Budapest, Hungary

Pictures: link

Bratislava, Slovakia

My pictures: link

Vienna, Austria

An amazing city, full of huge and imposing monuments and buildings.... People seem very prosperous although there was a definite increase in the amount of graffiti compared to Germany and the Netherlands. We finally had some sunshine and warm temperatures.

Pictures here: click here.

Melk and Dürnstein, Austria

Melk has an amazing Benedictine Monastery on the top of its hill and is a good sized village in its own right. Dürnstein, however, is tiny--900 permanent residents--although they do get 1.5 million tourists during the summer season. You can see why.

Pictures are here. link.

Passau, Germany & Linz, Austria

Passau is at the confluence of the Danube, the Inz, and the Ils rivers....and sits an a rocky peninsula. After touring the town in the morning, we sailed onto Linz later in the afternoon. Adolph Hitler was born on the outskirts of Linz and spent much of his youth there.

Pictures here.

Regensburg, Germany

We made it to the Danube. Regensburg was completely undamaged during World War II (except for part of its original stone bridge which was blown up by the Germans in order to prevent the Americans from crossing the river. It didn't work and the bridge has been subsequently restored).

Pictures of the medieval city here.

Nürnberg, Germany

Definitely spooky.... We first visited the Nazi Rally Grounds on the outskirts of the city. Of course, the field now has grass and trees rather than a million people cheering Hitler, but we heard about how Germans would compete for the right to attend and if you were one who did not make the "cutoff," how disappointed you were. From there, fittingly, we were taken to the compound where the postwar Nürnberg trials took place. Following that, we walked up to the castle and then back to the center of town. For pictures, go here....

Bamberg, Germany

This is another city that I would not have visited were it not for the cruise, but it was an awesome place. No destruction whatsoever during World War II so all the old medieval buildings are still there. See the pictures here: link.

Wurzburg, Germany

A real gem and a complete surprise...the Residence at Wurzburg. No pictures from inside, unfortunately, but there are some here. Very reminiscent of Versailles.

I've continued to post pictures in my web album: link.

Cologne, Germany

I can't figure out how to get this thing to prompt me in English; I'm in Germany so it must use German. I'm sure there's a way but since all the directions are in German, I'll never figure out how.... Next comes Hungarian!

Meanwhile, I've added Cologne pictures to my Picasa album. Follow the link I gave yesterday to find them.

Welcome

Welcome.

I am going to uploading some of my pictures here. I’m trying to figure out how to make everything easily available. Try following this link: link

Here is a link to our home/hotel for the trip.