Rolling on the river.....

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After our tour of Passau we made our way back to the ship on our own walking along side the Danube. The ship was going to set sail towards Linz at 1:30 so at noon we ate lunch then headed up to the Sun Deck to watch the ship raise anchor and start heading down the Danube. We were only going to stay a few minutes but the small Austrian villages were so beautiful to watch we stayed for hours. The river is quite curvey and around every bend was a beautiful postcard in the making.

We began chatting with Steve, his brother Joe and son Austen as we commented on the scenery before us. They told us we'd be passing through locks (where the Danube is a different levels and the ship enters a lock, it is either raised or lowered by filling or draining the lock until the ship is equal to the level on the other side.). We were all staring ahead and could see a bridge coming up in front and Steve said "we're going to have to duck before the ship passes under the bridge." Now I've been known to be gullible at times but I just started laughing. He said "no really". "Come on Steve, don't you think if we were really going to have to duck they would have said something?" To which Steve replied "they did." As the ship approached the bridge it was a little difficult to judge the height but smuggly I turned turned around and pointed to the wheelhouse where our Captain was steering the ship and said "well if we have to duck what about the wheelhouse?"

Then it happened, as I was pointing to the wheelhouse (which apparently was on silent hydraulics) it began to sink into the deck below, I spun around to see the bridge looming closer and closer and it was clear to me that hitting the deck would be a wise move. The bottom of the bridge seemed to be only a foot over us as we passed underneath. I turned to watch the wheel house magically reappear and we all laughed, but I was thinking....geez that was pretty close. The second time we approached a bridge I just sat on the deck to watch and record the event. (Pictured here) After a planned fire drill we went through several locks as our ship slowly made its way to Linz.

The scenery is breathtaking and I couldn't help thinking of the Disney Song from Mickey and the Beanstalk. The movie begins in a fantasy village with beautiful houses, a river winding it way through the town, birds are singing and an enchanted harps plays "My What a Happy Day," extolling the beauty and peacefulness of the valley and its inhabitants.

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