Along the Danube

   Our first day of 8 days cruising the Danube River on the Viking Tor.  This is a large boat and rides smoothly in the beautiful glacier fed water.   It takes 165 steps to walk from one end to the other.
    We left Budapest in the early afternoon and began our River Cruise.  We've always heard the words "Blue Danube" associated with Danube.   It was not blue.  More like a washed out, bleached green, typical of snowmelt or glacier melt.  But it was running smooth and calm.
   We enjoyed lounging on the top deck and watching many interesting sights along the river....old castles, church spires in every little village.  We went through 27 locks on the 400+ miles of river.  Going through a lock is very interesting.   When the boat needs to elevate to a higher water level, the boat enters a large concrete container.  Huge doors close off behind the boat and smaller doors in front begin to open, allowing water to flow into the container.  The boat rises with the water level.  Once the two levels equal, the front doors open and the boat leaves the container onto the upper river level.  The process is reversed if the boat needs to drop down to a lower level river.  There is always a lock at every Dam on the river.
   Our first port stop was Vienna., Austria.  We had signed up for a Princess bus tour of the city.  It was fun seeing some familiar sights we recognized from our last trip to  Vienna.
   Later that evening, Ron and Nancy went to a Mozart concert.  Oit was performed  by a man from Montana.   Ron said on the bus ride back, he is almost certain he saw the apartment building where we were almost arrested for loud partying after 10:00 o'clock back in 2012.
   Our next stop was at Krem, Austria, a port city.    We  boarded large buses and was taken on a  Princess tour to the Gottweig Abbey.  It was an ancient old church sand residence for Monks who live here.  They harvest Apricots and make an awesome Apricot nectar.   They also farm 30,000 acres of various crops, the majority being grapes for their wine making business.

In Passau, we did a walking tour of this city.  We went inside a huge church to listen to organ music.  They had 5 organs,  one of which boasted to be the world's largest.    In the afternoon we took a bus tour to go visit an old 18th century era Bavarian village.

In Regensburg, we took a walking tour of this Roman influenced city. The Jewish tombstones had been destroyed by the National,  but at least one was saved by someone by hiding it in the wall as part of the construction and plastered over to hide it.   It was later uncovered but left exposed in the wall for all to see. Ron went into a golf museum where they told him Regensburg is where golf was invented .    We visited another big church.  We sampled the local cuisine and ate lunch in a downtown cafe.  I had a delicious Venison  Brotwurst lunch.

 Our final port was Erlanger, Germany, where we headed for the big city of Nuremberg.  Princess gave us a bus tour of the city and the old castle.    This specially built castle offered a great deal of protection with booby traps and secret doors, holes and openings from which boiling oil, arrows from hidden archers and burning hay could be dropped unexpectedly upon the determined enemy.  
  We saw a very large stadium where Hitler could review his troops and watch his military parades.
   Before getting on the bus to head vack to the boat, Ron and I sampled  Nuremburg's famous Keyhole Brotwurst for lunch.  This little finger size brot was created back during the time when folks feared for their lives and were afraid to even open their doors.   An enterprising brot maker designed them small enough to slip through a  keyhole.  He delivered.