Cruising Europe

Jane Sanders
12-18-2008

By Jane Sanders Special to The Cleburne News (The Sanders’ took a tour of Europe by river boat this summer and these are her observations along the way) The overnight flight was not very exciting, but rather uneventful. The TV blaring and babies crying kept me awake most of the night. We arrived in Frankfurt, Germany. The wait in Frankfurt was long but we did meet up with some of our fellow travelers. I tried to speak with a lady from Hungary but not with much success. She had little English and I had no Hungarian. She had been visiting family in California. Things are very expensive in this part of the world. A sub sandwich is about $9 US. It is amazing the number of people traveling in spite of the poor economy. We arrive at our ship. It is large and beautifully outfitted. This will be our home for the next 15 days. We came from the south side of the airport into Budapest. Budapest is now a city with both sides of the river pulled together. There are many signs of the old communist regime. The buildings that have remained are beautiful. Budapest is a city of two million people. The whole country of Hungary has a population of 20 million. We are going to the ship to welcome aboard dinner and rest some before we start out on the main part of our trip. Budapest City Tour Buda means on the hill, Pest on the plains. Two small cities were combined to form a larger city in 1872. The history of the city actually dates back to 89 AD. The area was occupied by the Magyars until around 900. Today’s ethnic Hungarians won out over the destruction by the Mongols. The area called Buda around a castle became the capital of Hungary. The Turks invaded in the 16th century and it became a part of Austria. That lasted into the 20th century. During WW II Hungary sided with Germany and was heavily defeated by Allied forces in 1945. Some 250,000 Jews died during this time, yet Hungary has the highest number per capita of Jewish citizens of any European city. Hungary became part of the Iron Curtain world in the 1950s. Russian strategy began to be altered as the people revolted and a peaceful gobvernment occureed in 1988. We are traveling to Austria Saturday PM and night. We had our mandatory evacuation drill today. The boat is very nice with large rooms and wonderful public spaces. There area a number of oeple here fomr the Southern states. Some of the folks are on the 11th trip with this same company so I guess they have earned a good reputation. We are trying to make a decision about some of the extra tours. We want to see a lot, but not overdo it and be too tied to enjo9y the rest of the trip. Sunday mnornnng was a time for travel. While wee were traveling we had a elsson in the German language. Maybe we will get enough to be aboel to at least understand what the peolle are sahying. We are scheduled to arrive in Vienna around 2. There will be a number of activiees in the afternoon. All along the rivers are tiny houses calle dachas, we are just giuessing the spelling. The reason hjey are som small is becaue they are only used for sleeping. All other activites are done outside. They are built on stilts like a oto fothe beach house here in the South. We have been going through a series of locks today. Someone said there were 66 locks – not real sure about that. We are about two hours from Vienna. Vienna, Austria is a lovely city of about 1.7 million. Much of the “old” town remains. Although it was bombed pretty badly in WWII. They hae done an excellent job of rrestoration. Most of the buildings look like they did when the Hapsbergs ruled. This lasted for about 600 years about 1453 to well into the 19th century. Some of the things that are best knownabout Vienna are: the Danube river, Strauss waltzes, the Royal Lipizzaner Stallions in the Spanish riding school, taxi dirvers huming melodie form “The Magic Flute” along with storng trade uhnions and a prosperous middle class. Some of the wonderful things in everyday life are the cafes and coffeehouse. They are the centres for pastries, gosspiand philosophicadiscussion. One of the words used to best describe Vienna is Gemuthichkeit, roughly translated it means cozy, comfy, easy affability. Marie-Theresa as one odf the ost outsdanding of the ruling Hapsburgs. She was never crowed empress because she wass too busy having 16 children. Her husband as crowned emperor in her palce. This family made many excellent marriage with other royal families to strengthen the eipoire including a daughter they married to Napoleon Bonaparte. Music is everywhere in Vienna. Strauss, Brahms, Mozart, hauyden and Beethoven to name a few. There are many wonderful concert halls. Even today they are3 known for the great music festivals they have each year. The main place we visited was Schronbrumn Palace. It is full of fancy woodwork and tons of gold. It is made to ook alit liiek some of the graet palaces in France. I don’t remember how many rooms it had, jubt it was huge and had many acres of gardens. We visited one wine house that had been in business since 1609. There are many of these all over Vienna. Some do tours and tastings, while others do musical entertainment. One unsuccessful painter that was turned away in Vienna was Adolph Hitler. He left town in disgust and look how he turned out. Tour of downtown Vienna today was mostly concerntrated on St. Stephens Cathedral. It is about 600 years old and was being repaired as wee many of the things we visited. The Wachau Valley is a lrge valley with many wonderful visions formed by the Danube River. It is world renoveed reigion of grat cultural heritage. There is a region in North Carolina that is named for the Wachau Valley. It reminded the immigrants of the Washau Valley they hadcome from, the ancestral home of the Moravians. The Latin form of the word is Wachovia which was formed there in 1879.

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