June, 2024 Archive

Vienna Day 1

Sunday, June 30th, 2024

By breakfast time, the boat had docked at a long quai in Vienna which included several Viking River Cruise ships and  others with Swiss, Italian and French companies.  The Danube doesnt run through the city center, so in late morning we  were bussed downtown, divided into groups by differing mobility capacity.  Jan and I were led through the crowded streets listening to a guide’s halting comments through a radio earphone.

As our procession arrived at St. Stephen’s Cathedral the morning’s rainshowers were giving way to a brilliant sky illuminating lacy patterns  of light and shadow on the stone.

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Inside the dark interior, Jan discovered a  tucked-away portrait of the structure’s 1513 architect she identified by his square and compasses, Anton Pilgram.

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The cathedral plaza extended pedestrian walkways in several directions surrounded by elegant 19th century buildings.

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Budapest

Saturday, June 29th, 2024

Guided by uniformed employees of Viking Tours through the transfers at Heathrow in London and at Budapest we arrived at the Viking Gullveig in time for late afternoon lunch buffet, nap and dinner.

Entering the dining room we noticed four jolly looking folks sitting together, one sporting a bald head and an impressive lumberjack beard, and sat down at their table. Ice was broken with the discovery that they were Canadians–residents of the Maritime province of New Brunswick but familiar with our second hometown in British Columbia.  They all were or had been involved in secondary education, one about to celebrate retirement, his wife still teaching, another a high school principal, and her husband, a former teacher who became a nuclear power plant operator and spent time at Diablo Canyon in San Luis Obispo.  We shared many onboard meals with these people and a couple more who joined the table.

The boat itself was sleek, elegant and comfortable, graced with well appointed lounges, restaurants and outdoor deck space in high style Scandinavian taste,

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decorated with visually arresting, and aesthetically pleasing prints and paintings,

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The most notable was the wall size painting at the top of the main stairway portraying the ship’s namesake, Gullveig, a goddess associated with the love of gold, with magic and sorcery, and with the ability to return to life after being burned to death three times. This figure in Norse mythology seemed appropriate to the Viking company and to the city of Passau we visited, home of a German literary version of those stories, The Nibelungenlied.

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Europe 2024

Thursday, June 27th, 2024

A year ago we had to cancel “Romantic Danube,” the Viking Tour Company’s River Cruise because we came down with Covid a month before departure.  With the travel insurance money, we went on our own to England, Holland, France and Germany, our journey chronicled here.

That experience motivated us to try again to squeeze a trip into the two-week interval between Jan’s City Council meetings.  An injury to her “good” knee  during a December workout at Gymnazo required her to walk with a cane, which made the prospect of a cruise especially appealing.  But we agreed to spend a week following the river trip on our own in Salzburg and Munich.  Before departure we reserved lodging and concert tickets and read in books about the river and its cities, including Carl Shorske’s Fin de Siecle Vienna, Politics and Culture, Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday, The Danube, A Cultural History, by Andrew Beattie, Mozart, A Life by Paul Johnson.  And we watched films set in central Europe, including The Third Man and Museum Hours

The weeks before departure concluded several open-ended involvements: the sale of Knoll House–our Canadian property since 1995–to Tai and Theo, our ten year tenants and lifelong friends,  our grandson Ian’s passing his qualifying exams as Airline Technician, our grandson Lucas’ acceptance in the five-month  Grizzly Academy boot camp, our daughter Claire’s promotion to full-time employee at the Cal Poly Food Service, Jan’s organization of. her campaign committee after a long-pondered decision to run for re-election, and completion of my Prefumo Creek Restoration and Enhancement Project.

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