Danube River Cruise

Our last full day of our trip and if you know us…what better way to end an amazing trip than at the Schonbrunn Zoo that was established in 1782!   The way the zoo was set up was amazing, I am not sure I ever felt so close to the animals without largest fences.   […]

Today we had a private tour with our guide Elena where we learned a ton about the history of Vienna as well as the Hapsburgs who ruled for 650 years until 1918.  We visited the State Opera house, the Sacher Cafe, The Stables of Lipizzaner which Phil really loved!  Unfortunately we could not get to

Today was a tough and sobering day.  Today we finished our time in Budapest by visiting the House of Terror Museum.   This building was used by the Hungarian Nazi party called the Arrow Cross party and then became the home of the Communist party at the end of WWII.   The number of people

Today we spent the day on a private tour with our guide Rashad, and oh my goodness did we see Budapest!  We started on the Pest side at St Stephens Basilica and while he was considered a saint in the Catholic Church this Stephen was the first King of Hungary and converted the country to

Today we left the Scenic Amber and we’re off to part II of our trip!  But for Phil’s birthday we kicked it off by going to the historic SZÉCHENYI  thermal bath.  The building was built in 1913 and you could tell by many of the visitors this was a daily social event for many senior

We cruised most of the morning arriving in Budapest around 1pm.  Since we are going to be in Budapest for a few days we opted for the private cooking class to learn Hungarian classics.  Oh boy  did we have fun and learn so much, we cooked Goulash, Chicken Paprikash with dumplings and Apple Strudel.  

Since we are coming back to Vienna later in our trip with private tours planned we decided to take the bike tour today around the Danube island of Vienna and a quick walk around town in the afternoon.   Tonight however was amazing as we were given a private classical music performance at the stunning

This morning we were in the town of Melk where we toured the Melk Abbey.  This Benedictine Abbey has been a working abbey for over 900 years and currently has 23 monks living there.   Most of this beautiful facility is museum now but the one fascinating piece is their library that has books that

What a day!   We took a bus over to Chesky Kumlov in the Chzech Republic and it was amazing.  While the town itself is a UNESCO heritage site it was listening to our tour guide on the way there who grew up in Czechoslovakia, understanding what life was like for them.  He discussed the

We cruised from yesterday until today arriving in Regensberg around 1:30.  Phil woke up early and took some amazing pictures of the countryside while I slept in until 9am!!!   Our excursion today was to the Weltenberg Abbey which has been here and making beer since 1050.  There are 7 Benedictine monks still active at

Today was our first full day in Europe and we chose the WWII tour off of the ship for today.  Hitler started as early as the 1920’s to position Nuremberg as the primary focus of the Nazi Party (National Socialist Party) given its central location and industry of building munitions and tanks.  From 1933-1938 Hitler

Of course any time you travel and particularly international travel you have to roll with the punches which is what we did when we got delayed getting to Dallas on Tuesday.  We had an extra night in a hotel at DFW but American took great care of us and got us out to Charlotte on