Our ship Egil sailed through the night and arrived in Komarom, Hungary. This is as far as we can sail on the Danube because the water level is so very low. We were bussed into Budapest leaving at 8:30 this morning (about one hour drive). Arriving in Buda, we crossed the one of the many bridges spanning the Danube into Pest. The bus toured us around all the important area of Pest: Heroes Square, Parliament Buiildings, Iron Shoes monument, largest Jewish synagogue, Opera House, etc. First disembarkation was to walk over to Heroes Square. There are 14 statues - seven chieftains of the Magyar plus seven other important leaders. The tall column in the centre is Archangel Gabriel and is the Millennium Monument to commemorate the 1,000 years since conquest of the Carpathian area. We see ... read more

Austria’s capital of Vienna is the City of Waltzes and Europe’s centre of classic music. Strauss and Mozart composed many of their finest music here. The wide boulevard circling the Inner City is lined with Baroque, neo-Renaissance, Gothic-Romanesque and other magnificent structures from the Hofburg Palace to the Vienna State Opera. They are grand and highly ornamented buildings many topped with tall statues of, I assume, famous people. Impressive massive statues are in every open space, some with fountains. Coffee houses are the order of the day, in fact some 2,400 of them. Locals gather for a delicious beverage and hours of social time. You are encouraged to stay as long as you want and enjoy your time there. First we are treated to a city tour on our bus which for me is completely boring ... read more

The ship has finally sailed! At 6:30 this morning we started down the Danube River towards Passau. I was having coffee on our little veranda when she started to move. How beautiful it was watching the lights on the shoreline glide past in the dim pre-morning. It wasn’t very far to Passau and the ship spun around in the middle of the river so we could disembark onto the Old Town side. Following a delicious buffet breakfast, off we went on a guided walking tour. I love the audio receivers because I wear my headphones to hear the guide clearly without any background noise. Old Passau isn’t very big but it sure is old. It was founded 2,000 years ago by the Romans but archeological excavations found artifacts that were considerably older. In pre-historic times it ... read more

The travel day is always uneventful, long and uncomfortable. Our first adventure in Toronto airport was the automatic check in machines wouldn’t print our baggage tags. We kept trying different machines and every time we received another boarding pass but no luggage tags. Finally we had to get in a long line to have assistance. While we were waiting in line, we observed three different parties who were denied entry on the plane. Not sure why - seemed to have something to do with their passports, but I felt bad for them. After purchasing airline tickets, waiting in line for a long time to be told you couldn’t get on the plane must have been very disappointing for them. Likely they had family or friends waiting for them at their destination. The flight was typical with ... read more

All of you who received my previous blogs can ignore this one. There were some whose e-mails were missed and this blog will catch them up so they can read all my previous blogs.... read more