Two Castles, a Palace and a Fortress

When not biking between picturesque little towns and villages, we got to spend a few hours in more urban centres. Stop #1, Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia since 1993. During the communist reign, Czechoslovakia was split into two and became the Czech  Socialist Republic and the Socialist Republic of Slovakia. 

We arrived by bike, to a cold, wet gloomy Bratislava. We were booked for an evening tour but had a few hours to explore the city on our own.  and meet some of the citizens. 

Our tour transportation was unique.

And like every good European city, Bratislava has a hrad (castle). One of the more whiter ones we have seen.  The choice of white for castles seems a very daring choice. How do you get the blood stains out.

It has burnt down several times over the last 1,000 years, the last time in 1811 where it laid in ruins till 1957 and finished in 1968.

The weather continued to deteriorate but on the positive side, we were the only ones wandering around the old city.

It was back to the MC Carissima for a special coffee.

Stop #2 was Budapest. Another wet and gloomy day.

Budapest was once two separate cities. Buda and Pest. Buda became the capital of  Hungary in 1361. In 1849, the first permanent bridge was build across the Danube linking the two cities and 24 years later Buda and Pest merged to become Budapest. Not sure why it could not have been called Pudabest.

And like every European city, it has a castle.

And like every castle it was located on a hill.

The first Buda Castle was built in the 13th Century while this version was completed in the 18th Century.

Someone took pity on us poor tourists and 100 years  later built a funicular that carried us to the castle.  Pretty sweet ride for something almost 150 years old.

We were met by a friendly guard who didn't need a gun, his steely stare alone kept tourists at bey.

The day got pretty wet, traffic got pretty nasty and slow while the windows on the Hop on, Hop off bus got all steamy providing a very blurry view of Budapest.


Back to the MC Carissima for a special coffee.

Stop #3, the beautiful city of Vienna. We were booked on a bus tour during the day and off to a Strauss concert in the evening.



First stop was walking tour of old town.

No European city tour is complete without a cathedral. St. Stephen's Cathedral is the go to cathedral in Vienna and located smack in the middle of the Vienna's old town.

The old town has been nicely maintained and restored, sadly it is just like most other European old towns, full of restaurants, souvenir shops and stores found in most shopping malls around the world.


It did have some pretty cool fountains.

Bad news,  Vienna does not have a castle.
It has a palace! Schloss Schoenbrunn

I know you are asking, what is the difference between a castle and a palace. A castle is a fortified dwelling and a palace in just a glitzy dwelling.

Sadly it was not included in our drive by tour.

Photo: www.schoenbrunn.at

It was back to the MC Carissima for a special coffee and to dress for our concert. Surprise, surprise we were driven to Schloss Schoenbrunn for a 60 minute concert. No pictures allowed so borrowed one. Very enjoyable but expensive 60 minutes.

Back to the MC Carissima for a special coffee.

Photo: www.schoenbrunn.at

Stop #4, Passau, the start and the end of our trip. We arrived early in the morning to a beautiful blue sky day. With a late train departure to Vienna, we had the whole day to explore.

Of course our itinerary included a castle,Veste Oberhaus. To be fair to the definition of a castle, Veste Oberhaus is actually a fortress. A fort or fortress is different from both a castle and a palace as they are designed as a military fortification, specifically with war in mind.

Like any castle, it was located on a hill.

It was built in 1219 by Ulrich II, the first bishop-prince of Passau. It was attacked five times in it's first 200 years of existence, two of those times were by the pissed peasants of Passau.


Of course, there were no handy funiculars or elevators for us. .

Just stairs, lots and lots and lots of stairs.

But the views of Passau and the surrounding country were worth the climb.

While the views were spectacular, the fortress itself was a little under whelming.


Perhaps it was the company. Those bishops can get a little prickly.



Time to head to the train station.

Miles of Smiles

Weather for our rides was always a bit iffy. But never bad enough to wipe the smile off Nonie's face.

The bike paths well maintained with little or no hills.

Why my smile was never far away. This cherry beer  paired with a bag of Lays potato chips was to die for.

This Hungarian white brought a smile to my lips.

We saw lots of castles along the way.

Some in better shape than others.

But they all seem to be located on steep hills, making them difficult to bike to.

So we didn't.

The paths were well populated with quaint little villages and towns.

Filled with tourists.

Every village had church.

Some were grander than others.

Vineyards were just getting ready to produce.

We were a little early for grapes.

But plenty of wineries to sip last years vintages.

Getting across the Danube was never a problem with plenty of ferries.

Some bigger and busier than others.


The rain had swollen the Danube making it deeper and and swifter adding to Nonie's continued fear of ferries.

There were plenty of little surprises along the way. The Simandl Fountain in Krems.

Simandl is a figure that plays a special role in this city so rich in legends and tales. This name is used in Bavarian and Austrian dialect to designate a henpecked husband. (wikipedia)

Then there was the giant nose in which Nonie carefully picked her way through it.

A 700 year old wall and gate to no where

And one last ferry ride, still smiling.

We biked over 240 kilometres on this trip. Saw four different countries and only got lost a few times.

Well worth the effort and the sore asses.

We will be back.

A Barge To Big

We flew into Passau by a commuter train arriving late in the afternoon from Munich and boy were our wings tired. Sorry, but the picture dictated the narrative.

Our plans for the next day were to find the correct dock for our departure the following day, as well locate some cycling helmets. We had several options for helmets that I had sourced out before we left Canada and settled on rental helmets for $18 EU, thanks to the nice folks at Fahrrad-Klinik.

Chores out of the way we set out to explore Passau. Our first stop was St. Stephens Cathedral and a chance to listen to its 17,774 pipe organ at an afternoon concert.  The organ has five sets of pipes spread around the cathedral that surrounds you in sound. The organ is the largest in Europe and second largest in the world.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the old town. We would have another opportunity to explore more of Passau upon our return. We would have the whole day as we are catching an evening train to Vienna.   

Morning of departure day and we needed to get some laundry done. Since they started charging for checked in baggage we have developed serious skills in travelling with carry on only. So it was off to the Waschtreff waschsalon. Thanks to a teaching moment in an Amsterdam laundromat, we managed to get our laundry done by carefully reading all instructions and following them to the letter. Okay, maybe there was one small mistake when I chose the wrong drying cycle and it took over 90 minutes and some extra Euros to dry our laundry. But all the instructions were in German and I blame this on my translation app.   

Meet the MC Carissima; she will be our home for the next 8 days. Building on the success of our Tulip Tour in 2018 we signed up for another bike and barge tour. This time we will cruise the Danube River from Passau Germany to Budapest, Yugoslavia with stops in Bratislava Slovakia and Vienna Austria.  Four days of the journey will involve 45 kilometre bike rides, mostly along the Danube River.

The biggest difference between our Tulip Tour and the Danauwalzer (Danube Dance) tour was size. The Magnifique II, our first barge had a passenger capacity of 46 while the Carissima had a capacity of 160. This translated into a much different vibe between the two ships.

Like the big cruise ships we were scheduled to board the Carissima in the early afternoon. We arrived concurrently as a large bus, full of fellow passengers and got caught up in a mass boarding and luggage situation which got uglier when they discovered the bar was not open yet. There were lots of grumbling and complaints, which got louder when they saw the drink package costs.

Our room was as advertised. Small but spotlessly clean. We were warned that space for luggage in the berths (rooms) was limited and they weren’t lying. We had trouble finding space to store our two carry-on(s) so we can only imagine what some of the other passengers did with their massive suitcases and carry-on bags.

The bar was a lovely place to spend time at the end of each day to watch the world go by, sipping tasty German beers and dry German whites. Free coffee was only available from 6:00 to 6:45 AM and 4:15 to 5:00 PM each day. For the rest of the day it was available for $3 EU at the bar. On the Magnifique, coffee was available for free all day.   

The dining room was located on the lowest deck. Breakfast was served buffet style and dinner was served to our table. Each morning you were presented with a menu where you would select your evening meal. You had two choices for appetizers and entrees and three choices for dessert of which one was always ice cream. On the Magnifique, we got dinner with a tasty dessert buffet. 

There was only one seating for dinner and the dining room was packed. Seating was fixed so we sat with the same people each night. Seating was set by large groups and nationalities. Our seat mates consisted of a large group of friends from different parts of Canada and they filled two tables. They were all computer nerds who had met while working with Nortel back in the 80’s but were now scattered around Canada but still got together annually some where in the world. All were in their 50’s, all single and no children.  Wifi sucked and cellular connections were spotty at best making them all very jittery.

All in all, it was an enjoyable trip but to much like a big cruise ship and not the more casual, laid back vibe of our first bike and barge. But we weren't there for the barge, it was the bike the brought us back.