Europe Take 2

We went through a number of locks overnight. Now in the Danube canal we are in a section that has 16 locks from start to finish, and all are going down, as we are on the descent towards the Main River. Today our destination was Bamberg. I had imagined a tiny little town like Dürnstein, but it's quite big at 77k people. It's also a Uni town so there is a flux of student population as well. We docked in the industrial port and were bussed the 5 mins into the city. Being a Sunday everything apart from the tavern and a few coffee shops were closed. We still had a nice tour around the city with a local guide, and managed to get a tour group that only had four of us. She showed us some great little areas we wouldn't have found on our own including Schlenkerla Tavern which does the famous Bamberg Smoked Beer (Rauchbier). It was definitely different and had a real lingering aftertaste. Quite a dark malt beer which was smoked by accident when they had a fire at the brewery and did...

We started the morning with the second deepest lock on our route, at 25m. We watched this from the front of the boat as we were opened down into the concrete lock that seemed to just keep going. These ones are a little different where the bottom of the gate lifts up and you sail underneath. The width of the concrete gate was incredible, something like 25 tonne. Our boat docked at Roth at a dock that was built by Avalon. Some of the cruise went on a tour of Roth but we opted for the trip to Nürnberg. It was around a half hour bus trip and much more to see. We were on the Rally Ground Tour which focuses on the part Nürnberg played in the Nazi Party history. The first sight we were greeted with on the bus was a drive by the Congress Building. This was purpose built for the Nazi Party but was never finished. The scale of the building was massive, and modelled off the Colosseum for granduer. We got a good look from the other side of the lake, where the building is open and been left to go ...

This morning we visited Regensburg, a city of around 160k. We did a city tour to get our bearings and learn a little about the area. It's one of the oldest towns in Barvaria. Home of the BMW and Audi. We were lucky to have a nice day as it literally translates to rainy town. The town has similarities to others we have visited but definitely has it's own character. Here there were a number of tower houses in the town that were built purely as status symbols for the rich. A similar concept to the one we stayed in when we were in Italy years ago, but quite tall and skinny so not overly useful. As we wandered the town we came across a wedding party having photos on the steps of the church in their traditional barvarian outfits. Very cool, but an unusual site seeing a groom and groomsmen wearing their lederhosen, and the bride wearing a dirndl. All the guests were in traditional outfits as well. Once we had toured the city we had some exciting life admin to attend to.....washing,...

19 October Today we unleashed our inner musical theater geek with a Sound of Music Tour to Salzburg. A 2 hour bus ride to get to Salzburg, but it takes to pain out of changing buses because they just drop us to the new boat at the end ofnour Tour, so apart from the packing we aren't really affected. A drive through the countryside is always interesting in other countries. There are a lot of houses with solar panels on the roof and some fields with solar panels. Austria is phasing out generating electricity using non renewable sources, which explains the huges numbers of wind farms we have seen. Although we were driving towards the Alps we couldn't really see them, everything was shrouded in fog all morning. It is a little warmer today so the snow must have gone. Most of the area were eravelled through was where the vegetables are grown, but the odd farm that had cattle had no fences, just temporary electric fencing and only about 20 cows for a huge amount of land. Very differen...

18 October Durnstein We started the morning in Durnstein, a little Austrian town of 79 people on the side of the Danube. The temperature when we woke was -1°c and there was a beautiful mist sitting on the river. We had a little guided walking tour around the town with a local from down the road in Melk. All of the guides we have had for our tours are locals which means they can share some really interesting information around the way of life here. The first sight in Dürnstein is the castle ruin on top of the hill that over looks the town. It was destroyed in the thirty years war, but nobody was living in it at that time. The original gate to the town is still there on one side but had to be pulled down on the other side to allow delivery vehicles to get in. Most of the city wall is still in tact though. It is the cutest little town (village really) with every second shop selling some sort of apricot product. Wachau valley is the biggest apricot producer in Austria so they have schn...

17 October We woke up this morning to a wall outside our window. We initially thought it was the dock and it must be low, and then when we went up on deck we realised we were in a lock. A pretty impressive thing to witness, and I had no idea how large they are with multiple boats in there at a time, but they fill fairly quickly, about half an hour and you are off again. We opted for the city tour of Vienna in the morning which started on the bus which took us around the ring road and pointed out all the sites, then we did the central city on foot. When we had initially arrived on the boat it looked like a very modern city with a lot of high rises, but once we were in the inner city the architecture was absolutely beautiful. Most of the city was built in the baroque period which is my favorite style, and they have kept the buildings pristine. Such a contrast to Budapest a few days ago. Because the buildings are mainly made from sandstone they turn black over time because of is extreme...