Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Clay woke me up before the alarm went off. We were docked in
Aschach, Austria. We had gone through at least 5 locks during the night so it
wasn’t a very restful night. Still I was happy to still be unpacked in a boat
cabin and not in a hotel expecting to pack up and move again. We’ll see how
long we can stay aboard. You have to wonder about the loss of Internet 24 hours
before learning we don’t expect to complete the cruise.
Breakfast at 7am and buses loaded to depart at 8:15am. There
were 3 buses this morning. Ours to Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic, one to
Salzburg, Austria and one headed back to Linz for a morning walking tour. Those
people for Linz were rejoining the boat in Engelhartszell, Austria for lunch
and then another walking tour in the afternoon in Passau. We had already done
both those walking tours. All 3 options were included in our fare so we just
had to decide. We picked Cesky Krumlov because I had heard so much good about
it and it would be a new country otherwise Salzburg was a close 2nd.
I am not sure why people rave about Cesky Krumlov. It was fine. But I wouldn’t
rave about it. We walked from the castle gardens down through the castle
complex without touring the castle. We wound around the little town to the town
center square on the middle of the peninsula in the Moldau River. There we had
lunch at the restaurant Don Julius. It was a fixed menu. They served pitchers
of water and coffee or tea any other drinks were an extra cost. The first
course was mushroom goulash with baskets of bread. The main course was beef in
a sweet sauce with dumplings. There was a little side of a slice of lemon
topped by red berries in sauce topped by whipped cream. It was all strange but
actually very tasty in an intensely interesting way and filling. I think if
anyone had anticipated the giant slices of bready dumplings that we’d have all
avoided the bread baskets. Dessert was warm apple strudel. We had a little less
than 2 hours of free time after that. We walked back the way we’d come before
and found Clay a t-shirt and me a patch (79 Czech Kroner or crowns). We were
trying to find a trdelnik or their version of chimney cake. We had passed
several but now that it wasn’t raining and the sun was shining we evidently
couldn’t smell them cooking anymore! Finally, we back tracked to the very first
one the guide had pointed out. We watched them being made. They are different
here than in Hungary and honestly nowhere near as good. They don’t use funnel
shaped forms, they are metal instead of wood, they are shorter and breadier,
they don’t use butter on them, they cooked them over gas flames and you can
taste that. Just not as good. We had a nearly 2 hour ride back to the boat
which had traveled up river to Passau, Germany without us. We drove by a field
with 2 red foxes in it. The first one was close to the road and stood and
stared at the bus. He looked like a storybook character! We had been advised to
carry our passports since there are no sometimes border problems with the
refuge crisis. Our guide said that Passau is a huge center for refuge
processing and resettlement. She pointed out the police at the border between
Austria and the Czech Republic and said that was new that usually, there is
nothing and no one there. There was nothing and no one at the border between
Czech Republic and Germany. There was a lot of traffic entering Passau and
there were a lot of river boats docked along the embankments. We located our
docked behind Amadeus Royal only because it was so much longer and our captain
was standing atop Royal. If he was supposed to be watching for us, he missed
flagging us down! Clay and I told her it was our boat and the 2 women across
the aisle insisted it was not. The guy behind us pointed out it was our captain
atop the nearer boat and the guide agreed to get out and call out the question
to him. He waved us over. We are just waiting for the last bus to return from
Salzburg and then we are supposed to sail. I guess when we reach the point
where we can’t sail anymore that is when we’ll learn what the plan is to
continue.
So, tonight was the Captain’s Farewell Cocktail Reception
and Gala Farewell Dinner. I guess they moved it up a night because they don’t
know if all of us or any of us will be onboard tomorrow night. Thursday is the
departure day for people on just this segment. If we can’t get closer to
Nurnburg, their end point they may have to be bussed ahead to make flights etc.
Still no word on what they will do with the smaller number of us sailing to
Amsterdam for another week. I’ll keep you posted. So anyway, it turned into a
mandatory meeting about being bused an hour and a half each way from our dock
overnight in Vilshofen to Regensburg and Weltenburg for the day’s excursion
tomorrow. We’ll have to leave at 8:45am and expect to be back onboard after
7pm. They are issuing a 15 Euro per person credit to our shipboard accounts to
help us cover food off the boat. Since we haven’t spent anything onboard and
don’t plan to, we’ll see if they hand back cash when we leave or offer to mail
us a check at a later date. It is a little cheap. Dinner was not anyone’s
favorite and it started late and ran even later. We didn’t get up from the
table until after 10pm. Oh, we learned from our dining companions that they
learned from another passenger to Salzburg that Internet came back over night but
that you have to have a new PIN code to get on. There was no announcement about
this even tonight.
