On the Danube 2025

Recently returned from a river cruise up the Danube. This is the first cruise for both Mrs. Gorodish and me. We had considered either a river or ocean cruise for quite some time. It happened at this time and place because the river cruise was combined with a watercolor workshop (Mrs. Gorodish being a watercolor artist). For the non-artistic taggers-along (like me) other activities were planned.

This post is going to be pictures, but also something of a rant about why this was probably also the last cruise for us.  It was not an issue with the quality of the cruise, which except for one significant aspect was excellent. The ship was a new one, and elegantly furnished. Service was excellent and conscientious. The issues we experienced are inherent to the cruise format.

I'm aware that some people go on cruises again and again. Good for them. Those people are not like me.

Here was a typical day aboard the ship. Breakfast was served from 7 to 9, buffet style. We'll come back the quality of this, but for now I'll just say it was okay but not great. Then generally at 9:00 we would start the day's morning sightseeing. For the non-painters this was generally a walking tour. A part of the process was convening in the lounge at 8:45.

Thus every morning entailed two hours of "eating time"/"organizational time" before the actual travel activities began. By contrast, when I travel on my own, assuming I'm in a hotel with breakfast, I would generally take not more then twenty minutes over breakfast before hitting the street.

Most days the morning tour would end before noon, then we would be back on the ship for lunch. Lunch was a major affair every day, taking at least an hour, with a sequence of four courses. Then as a rule we would have an afternoon activity (not a mere repetition of the morning's activity). And then back in time for dinner which was another major production of four or five courses.

The five-course meal is a pleasant diversion when you haven't done it for a while, but it becomes rather fatiguing when it's every meal. We were spending a good three hours per day sitting at the dinner table.

Before leaving on the cruise, it seemed an appealingly efficient way to travel. Sightsee during the day, and then the boat moves while you sleep, so you magically wake up in a new place. In practice, a large part of every day was taken up with boat life. 

Moreover, every time we left the boat we had an ironclad deadline for returning--which means of course we had to return a bit early to leave allowance for the unexpected. When staying in a hotel you can go out and come back sooner or later, but at least you know whatever time you return the hotel will still be there.

So the overriding reason I now realize I prefer traveling on my own to a cruise (or indeed any kind of group tour) is that with a group a lot of time is taken up with overhead activities. (This is not a problem exclusive to group travel; the main reason I dislike traveling by air is the large amount of dead time waiting for things to happen.)

We'll come back to discussing the cruise. Time now for a photo break. Yet another aspect of doing a group tour, which I realized only later, is that most of my photos are of a clump of people standing on a picturesque street.

These pictures come in no particular order. Click on any picture for a larger version.

Street scene in Salzburg. By the time we got to Salzburg we had heard several times about how Austrians are either ignorant of The Sound of Music or actively dislike it. On reflection I could get how this is. Since the story fundamentally is about escaping from Austria, the unspoken implication is that all those who stayed behind are losers (or worse). Nevertheless, Salzburg is replete with "Sound of Music" tours.

In the middle of the town of Salzburg is a massive natural pillar of stone and on the top of the pillar is a castle. I didn't look it up but possibly the castle came before the town.

One of the most impressive things on the entire trip was the view from the castle. It's impossible to capture more than a tiny piece of the vast scope in a photo. The last comparable thing I recall seeing is the view from Machu Picchu. 

In Salzburg we passed this nice little graveyard in the middle of the street. Several of the graves doubled as a bed for shrubs and flowers. As a friend pointed out, this relieves you of the hassle of bringing flowers to the grave.

Architectural detail in Passau, Germany. I enjoyed this because it reminded me of the quirky architecture you see in some Escher pictures:

Passau is the endpoint for many river cruises, which means the town is swarming with tour groups. In particular we saw several groups with Viking Cruise passengers (not our cruise line). It struck me that Viking Cruises has missed a branding opportunity. How much more fun would it be if the tour groups donned horned Viking helmets and rampaged through the town, littering and shoplifting?

Another Passau street scene, which now makes me think of liminal spaces.

Fairness dictates that I acknowledge some of the advantages of the cruise, or more generally the group tour. One advantage is that we did meet some interesting people, some even worth associating with in regular life. 

Another is that we ended up visiting some places that I would never have considered visiting, or even some that I had never heard of. One of these is a little village of Dürnstein. Their main claim to fame seems to be wine production. Since I don't drink wine, that meant nothing to me, but the village was very picturesque nonetheless. 

Fountain on the grounds of Schönbrunn palace in Vienna.

My Austrian guide was even more dismayed than I to see that apparently we are putting advertisements on cathedrals now.

Bratislava, another place which I would probably never have visited if not for this cruise. It was really nice and interesting--I suspect that one day is enough to see most of what they have for tourists. This tower is not a church but merely a city gate. It was interesting to me to see the gradual evolution in this characteristic tower shape as we went up the river, from almost-an-onion-dome to this kind of chess piece to finally a much streamlined shape in Germany.

Out Bratislava guide had an interesting anecdote for us. The town government decided to have a contest to name a new bridge. They asked everyone to submit candidates and then have a vote to choose the name. The winning name was "Bridge of Chuck Norris" but the town government refused to honor the results and named it something boring like "Liberty Bridge."

As he pointed out, this was a huge missed opportunity. They could have had Chuck Norris come to officially open the bridge, and every tourist to Bratislava would have made a point of visiting the "Bridge of Chuck Norris."

In general, visiting this region made me hungry to learn more about the history of the region. As it is, I have a vague knowledge that there was a thing called the "Austro-Hungarian Empire" but little more.

Scenes from Budapest. Budapest was another case of a place that I might have got around to visiting eventually but was not high on my list. There is much left to be seen but we found it far more interesting and romantic than I expected.

Váci Street. This name was familiar from my Hungarian course but I had no mental image until I went there. The street itself is very distinctive and a haven for tourists.

Another famous Budapest site is the large market.

The Houses of Parliament at night. Being on a boat, we were ideally situated to get a view. You may notice in this video birds circling over the building. This was quite the mystery. Are they attracted by the lights (although they stay way above them)? Or are they everywhere and only visible when hit by the lights?

The Liberty Bridge at night.

-oOo-

We now interrupt your picture-viewing program for a short rant about the sole deficient aspect of the cruise--to wit, the food. The following cartoon will help explain the issue:

Every meal had soup and every soup was like this--badly in need of another crayon. We could always see clear to the bottom of the bowl--even when the soup was something like "pea soup" or "lobster bisque." More generally, most of the food was very bland (although gorgeously presented). 

I developed a theory about why this might be so. First of all I noted that the breakfast buffet was oriented toward British or Northern European guests. The giveaway was the presence of baked beans. On the other hand there was never salsa or (American) biscuits. So ok, fine, there are worse things in life than eating English cooking.

The chef on the other hand was originally from Indonesia (also ok, fine--go Indonesia!). But I hypothesize now that Indonesian cooking (which I have never had) is rather spicy and flavorful.

It had never occurred to me previously that one of the trickiest things to learn when you study a foreign style of cooking is to develop a sense of what things are supposed to taste like. And particularly when going from a spicier to a less-spicy palate. It's too easy to take the lesson "English people like their food bland" rather than "English people like their flavors subtle.

Anyway it's just a theory.

-oOo-

Ok, back to the pictures. 

Not technically part of the cruise, but since getting to Budapest required a transfer in Munich, we spent a couple of nights there and made a day excursion to see the castle Neuschwanstein, built by the "mad king" Ludwig II in the nineteenth century. This castle was supposedly Walt Disney's inspiration for Cinderella's castle at DisneyWorld. 

 

So on the excursion I learned a little more about the relevant history. It turns out that "mad king" Ludwig didn't have the cool fun kind of madness but rather the depressing kind where he sat alone in a room all day. And indeed they came and took him away to a psychiatric hospital, where he died under mysterious circumstances the very next day. And then the castle was opened as a tourist attraction just two weeks later. 

So was it a plot by the tour guides to depose the king?

Also nearby, also belonging to King Ludwig: Hohenschwangau Castle. And that's all I have to say about that.

Since our flight from Munich to Budapest was to leave rather early in the morning, we elected to stay in the Munich airport Hilton. It turned out to be surprisingly whimsical, in the form of a giant greenhouse with fake palm trees inside.

 The Munich airport is also a train station--not much surprising about that. There is also a small collection of shops and restaurants. By comparison, Dulles airport has the train station but nothing to help you pass the time. An appreciated feature was this canopy over the open area which I estimate is some 100 feet high (very handy when it rains). It's hard to picture any American structure having the boldness to include something like this (except maybe in a theme park). I wonder why that is?

That's all, folks.