Please welcome back

I’ve never been on a cruise of any kind. Partly because the giant-floating-hotel idea never appealed to me, and partly because we could never afford it in our younger days, even if we’d wanted to go. And since I stopped flying 25 years ago (evidently my brain was determined to have some phobia, and replaced arachnophobia with aerophobia), reaching a launching point for the sort of cruise that does appeal to me (like this one) is now impossible. So I have to enjoy vicariously. I hope you do, too!

Viking Danube Cruise

by Mark Adams

Greetings to the Jotting in Purple crowd. Some of you, including Chief Jotter Celia, encouraged me to report on a recent cruise I took with my partner on the River Danube (in German, Donau). Viking operates multiple cruises on the Danube; ours is dubbed “Romantic Danube,” which runs either downstream from Regensburg, Germany, to Budapest, or upstream from Budapest to Regensburg. We chose the latter route.

We chose Viking—a leader in the river and ocean cruising biz—because I had a great time cruising the Rhine with them last summer and wanted to stick with them. They have a fleet of some 80 river ‘Longships’ and more being built. At times in my story, I’ll compare the two river journeys. This story is meant to double as a review.

On Friday, May 16, my partner (call her Ann) and I flew from Seattle to Budapest, changing planes in Frankfurt. The time difference put us in Budapest on May 17, to be met at the airport by Viking employees with a van to deliver us to the ship. Viking covers all transfers to and from their ships. Each ship has a name; ours was Viking Gullveig.

Viking’s river ships have a capacity of 180 passengers—preferable in our opinion to those massive floating hotels one finds on ocean cruises (Viking’s ocean ships top out at 930 passengers). The river ships have a few suite staterooms, other cabins with portholes, and some with sliding doors that open to verandas. They vary in cost. We wanted a veranda stateroom to have the option of sitting outside to watch the world glide by, or to sit in the fresh air to read or surf the internet (yes, there’s wi-fi) instead of being in the public areas.

There were several public areas: a midships reception foyer, a dining room on the same floor, a spacious indoor lounge and bar upstairs, a more intimate dining area astern, and an open-air deck topside (about which more later). Each evening featured a “port talk” briefing on what was going to happen the next day, followed by dinner from 7:00 onward. Breakfast and lunch were served at more flexible start times: go to dine when you like, within reasonable limits.

The menus were varied and the food was consistently excellent, as was the wait service. If you don’t eat well, you have only yourself to blame! The basic cruise price included beer and quality wines with meals, but not cocktails. All alcohol costs extra between meals, but you can pay an additional $25/day for a plan that covers whatever you want to drink, whenever you want to drink it.

Viking’s river Longships don’t take kids and don’t have casinos, swimming pools, or high-end entertainers. Our ship did have evening entertainment such as games and trivia, a lounge piano player, and one night a jazz trio that came aboard. But the Longships do have topside sundecks, featuring lounge chairs, small tables, putting greens, shuffle boards, a walking track, and herb gardens. Passengers can go there to read or play cards, to experience traversing the locks on the river, or to take photos of passing scenery. On the Rhine cruise, for example, one sees dozens of castles perched above picturesque villages. There weren’t nearly as many castles to be seen along the Danube, but there was ample scenery nonetheless.

Viking also offers guided land excursions at every port of call. Usually, but not always, the ship travels overnight to the next city or village on the river, where Viking evidently leases its own moorage. Interestingly, with so many other cruise ships on the river—whether Viking ships or those of other companies—it sometimes happened that ships would raft up side-by-side at the dock, meaning that to access your land excursion you might have to walk through the reception area on another ship, or you might see passengers from another ship walking through yours. There was less of this rafting on the Rhine, which might be because the Rhine is more expansive most of the way, or because fewer cruise ships are on it. To be sure, the Rhine carries more commercial barges and freighters.

Back to the shore excursions: Each stop includes one quality excursion in the cruise price, plus others for which you will pay extra. As I take you on our Danube journey, I’ll describe the excursions we took and mention others that were available. Without exception, the tour guides retained by Viking did a superb job of showing us the sights and providing interesting historical and cultural context.

On May 17, the evening of our arrival, the optional excursion was “Budapest By Night,” but it was sold out and we were too tired anyway.

May 18: The “Panoramic Budapest” excursion was partly via motor coach and partly on foot. Pest (pronounced Pesht) is a newer, flatter area on one side of the Danube; Buda is the older, prettier, and much hillier area on the other side. Several bridges connect them, including the famous Chain Bridge (1849). They combined into one city in 1873.

Pest boasts a lovely synagogue—the largest in Europe—designed (somewhat ironically) in the Moorish Revival style and dating from 1859. The magnificent Royal Palace occupies the river bank in Pest, while the Basilica of St. Stephen (Stephen founded Buda in 1020), the Castle, and Matthias Church (13^th century) are across the river and uphill in Buda, from which one gets panoramic views of Pest. We loved seeing and learning about both sides of bustling Budapest.

May 19: After enjoying the scenery while heading upriver, we arrived in Vienna. The included excursion that morning was “Panoramic Vienna,” mostly a coach ride to see the sights, but also the opportunity to get off and explore the shops and cafes on foot. Vienna was the seat of the ancient Habsburg Empire, famously headed by the beloved Queen Maria Theresa for 40 years until 1780. Other attractions are the Spanish Riding School, with its famous Lipizzaner horses; the gorgeous Vienna State Opera hall; and the Hofburg Palace.

Optional excursions were offered in Vienna to learn to dance the waltz, to visit a nearby vineyard, to ride e-bikes into the countryside, or to visit the Lipizzaners. We opted for a visit to the sprawling, magnificent Schönbrunn Palace (the Habsburg Court’s summer home), where we were guided through many of its ornate salons and strolled the gardens stretching far into the adjacent woodlands—so much acreage that the grounds encompass an entire municipal zoo.

May 20: This was a long day. In 1993 the nation of Czechoslovakia split peacefully into two countries: the Czech Republic, which kept Prague as its capital; and Slovakia, which established a new capital city, Bratislava. Taking an optional excursion, we rode a deluxe coach to Bratislava, which, to our surprise, is a delightful city. Ann, especially, loved a tree-shaded pedestrian boulevard and enjoyed the shops and galleries in the Old Town. Viking had reserved a café luncheon for us tourists. The bus took us uphill to see the 15^th-century cathedral, and to the ramparts offering a spectacular view of the city and its bridges.

Back on the ship and after dinner, another optional excursion took us to a concert of music by Mozart and Strauss at an ornate hall seating perhaps 500. This being Vienna, the selections performed by a 25-piece orchestra were, of course, fabulous. The conductor made things light, mugging for the audience and highlighting individual musicians. Two opera singers and two classical dancers came on stage to accompany a few of the pieces.

May 21: Krems, Austria is a charming riverside town in the heart of Austria’s wine country. Speaking of wine, our morning excursion was by coach to a grand Benedictine Abbey, founded in 1083; wine has been made at Göttweig Abbey ever since. Following a fire in 1718, the stately, palace-like monastery was rebuilt in its present form and is still populated by more than 30 monks, some of whom, however, serve nearby parishes and have civilian jobs.

The Abbey perches on a hilltop overlooking 70 vineyard acres. It contains an estimated 30,000 engravings—the most in Austria. Monastic life has certainly changed; not only do monks tend the vines and make the wines, but another monk is an IT specialist. Another excursion could have been riding an e-bike alongside the river, but we passed on that one.

May 22: Passau, Germany sits at the border between Germany and Austria and at the confluence of three rivers—the Danube; the Inn River, flowing out of the Alps; and the much smaller Ilz River, narrow and only 25 miles long. It was raining lightly, but we had Viking umbrellas. Our walking tour guide took us around this charming city, one of the oldest in the region and once a thriving commercial center. Some passengers spent the day on an optional side trip to Salzburg. Another option was to hike the hills above Passau.

Although the Danube historically floods here, it has jumped its banks dramatically in Passau in recent years, such that many of its buildings no longer have living quarters on the ground floor, lest the occupants be flooded out. Ironically, we learned that the Danube can also be quite shallow here before peak snow-melt, and was currently (no pun) only 5 meters deep. This presented a problem: we got word that unless we got more rain, it would be impossible for the ship to move farther upstream.

That afternoon we went by coach to a ‘Bavarian Beerfest’ at the lovely Gut Aichet farm, which has been in the same family for centuries, and where about 50 horses are boarded and trained. We toured the farm buildings, including the riding arena and a compact sawmill, and ended inside a hunting lodge to taste the varieties of beer brewed on the premises. An old man played the accordion constantly. Both he and our genial emcee wore traditional lederhosen.

Speaking of which, our host, the farmer himself, suddenly appeared wearing lederhosen and treated us to a traditional Bavarian folk dance, called Schuhplattler. He invited some in our party to learn the dance and join him. Ann and I volunteered for another game, a competition involving driving nails into a stump. She out-hammered the other woman and won a beer mug. A good time was had by all!

May 23: Still in Passau. Sure enough, the Danube was still too shallow to allow us to travel farther upstream to our final destination, the Bavarian city of Regensburg. Making lemons into lemonade, Viking arranged to bus us to Regensburg—a journey taking more than an hour.

Regensburg was unknown to us, but it proved to be a charming place! We had another superb tour guide. She led us into the city center across a Danube-spanning bridge that’s 800 years old. Originally, some 2,000 years ago, this was an outpost of the Roman Empire. It was spared World War II bombing because it had no strategic value as a port or manufacturing center, and therefore retains much of its medieval character. It boasts a magnificent Gothic cathedral, a grand bishop’s palace (snarky aside: Why do bishops reside in palaces?), an imposing city hall, and many shops, galleries, etc.

We had a lunch of sausage and kraut at a famous café more than 800 years old. It was a Friday, and we learned that Fridays and Thursdays are wedding days in Regensburg, which explained the brides with their wedding parties roaming the cobbled streets. Other, optional excursions available included pricey, day-long side trips to Munich and Nuremberg.

After getting back to the ship in Passau from our day in Regensburg, we had to finish packing for the trip home. This took on some urgency, because in order to get to our flight to Seattle early on Saturday, May 24, we had to be ready to leave the ship at 3am. If the ship had made it by water to Regensburg, we would’ve been closer to Munich airport and able to depart sometime later. But, alas, it was 3:00, and we had to be driven by van 160km (100 miles) to the airport. Consequently, we got only a few hours of sleep before leaving the ship. Viking made the necessary arrangements. Obviously, the low water level wasn’t their fault.

We made the flight on time. Auf Wiedersehen to Deutschland!

This report has combined a review of a specific river cruise with a personal journal of sorts. I hope readers find it useful. I am happy to answer questions, but of course Viking maintains a comprehensive website with plenty of information.

Leave a comment