It’s been a very busy month since I last blogged! We closed on our house on the 15th. We were so fortunate to have friends and family help us move in on Saturday. Thanks to Jonna and Danny Montgomery, Kim and Doug Cameron, Kevin Rooney, Erin and Brian, and my sister Kelly. We had kept what turned out to be just enough furniture, plus one extra recliner from our last house, to fill the rooms in the new house. We took the extra chair to Columbus for our grandson Diego’s apartment. Tim started painting and doing some minor repairs on the house. We are now settled in with all the cabinets and walls freshly painted!

We took a couple of days to visit our friends, Ken and Carrie Wurm, in Alto, MI, near Grand Rapids. Erin had to work, so we got to take Silas and Emmett along. Lots of pickleball, cards, and kayaking. It was a fun time. The twins say they are going with us next time! They had so much fun and learned how to really play pickleball. Ken and Carrie were excellent instructors!

We spent as much time as we could meeting up with friends and family before we left September 9 for Prague with Kim and Doug Cameron.

Prague is absolutely amazing! Our Viking tour started with three days in Prague. We took a five-hour walking tour on Friday. Our guide spoke perfect English and did a fantastic job talking about the history and sights we should come back to explore. We thought we had learned our way around the important areas, but I have to admit we got in a couple of extra miles walking in circles!

We took a hop-on hop-off bus around the city after our walking tour. Always a great way to find places you want to explore. We went to the Banksy Museum. Not sure why this is in Prague since he is from England, but it was very interesting and we all enjoyed it! We toured a couple of churches that have stood for hundreds of years and changed from Protestant to Catholic to Protestant, depending on who the ruler was at the time. The clock tower in the Old Town Square was really interesting. The story our guide told us was that the King ordered the clockmaker’s eyes to be blinded so he couldn’t see to create another clock as magnificent for anyone else. The history and architecture were fascinating!

We enjoyed some local fare and beer before heading back to find the tram that took us to the ship. All the streets and bridges were cobblestone, and our legs and feet were aching by the time we started trying to find our way back. I was so tired I struggled to get one foot in front of the other! Between jet lag and five hours of walking around the city, I was exhausted. Unfortunately for my feet, we kept walking in circles and ended up on the same cobblestone path four different times before Doug finally figured out the correct route to the tram on his phone. I slept like a log that night!

Everywhere we go now I will compare to the city of Prague. Such a fascinating and beautiful city!

From Prague we headed on an eight-hour bus trip to Budapest. I was dreading the ride, but the drive was very comfortable and they made nice stops along the way. I didn’t realize that Budapest was two separate cities until 1873. A bridge was built across the Danube to connect the capital of Hungary, merging the two cities. We spent one day touring Pest and the second day touring Buda.

On the first day in Budapest, we toured the Pest side of the river. The landscape is very flat compared to the hills of Buda. Kim and I had an afternoon to enjoy the mineral spa in Pest. It was fun going from pool to pool experiencing the different temperatures of the mineral water. The minerals are supposed to make you look 10 years younger! Well, I guess we didn’t soak long enough. Tim and Doug went to the history museum instead of experiencing the spas and really enjoyed it.

The next day we toured Buda. The Matthias Cathedral was so beautiful from the outside, and I am sure the inside was incredible. Unfortunately it was closed on the day we were there, so we didn’t get to see it. The roof of the palace and cathedral were so colorful and made of porcelain. Beautiful! Along the river they have a Liberty Statue that they call the “bottle opener,” due to its shape looking like a woman holding up a leaf, so she resembles a bottle opener.

We experienced going through several locks on our sail to Austria. That was very interesting. Again, we passed ruins along the way. Vienna is a wonderful city! Our walking tour was so informative, and we were able to see some of the famous white stallions at the Spanish Riding School. These horses are so amazing! Wish we could have seen them perform.

St. Peter’s Church and St. Stephen’s Cathedral were incredible. Tim and I climbed over 300 steps in the tower of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. It was a narrow spiral climb. I was thankful not too many tourists were interested in the climb, because it was so narrow you had to hug the wall if you had to pass anyone. It was a bit unnerving, but the view from the tower was phenomenal!

From Vienna we sailed to Melk and toured the Benedictine Abbey. The Abbey’s gardens were so lush and perfectly manicured. Wish we could have taken pictures inside.

From Melk to Passau, Germany. Passau is great! We enjoyed a guided tour of the city in the morning, then enjoyed an organ concert in the cathedral. The largest cathedral organ in the world is here. There are 22,000 pipes, and only one person is allowed to play. Due to construction within the church, we could only hear 7,000 of the pipes. OMG, it was so wonderful! Can’t imagine if we could have heard all of them at once!

In the afternoon we visited the Oberhaus Museum. We got back to the ship and started sailing to Regensburg. After an hour of sailing, we had to turn around and come back to Passau. The river is too low for ships to continue on. We will be docked in Passau until tomorrow morning, when a bus will take us to the port after Regensburg where we will get on a different ship for the final week of our trip. Tim took a bus to Regensburg this morning, and Kim, Doug, and I stayed behind and will walk around Passau some more this afternoon. We didn’t want to ride three hours to and from Regensburg. We hope Tim takes lots of pictures.

Our journey will continue tomorrow. We come back to the US on the 29th.

From Prague to Passau: Castles, Cathedrals, and Concerts

Back in Ohio…Keys in One Hand, Passport in the Other