I'm excited to announce that our cruise has been re-booked for June! The itinerary is the same, except that this time we'll be flying with Air Canada and Swiss Air.
Our last day of the tour. It's going to be even hotter today, up to 34C!. Luckily we had signed up for the optional tour to Terezin. I've been interested in this Nazi Concentration camp since reading the Winds of War and War & Remembrance many years ago. And last year I actually met someone who was in this camp as a baby. The story of Terezin during WW2 is quite bizarre. The Nazis promoted it as a "Paradise Ghetto" and charged Jews large sums of money to be transferred there instead of one of the camps like Auschwitz. There were no gas chambers at Terezin, but still many Jews and other political prisoners died there of disease and starvation. And almost all were eventually shipped off to their death in one of the other camps. But the really bizarre thing is the fact that Hitler ordered a "beautification" for a Red Cross visit to show that the Nazi Camps were treating people well. There was even a film made. Terezin is about 1 hour out of Prague through...
When we woke up this morning we were entering the Wachau Valley, one of the prettiest parts of the cruise. We watched castles, small villages and vineyards slip by as we ate breakfast. Around 8am we arrived in Wiessenkirchen a very picturesque small village. All 3 tours today were leaving the ship here and joining the ship this afternoon in another village up river. There were 15 of us who had opted to take the bike ride to Melk. Although it's another hot day, predicted to reach 34C again, the morning ride is lovely! The bike path is mainly level, winding through small villages, sometimes by the side of the road or the railway and other times by itself. We have frequent stops for sightseeing or hydration. The pace is nice and easy so we can look around and enjoy the scenery. Being a Sunday there are quite a few bike riders out. We ride for 3 hours, about 30km in all. Then we drop off the bikes and a bus takes us up to Melk Abby. We had about 30 minutes, enough time to take some pi...
A fairly good sleep last night, but I woke up early because I went to bed early. We had a nice relaxed breakfast at our hotel, then headed out for a walk along the Danube to the Parliament buildings. It's a beautiful morning, already quite warm with a breeze along the river. There are so many beautiful buildings here. We are walking along the Pest side, so we have a great view of all the buildings on the Buda side! On this side the Parliament buildings are very impressive, huge and very ornate. There is also a shoe memorial on the river to commemorate the people, mostly Jews killed in 1944/45 by the Arrow Brigade, a far right Nazi party. We then wandered through streets and made our way to St Stephan's Basilica, then through some more pedestrian streets back to the river, and finally back to our hotel for a bit of a rest. Instead of a "proper" lunch today, we had a Funnel Cake. A Budapest variation of an ice-cream cone. Then later in the afternoon, we took the metro...
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