Christmas Market. There were plenty of food places with gingerbread, lots of Christmas sweets, gluhwein, etc. and lots of Christmas things. Most of this market’s Christmas ornaments were hand made, so beautiful and unique.
We had some gluhwein as well as a huge doughnut that was a lot like a Krispy Kreme doughnut, with an apricot filling – in other words, excellent. We passed lots of coffee shops (which are actually coffee shops, not like in some other European cities) and decided to stop at the oldest one in town the way back to the ship after the market. We had some excellent Cappuccino and espresso and some famous Linz cake. Linz Cake (which will last long enough to send overseas so is frequently sent to soldiers) is believed to be the oldest known cake in the world. It is an Austrian cake with a lattice design on top of the pastry. The cake is named after the city of Linz in Austria. I was expecting it to be very dry but it wasn’t. It had some blueberry preserves on top that were good
Our tour for the morning was a tour of “Gottweig Abbey at Christmas”. It is a Benedictine Abbey where the monks live, work and worship. We had a “Privileged Access” and were able to participate and see things not normally on the tours. The oldest part of the monastery, a small chapel in the inner courtyard, dates back to 1072 and it is usually closed to visitors. However, Viking guests are invited to step inside the chapel and enjoy the nativity scene, an important work by the monks. The monks make a famous apricot brandy and we got to sample some. It was very good. We had a great, knowledgeable guide who made the Abbey come alive with stories.
The Abbey is a UNESCO site so what wasn’t finished before becoming an UNESCO site cannot be finished. So, no heat, some of the windows weren’t built yet and there are other parts in the plans that can’t be completed. I think that is a downside of being a UNESCO site but I understand the rational. 34 monks live there with some living in the surrounding districts as the parish priest and do their work in their churches.
After the tour with our guide, we had a wine tasting of three wines made here and went into the gift shop. Then we were dropped at the Christmas Markets. It was on a pedestrian street, no cars allowed.
As we were leaving port, it started snowing. There was snow on the ground and some coming down all through the Wachau Valley. It was so pretty!!
Mike and I went to the lounge for a demonstration of strudel making by the chef. It was very interesting. The whole time the chef was demonstrating how to make the strudel, they were serving a “Tea Time” with little sandwiches, small desserts and coffee or tea. We got to have a piece of the apple strudel he was showing us how to make. If mine would only taste like that!
Our Strudel Class
Supper was an Austrian meal. We started with a shot of Aquavit then went in the dining room to tables decorated with red and white napkins, etc, soft pretzels, glasses of beer, etc. You could get a selection of food or go to the buffet of all of it. We mostly got a selection of food each then extra from the buffet. It was food like – sauerkraut, sausages, hot potato salad, cooked red cabbage, etc. The desserts were very elaborate and they made a dome pastry thing that they flambeed with rum (they seemed sort of like small rum babas to Mike). Then back to the cabin, stuffed.
Prior to COVID, we had scheduled this cruise on the Danube from Budapest to Passau in December of 2020 with four other couples, Of course that got side lined, and over the next two years we lost two couples, so it was just the six of us going. Shot and Pam Shuler, Beth and Dennis Trammel, and us.
This was our second Christmas Markets river cruise. The first one we did in 2017 from Amsterdam to Basel Switzerland on the Rhine River. That was a fabulous experience, and we wanted to do the same thing on the Danube.
The river cruising experience is so laid back, with just 80 or so couples on the boat. It’s very easy to meet people and make new friends. Then there is gliding along the most iconic rivers of Europe with fine dining, superb service, on a beautiful boat. The Christmas Markets just make it that much more special.
As a starter, click to view a short video of the journey, then look at the details of each city along the Danube
So journey with us as we depart Budapest and sail upriver on the Danube towards Passau Germany on an eight day voyage of exploration and discovery.
Up for a great breakfast. We ate most of our breakfasts in the main dining room. They have a buffet breakfast that you can go to or an area with sweet rolls, croissants, etc. but we liked to sit, pick from the menu and have it brought to us.
The tour this morning was again, a tour of the city and Christmas Markets. Most of the tours we had time during the tour to visit the Markets for plenty long enough. Some of the markets were close enough to the ship, we could go there again if we wanted.
Vienna is a beautiful city with lots of elegant buildings and streets. We drove along the Ringstasse (the Ring Road), a road that was laid out during the 19th century along the old city walls. Lots of elegant public buildings, grand residences and imposing palaces. We did some walking around the Schonbrunn Palace which the best claim to fame in my opinion was it was one of the places where the Lipizzaner stallions live. It was also home to many centuries of Habsburg or Hapsburg family. They were an imperial family who were one of the principal sovereign dynasties of Europe from the 15th to the 20th century.
We stopped at St Stephen’s Cathedral which is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna and the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna.The current Romanesque and Gothic form of the cathedral, seen today in the Stephansplatz, was largely initiated by Duke Rudolf IV (1339–1365) and stands on the ruins of two earlier churches, the first a parish church consecrated in 1147. The most important religious building in Vienna, St. Stephen’s Cathedral has had many important events in Habsburg and Austrian history and has, with its multi-colored tile roof, become one of the city’s most recognizable symbols.
There was to be a protest in the city in the afternoon – protesting any and all things according to our guide. It started out being a protest for the COVID restrictions but has morphed into protesting everything in general and nothing in particular since there are no more COVID restrictions. The city closes part of the palace and the ring road for the protest. Our guide didn’t think much of the protest because they couldn’t even be specific and were protesting higher taxes and food prices, which nothing could be done about.
We went to the Christkindlmarkt at and around St. Charles Church and to the Magic Christmas Market. They had their market laid out in with four branches. They had the most unique, beautiful, handmade ornaments I had seen. We spent a fair amount of money there! They also had some really good Gluhwein.
We also walked to the Pasqualati House where Beethoven lived in Vienna and on several occasions between 1804 and 1815. The composer worked here on his opera “Fidelio” and on piano pieces such as the well-known “Fur Elise”.
Interestingly, The lights on all the streets with the Christmas Markets are all different – some like huge chandeliers, some just strung across in layers, some all over the buildings, etc. The reason for this is that the merchants on the streets decide what they want to put up and pay for. Makes for lots of variety.
In the afternoon, we did a “Behind the Scenes at the Lipizzaner Stallions” tour at the Stallburg Imperial Stables at the Hofburg Palace. That was pretty awesome! We had a guide for the ten of us who took the tour. She told us lots about the stallions, how they are trained and the history of them. The facility was built in 1729 by the Emperor and is one of the oldest of its kind in the world. It is built as part of the Schonbrunn Palace and the horses have very palatial facilities. We got to see the outdoor courtyard, the tack room, the stables, the performance arena and the outdoor training facility. Most of what we got to see was behind locked doors or gates where the general public wasn’t allowed. It was very cool seeing the stallions in their stable. We were just outside their individual stalls where you saw their names, what they ate for each meal and got to have a personal experience with them just on the other side of slats of wood.
We got to see several of the horses in outside stables. The horses are not totally white until they are about 7 years old. They have brown or gray in addition to the white. That is one of the things they look for when the pick horses to train. They also look at temperament, if they think they will train, their personality, etc. Lots of horses don’t make the cut and when they don’t, they sell them off, usually. They stay in Vienna 6 months of the year and have a summer vacation for 2 months and also get to go to the summer farm so they can get outside. It takes about 7 years to train a horse to make a show horses. Each horse does one of the tricks, not all of them. There is a school for the trainers too – one groomsman and one rider/trainer/horse.
Only 6 horses originally started the entire line of the horses so the first name of each horse is the lineage, the second name is the mother’s name. There are 70 horses at various stages of trainings, etc. The horses start doing shows about 8 years old and perform until they are about 25. Then they are retired and live the life of leisure until they die.
Then we went to the Gerstner K. u. K. Hofzuckerbäcker Coffee shop where Mike and I each had a huge piece of apple strudel with clotted cream. You could have one of those, a cheese strudel or any of about 15 awesome cakes and coffee. One of the great things about this place, beside the awesome food, everyone enjoyed their job!! They were all friendly, engaging and just really seemed to enjoy what they did.
The coffee shop was about a 2 minute walk to the Vienna State Opera. Gustav Mahler was, at one time, the director of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna state orchestra. During his time there, he decided to change the rules. He wanted people to pay attention to what they were watching and the people were using it as time to socialize – see and be seen – talking during concerts, leaving the lights on, etc. He said people needed to pay attention so no lights during performances, no talking and no eating and drinking. The people didn’t like that because they were used to using it as time to socialize so they said if they couldn’t socialize, they weren’t going to go and they stopped. Mahler knew he had to do something so he instituted the intermission, which was OK with the people. Today there are usually 3 intermissions with any thing going on in the Opera House.
There is a different opera, play, etc. every day at the Opera House. They were doing Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” the day we were there which would have been great to see but unfortunately, we didn’t have time. You could stand for the performance for about 15 Euros. If you wanted to sit in the best place, it was 301 Euros.
Then back to the ship for a relaxing supper and evening. Course, we did make time for a couple of scotches before turning in for the night.
We have so many traditions, especially for holidays and it’s fun to learn about traditions in other countries.
Philippines
The Saturday before Christmas Eve, in the city of San Fernando – the “Christmas Capital of the Philippines”, is a “Giant Lantern Festival”. The festival is a century old tradition which is a competition between each of the surrounding districts. The original lanterns were 2 feet tall and now are 20 feet tall. The lanterns are made from a variety of materials such as colored plastic, fiberglass and handmade paper. They consist of thousands of spinning lights that light up the night sky and symbolize the Star of Bethlehem and unwavering hope.
Sweden has used a Yule goat as a Christmas symbol since ancient pagan festivals. It is a symbol of generosity and plenty. The goat was also supposed to help deliver presents and is almost as popular in displays, decorations and on trees as reindeer are. Gävle, Sweden, in 1966, had the idea of making a giant straw goat. The goat is more than 42 feet high, 23 feet wide, weighs 3.6 tons and is built every year on December 1. It has been in the Guinness Book of World Records. Unfortunately Gave’s goat has been burned 35 times in the last 50 years. Do the people keep building the goat because they get lots of visitors each year to see if the goat survives or is it just they love their tradition?
Austria has a tradition at their St. Nicholas festivities on December 6. St. Nicholas rewards the well behaved with gifts. He is joined at the festivals by an evil accomplice, Krampus. Krampus is an anti-St. Nicholas who comes to warn and punish naughty children. He is a devil figure, often in chains, dressed in fur with a scary devil mast with horns and a long red tongue. He carries a wooden stick or switches to threaten children who misbehave. Sometimes he appears with a sack or basket strapped to his back to cart off evil children for eating or transporting to Hell. The US has introduce Krampus in post cards, holiday cards and several movies.
Japan doesn’t celebrate Christmas in a big way but they do have a traditional meal. Or traditional since 1974, when Kentucky Fried Chicken did a very successful advertising campaign which featured Kentucky Fried Chicken for Christmas dinner. It is so popular that people order their dinners months in advance or wait in line for hours, just have have their fried chicken dinner for Christmas.
Iceland celebrates for 13 days before Christmas. Each night children leave their shoes by the window. One of the 13 troll like “Yule Lad” characters comes during the night, leaving good boys and girls a small gift or candy. Naughty children get rotten potatoes in their shoes. The 13 Yule lads are troll like and each have their own speciality. Sheep-Cote Clod harasses sheep; Gully Gawk hides in gullies waiting for an opportunity to sneak in the cow sed and steal milk; Stubby is unusually short and steals pans to eat the food left in them; Spoon-Licker steals wooden spoons to lick and is extremely thin; Pot-Licker steals leftovers from pots; Bowl-Licker hides under beds and waits for someone to put down a bowl which he steals; Door-Slammer likes to slam doors, especially during the nigh; Skyr-Gobbler loves skyr (similar to yogurt); Sausage-Swiper hides in the rafters and steals sausages that are being smokes; Window-Peeper is a voyeur who looks through windows in search of things to steal; Doorway-Sniffer has an abnormally large nose and acute sense of smell which he uses to find laufabrauo (leaf bread – a traditional Icelandic Christmas bread made very thin, decorated and fried); Meat-Hook use a hook to step meat; Candle-Stealer follows children to steal their candles; Gryla, the mother of the Yule lads whom Icelandic mothers would scare their children from misbehaving by telling them Gryla would abduct them; Leppaluoi is the husband of Gryla, not evil but lazy. These 13 trolls are known for the mischief their name suggests.
Denmark homes are decorated with superstitious characters called “nisser”. “Nissers” are believed to provide protection from evil and misfortune if treated well. They are however, known to be short tempered when insulted or offended. They usually play tricks, steal things or even injure livestock if offended. Their name means “a household spirit” or goblin in Norwegian. They are generally described as being short, having a long white beard and wearing a cone or knit cap. They look similar to garden gnomes.
On Christmas Eve, Danish families place their Christmas tree in the middle of the room and dance around it singing carols.
The Irish leave a tall red candle in a front window on December 24, a welcoming symbol of warmth and shelter for Mary and Joseph. Traditional Christmas fare in Ireland often includes homemade roast goose or turkey, vegetables, cranberries, and potatoes. And they serve Christmas Pudding, or Plum Pudding. One superstition of the pudding is that it should be made with 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and His Disciples and that every member of the family should take turns stirring the pudding with a wooden spam from east to west, in honor of the Wise Men.
Boxing Day, celebrated on December 26, is an important day when they traditionally have football games and horse racing. Another tradition for the Christmas season in Ireland that I like – in some towns, Women’s Christmas is January 6 (also known as the Feast of the Epiphany). The women are given the day off and men do the housework and cooking.
Christmas dinner in Poland typically has an extra setting at the table in case anyone shows up uninvited. Nothing can be eaten until the first star is seen in the sky (a reminder of the Wisemen who followed a star to visit Jesus). At the table are 12 dishes, meant to give you good luck for the next 12 months, or a symbol of Jesus’s 12 disciples. It is traditionally meat free (to remember the animals who took care of Baby Jesus in the manger). One of the must haves is “barszcz” which is a beetroot soup. Carp is often the main dish along with bios which is made of cabbage, bacon and dried plums. Most also have a popular dessert, a poppy seed roll made of sweet yeast bread, mixed dried fruit and nuts or a moist cake made with honey (like gingerbread) or gingerbreads.
In Poland people prepare their homes for Christmas by cleaning everything, including windows and carpets. Everything must be clean for Christmas Day!
Ukraine celebrates Christmas on January 7 because they use the old “Julian” calendar for their church festivals. They eat their main Christmas meal, called the Holy Supper, on January 6. As with Poland, you can”t begin the meal until the first star is seen in the sky. They also have 12 dishes with no meat. A similar meal is eaten.
Farmers might want to add this to their traditions. In Ukraine they have a dish made of cooked wheat mixed with honey and ground poppy seeds. Most families throw a spoonful of this mix at the ceiling – if it sticks, there will be a good harvest in the new year.
Deedee and I have done a lot of cruises from the largest cruise ship to our favorite river cruise. All of these have one thing in commom. Some one else is driving the boat. Most people that cruise would say thats a really good thing. Being on a boat with a very professional crew that takes care of your safety, navigates, serves you food, and entertains you is what everyone thinks of for a cruise.
In September 21, we tried something completely different. We cruised on a narrow boat where we were the crew, the cooks, and the entertainment. We were responsible for everything. Now I’ll admit that it was fairly difficult to get into too much trouble at the blinding speed of 3 knots, but we tried a couple of times.
Our route was from the Chirk, Wales base down to Ellesmere in England where we spent the night, turned around and headed back upstream. We made it as far as Trevor after doing the Aqueduct (more about that later), then returned to Chirk base in 5 days.
Our boat was the Catlin, and a good boat was she. As with all narrow boats, it is seven feet wide, but the length can vary between 45 feet to almost 70 feet. This depends on the number of bedrooms, and bathrooms on board. Our boat was 53 feet long, had two bedrooms, and a central bath. Essentially it is a floating Camper.
Our friends had done this several times and recommended Black Price Boats as our source. We were very pleased with the company and the boat. She was clean, tidy and reliable. The layout is very comfortable, if a bit tight, especially passing in the narrow corridor. The kitchen, while small, was very well equipped with a gas range, small oven, a refrigerator, and all the other stuff it takes to prepare a meal. Considering how much fun we had and what a great adventure it was, the price was very reasonable.
The bedrooms are very small, with limited storage, however that is the same situation on a camper so no issue there. Our boat had one bathroom, but there are boats with two.
All in all a very comfortable place to spend 5 days. There was a radio and CD player on board along with a small TV, neither of which we used. I did discover camera mounts on the roof at the front of the boat. Made it very easy to mount the 360 degree camera for videos and pictures.
I am used to extensive checkouts on airplanes including weeks of simulator training for a new aircraft I would fly. This was not that kind of a checkout. They showed where the switches were, how to start the engine, how the throttle and rudder worked, then said if you have questions, its in the manual. That took twenty minutes, and we were on our way. In truth that was enough, we learned very quickly how the boat operated and after the first hour or so, we were an experienced crew.
One of the first things we did was go through the Chirk Tunnel. – a one boat affair. (Chirk Tunnel is 459 yards, completed in 1801. It is a brick lined tunnel, one of the longest of the three tunnels on the Llangollen Canal. It and Whitehouse Tunnel were the first tunnels built in Britain to be built with a towpath – walking path alongside.) The guy at the marina had told us we could see the other side – to look for other boats and turn our headlight on. What I thought was the headlight was the circuit breaker for it. In the meantime, we thought we saw a light coming through the tunnel so we stopped on the right. We waited for awhile then actually did see a boat come through without a light on! He said no one was behind him so we started through. With Deedee holding a flashlight in front. It seemed like a long tunnel – 459 yards. And it was dark!! People walking on the walkway beside us had to have a flashlight. Finally made it through and there were 2 boats behind us! It went right into the 1 lane Chirk Aqueduct which blessedly has a passing basin between the tunnel and the aqueduct. So we pulled over because we could see 2 boats coming over the Chirk Aqueduct. We pulled almost to the bank. The 2 boats behind us pulled up beside us to let the other 2 boats from the Aqueduct go into the tunnel. We let the other 2 boats go first. Then we went over the Aqueduct. It is 70 feet over the River Ceiriog. Beautiful view of the country below and beside us was a railway line with 10 stone arches. It was very pretty!
After the aqueduct, it was pretty easy sailing until we tied up for the night. As with all things the learning curve can be steep at first. Our checkout included instructions for some clips that are used to tie up with. It looks like a massive paper clip. All along the bank are metal strips that look like road barriers, but are bolted to the canal side so there is a small gap. The idea is that the hooked end goes between the bank and the rail. It jams in and locks the clip in place. Then the rope just loops through, and ties to the bollards on the fore and aft of the boat. Of course, I didn’t get it right the first time, so I just pounded stakes in the ground and tied up to them. This was the first night we ate on the boat. Next day we did both locks on our route with some help.
Most of the videos we did on the way back, because we were still trying to figure it out, and it rained hard on us all the way to Elismere. In fact the video of the tunnel is the one we did on the way back upstream.
We spent the next night in Elismere. It stopped raining so we went to town and ate at the Red Lion pub. Very famous old establishment dating from the 1500’s. Wonderful pub food. Fish and Chips, along with Guinness Lamb Stew.. The next morning was gorgeous, so we filled the potable water tank and headed upstream. About two hours later we came to the first of the two locks.
The locks are one boat affairs, and are manually operated. The drill is to wait for a boat coming out of the lock, so you can just go in. The aft gate is closed and the upstream paddles (the valves that let the water in or out) are raised by turning a gear drive with a windless. Every boat has a windless and you had best keep track of it. When the water level equalizes, the fore gate is opened and the boat is moved out. In the meantime the crew member working the lock insures that all paddles are closed for the next boat. This video gives a much better idea of how it works.
This canal had just two locks to pass through during our journey. As newbie’s on the narrow boats, we didn’t want to have to do a lot of locks. Our concerns were not warranted. Once you do one, it becomes obvious how to do it. Another issue for us was that it was just us doing it. This meant that Deedee had to stay on the boat while I operated the lock. She was not particularly thrilled with the idea of keeping the boat centered in the lock while the water was going up or down. If there are more folks on board, it makes the process go a lot smoother. On some canals, there could be as many as twenty locks, including some step locks that have multiple gates one right after another. Not what we wanted to tackle first time out, but not an issue for a future trip. The locks are completely manual. Once the boat is in the lock, the gates have to be closed behind the boat. Then the paddles, which are gear driven up and down by a windless, have to be opened. Depending on which way you are going, the water fills the lock, or drains from the lock. When the water level equalizes, you can push open the gate at the front of the boat and sail out. Still the operating crew member then has to lower the paddles, get the boats windless and get back on the boat. In most cases, for us, there were other boats waiting to go through, so lots of people on the banks to assist. Once you said this was your first time on the canal, they would help you get through. I believe it was the kindness of the folks but also a desire to not let the newbie slow up the process.
The truly spectacular feature on this canal is the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. It was completed in 1805 after 10 years of construction and 1 death caused by carelessness. The Aqueduct is 1007 feet long, 11 feet 10 inches wide, 5 feet 3 inches deep and is 126 feet above the River Dee. It consists of 18 piers and 19 arches each with a span of 45 feet. The towpath (walkway) that runs along side it, just over the trough has railings running along side it to protect the towpath but the trough has no railings. The Aqueduct was named a World Heritage Site in 2009.
That’s all very interesting information, but going over it in person is just awesome. The view is spectacular, especially since the view from the edge of the canal is straight down. The pictures are not ours, but show the aqueduct from different views. The video is of us crossing it.
As we go across, you can hear the boat occasionally scrape the metal sides of the channel.
A great deal of the attraction for this kind of cruising is how serene and peaceful the journey is. On the canal, the sound of the boat is very low, so the birds and the wind, and conversation are all easy to hear. The pace is languid and the scenery is very pastoral. Everything is done slowly. Rushing to do anything seems pointless, although when docking or tying up, there is a small amount of monkey motion to get it done.
One other small feature we found on the canal was a manual lift bridge. This is a geared bridge that the boat must stop for. A crew member gets out and uses the windless to crank the gear to raise the bridge. When the boat is through, it needs to stop and the crewman lowers the bridge, then hops back on. In our case, there was a gentleman at the bridge who was kind enough to operate it for us.
The upshot of any experience is – would I do it again. In this case the answer is a resounding yes. This is a trip that combines so many things. Probably first and foremost is a sense of control because it’s you doing it. You are driving the boat, determining the speed, not some one else in a bridge far away. On the other hand, you are constrained by the canal and the slow pace of the boat, so the chances for serious mistakes are low.
Then there is the beauty and the peace of it. Watching the small part of the world go by at 3 Knots is an almost magical and fantastical experience. So do it again, yep, and we are working on that with another couple for the not to distant future.
I came across this video from Viking cruises about recording a new theme for the Viking Cruise Lines. It happened at Abby Road studios, and so has a link back to the times when so many noteworthy albums were recorded in that space. It is a very interesting look inside the recording and mixing process. The video shows the immense amount of work and talent needed to transform the notes on paper to a finished, polished recording. Remember the musicians have not seen a note of this until the first run-through. Simply amazing. Take a look, I think you will find it fascinating.
When cruising starts back you will see some changes. No one is being specific but they are giving some idea of the things to expect. The cruise lines are working with health experts and elected officials to return using the best and safest path for passengers and crew. There will be a “new normal”.
Ships will likely not return with full capacity. There will be limited capacity so physical distancing will be possible. There will probably be floor markers for distancing as well as plexiglass barriers and spaced out seating. There will also be areas of the ship that will restrict the number of guests allowed in at a given time such as bars, restaurants and entertainment venues.
Embarkation and debarkation will be staggered to limit the number of guests in an area. Masks (with your mouth and nose covered) will likely be required in public spaces and in situations where physical distancing isn’t possible.
Health screenings will be more comprehensive and required before boarding. Temperature checks will be commonplace – upon boarding, upon returning from a shore excursion and probably occasionally at least the first few days onboard. Some lines may require negative COVID-19 test result prior to boarding as many tourist destinations are currently doing. Crew members will be tested routinely.
Some cruise lines will do away with the beloved buffet. Some will have the buffet but it will be served to guests by PPE equipped staff. Frequent hand washing is one of the easiest ways to help prevent spread of disease so there will be more hand washing stations and hand sanitizer dispensers throughout the ship.
Shore excursions will be set up differently and likely limited in what a guest can do in a port. One cruise line that is already cruising in Europe for example, requires guests to participate in only their shore excursions and are not allowing them to go off on their own. They mean it too – one family group went off on their own after leaving with the ship excursion and when they returned to the ship, they were not allowed to re-board and their luggage was packed and brought out to them.
Muster drills will probably be via an electronic device (I’m in favor of that!) with guests visiting their assigned assembly stations to confirm their participation. This will be set up in a way to avoid the mass gathering in the ship. But they will have ways of checking your participation so don’t think you can get out of it!
Cruising will be different when we get back to it, but it will still be a great way to travel and still have fun!!
Keep your cruise papers organized. Carry a few magnets with you on your cruise. The walls of your cabin are magnetic and you can use the magnets to keep the paper you need for that day out of the stack.
The bathrooms could benefit from a scented air freshener so bring one with you (not candles or anything that needs to be lit). You can hang it on the shower or towel bar and help cut down on bathroom smells.
There is room under the bed where you can store your suitcases. Some lines store extra linen there but you should be able to put most of your luggage under the bed.
Bed configuration should be specified before your cruise but if you find it is not to your liking when you get there, you can ask your cabin steward to have it changed. They can be single beds or queen/king bed.
Other furniture in the room is pretty set with where it is. Most tables, etc. are heavily weighted so the don’t move in rougher seas.
The tap water in the cabin is safe to drink. Ship’s water systems go through rigorous filtration and testing which is overseen by U.S. And European health agencies. So, you don’t need to carry lots of bottled water.
Expect a little smaller room than your average hotel room. But they have it well arranged to utilize the space you have as well as lots of storage nooks.
