First Leg of a Danube River Cruise

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<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Seattle to Bucharest



I am on the first leg of a cruise on the Danube River in Eastern Europe. I am traveling with my travel pal Bill Kepper, who arrived at SeaTac airport limping along with a painful hip. He has complained of hip problems for some time. This could be problematic for him since I expect we will be doing quite a bit walking at stops along the river. As I write this we have just left Amsterdam and are on our way to Bucharest, the first stop on this adventure.

The nine hour flight from Seattle to Amsterdam was uneventful. I watched 4 episodes of Downton Abbey and the film “Driving Ms. Daisy”. Occasionally I looked out the window and at one point saw a full moon rising as we passed over Greenland. The moonlight reflecting off the snow and ice was spectacular. Near dawn we passed over Scotland and then glided across the North Sea to landfall in the Netherlands. There is good reason for the name. It means the “low” country and so it is; flat as a pancake. If it wasn’t for the many dikes, pumps and canals much of the country would be under water.

The Dutch are making a big fuss over the fact that Queen Beatrix is planning to abdicate at the end of April. Her son Willem-Alexander will become King, the first 1890. The country has been ruled for the last 123 years by Queens: Wilhemina, Juliana, and Beatrix, who have all had the good sense to abdicate when they decided they had been ruling monarch long enough. I suspect Prince Charles in Great Britain wishes his mother Queen Elizabeth would take a hint. That old girl has been on the British throne for over 60 years. At the age of 87 she could hang on for a long time given the fact that her mother lived to be 101. Anyway it appears that the Dutch busy are wishing their Queen a happy retirement and celebrating their new King.

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