Day: July 2, 2022

Bratislava

The next morning we found ourselves in Bratislava, the capitol of Slovakia.  We took the panoramic bus tour around town and up to the castle.  This portion of the trip seemed rushed.  We took the quick bus tour, walked around downtown for a few minutes, and then got back on the boat.  Another two hours would have been a perfect amount of time to explore downtown a little more.

Our first view of Bratislava. This was right across from where our boat was moored.
The rather modern “UFO” bridge from our boat. The UFO is actually a rotating restaurant.
Departing the boat for our panoramic tour.
Bratislava castle in the distance.
The interior grounds of Bratislava castle.
The gardens behind Bratislava castle.
A church downtown.
The main square in downtown Bratislava.
Bratislava is known for its whimsical statues, like this Napoleonic soldier.
Legend says that if a young woman touches this figures hat, she’ll get pregnant, and if an old woman touches his hat, she’ll get money. The story behind this is that during communist times, people got paid for doing nothing, and nothing got done.
The Danube with the setting sun.

Vienna

We began our time in Vienna with a walking tour of the downtown area and the Hapbsburg palace with its many courtyards.  After the walking tour, there was some scheduled free time for shopping.  Instead of shopping, Greg, JJ, and I met Duncan at the Vienna military museum.

Preparing to take out tour. This is a view of the “foyer” of the boat.
Wow! This was taken from the bus window while moving to the start of our tour.
Part of the Hapsburg winter palace
Downtown Vienna
St. Stephan’s church in the center of Vienna’s old town area. I really like the colored shingles/tiles on this roof.

Duncan had found this gem while looking for things to do in Vienna many months ago.  Duncan skipped the walking tour entirely to make sure he had time to see everything.  JJ, Greg, and I spent over four hours there.   It was well worth the time.  The architecture in the museum and the artwork, but might have been “over the top” in an art museum.  It is unprecedented in a military museum.

 

We passed through a park on the way to the museum. Greg and JJ made a new friend.
This is a small part of the entrance hall of the military museum.
In the WWI and WWII sections, most of the signs were in both German and English.

There were several of these maps in the WWI section. The displays were organized by year of the war. As a result, the displays did a great job of showing the evolution of technology throughout the war.
A unique, double-barreled automatic pistol. I found the thumb, leaf trigger (like on the US .50 cal. machine-gun) interesting.
Duncan really WAS happy to be there.
This drum magazine was interesting.
Another double-barreled submachine gun. This one appears to have been mounted on an airplane.

I took over 350 photos in this museum.  These are just a small sample.

Frescoes high above the first floor (second floor to Americans) galleries.

The famous Austerlitz surrender painting.
Throughout the Napoleonic area, there were many of these excellent figurines to show different uniforms of the period.
A Storch aircraft in the WWII section.
An interesting automatic rifle with a side-mounted box magazine that was on display as a weapon of paratroopers.
A fallshirmjaeger.
This is an interesting glass landmine. It is unclear if the glass was because raw materials were becoming scarce toward the end of the war or whether this was to avoid mine detection. My theory is the latter.
A Goliath. I hadn’t seen one with the top off before. This was used to drive explosives under enemy tanks.

After seeing everything in the museum itself, we walked around the corner to the panzerahalle (Tank Hall).  This included an excellent display of Russian and Cold War equipment that you rarely see.

A 1:1 scale model of an Austrian tank design in 1911. This was way ahead of its time, but no prototypes were ever produced for testing.
A view of a portion of the panzerhalle.
After the museum we took the underground back to the center of town.
Before returning to the boat, we stopped in a Viennese coffee house for coffee and desserts: JJ, Greg, Duncan.

Gottweg Abbey, Krems

The day of the Wachau Valley cruise, we also stopped at Krems to visit the Gottweg Abbey.  They abbey was impressive.  The tour ended in the gift shop for some wine tasting, as the abbey seems to be famous for its wines, and it is in the Wachau Valley, which is wine country.

There are less than 50 monks in the abbey. Many of them also perform as priests in the many local parishes. This is a view over the wall of the abbey at a nearby local church.
The entrance to the abbey grounds
The group milling about.
Interior of the Abbey grounds
One of the ceiling frescoes within the abbey.
The fresco ceiling and one of the walls.
The front of the church within the abbey
The church altar. There was a crypt below the altar with some relics.

 

We had a little time after returning from the abbey, so then Dave and I hike into the hills around Krems for an hour.

Along the Danube, Through the Wachau Valley

After our day at Linz, the next morning we set sail along the Danube toward Bratislava.  This was meant to be a relaxing day absent a bunch of excursions.  The morning was foggy, but along the way, I was able to capture some pictures of some castles and the countryside.  Violeta, our program director, was providing a narration during this porting of the trip, but for some reason, it was difficult to hear and understand her on the top (sun) deck.  As a result, I don’t have a lot of details about these various sights, other than they are picturesque.

There were a lot of interesting sights along the river, but this one really caught my eye.
This portion of the Danube, the Wachau valley is wine country. you can see the terraced vineyards in the background, despite the mist.
This might have been a great picture if it wasn’t for the mist and rain.
This is the castle Violeta referred to as the Watcher on the Wachau.

As is typical on Viking cruises it seems, much of the staff is from Central Europe.  Violeta was from Romania.  She recognized my name immediately as we came on board as being Romanian.  In Romanian “Surdu” means the deaf.  One evening, Violeta gave a presentation about what life was like under the communist regime in Romania that all Americans need to hear.  It was long and suffered from a little meandering, but the content was good.