Roemin Aboat

We had sailed overnight to Nurembourg where we disembarked at 9:00am and drove south to Munich for our flight back to Birmingham. We did not see anything of either place which was a bit disappointing but many guest were having 3 nights in Prague to finish their holiday.  We flew back via Frankfurt where we had a pizza for lunch and bought a few chocolates. The Mercedes was there to meet us for the drive home, we arrived at 7:00pm.

Today we should have been on a short walking tour of Regensburg but it is raining so we stopped on board again with the other chickens and packed the cases.  It seems we made the right decision from walkers who did walk the walk. We had interesting discussion with couples from Yorkshire and Florida. We are currently on Main-Danube canal which connects North sea with Black Sea and climbing 12 locks on route to Nuremberg. All the locks are 12m wide x 190m long and the boat is 11.5m x 130m long. The deepest has a rise of 25m. We still have the occasional castle on a hill to admire before the last dinner at 7:00pm and another few locks before arriving overnight in Nurembourg. Received our disembarkation papers and we leave for our flight from Munich at 8:45. Going back to Birmingham via Frankfurt.

We decided to stay on the boat with about 13 others instead of a long bus trip to Salzburg or Czeccy. Lovely sunny day again and relaxing cruising along the attractive wooded river Danube.  Still plenty of castles, villages, churches to admire with the excellent Scenic App giving us GPS prompted details of the sites we were passing. There was an Apple Strudel cooking demo and tasting for those left on board. We also went through 3 locks which was very interesting to see the manouvering skills of the crew.

We sailed overnight to a small village called Durnstein where we will wander around for an hour after breakfast. Very attractive, if touristy, Austrian village with ruins where Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned. Lots of apricot themed food and drink and a hotel frequented by Princess Diana and Dodi.  Needed more time but had to sail at 10:45 through the Wassau valley, a very pretty part of the Danube. Lots of monasteries, castles and vine yards line the steep valley. Had prosecco on sun deck while taking in views. We were bussed a short distance up the hill to Melk Abbey, a working abbey still and typically Baroque extravagance. The tour was a bit boring as usual, unless one is very religious, but the walk back to the boat through the old town gave us the opportunity for an ice cream and coffee.

A full day in Vienna today starting with a Wine tour with a difference. After a comprehensive city tour we were taken to the cellars of a sparkling wine producer in the outskirts of Vienna called Schlumberger.  They use the champagne method to produce 3 types of wine using grape juice from vineyards in Germany. So the cellars are full of racks of bottles in 4 stages of fermentation. No vineyard, no presses, vats or barrels! We tasted the wines and bought a 3 pack and some truffles. After lunch back on the boat we returned to town on the shuttle and retraced our steps to St Stevens cathedral square for coffee and sachet tort cakes then walked up to the opera house. After dinner we joined in the 'name that tune' quiz and came a creditable 4 place without cheating.

We arrived in Vienna after cruising all night and morning. It's been dull and cool but no rain so far. We were taken by bus to the Palais Lichtenstein, a grand privately owned palace, for a concert of music by Mozart and Strauss.  Very grand reception area with golden coach and art collection for a welcome glass of bubbly followed by 1.5 hours concert with opera and ballet in grand hall. Very entertaining and memorable although the acoustics were terrible for enjoying the music.

We had previously booked a morning tour which was part coach upto the old castle in Buda, then walking around the square and church. Back on the bus and over the Danube to heroes square and then to a piano recital in Pest. Enjoyed a good informative guided tour and Budapest is lovely. We were back in time for lunch and sailed away at 4:00pm under the five bridges connecting Buda with Pest and past all the beautiful buildings on the river. The houses of Parliament are particularly impressive. Dinner was at 7:00 followed by a quiz.

Good chauffeur transfer to Heathrow arriving at 6:00 in plenty of time and no delays going through checkon or security. However the flight was about 45 minutes late taking off and landing. We arrived in Budapest just after a long haul flight from Korea with national ice hockey team on board so took a long time to clear customs. It was 30 minutes transfer to the scenic Crystal which was moored on its own at eastern end of town. The boat was only about 70% full as lots Americans had cancelled cruises because of the Russian conflict, so we had people from cancelled Rhine cruises.

Can't believe I was showered by 3:15am ready to be picked up at 4:00am. Left in style in an E class Merc driven by a very interesting black guy, 50 years old, church goer, Waitrose shopper and about to be the father of triplets. Rosemary had many words of wisdom for him. Quickly through check in, security and having a rubbish breakfast in No1 lounge by 7:00am. Flight boarding at 9:00 ish.

We have an early start on Monday (4:00am) and we are packing nice and early too, so hopefully we will have a relaxing weekend.

Sure enough all 3 cruises we booked with Celebrity (Dubai > Athens, Caribean and Iceland) were cancelled. We playing safe, despite the Ukraine conflict, by taking our first river cruise up the Danube with Scenic's Gems of the Danube at the end of April.

The Corvid-19 pandemic has caused chaos in the travel industry and our first cruise in April from Dubai to Rome was cancelled by Celebrity. We have a full refund and a 25% discount voucher for a future cruise if we get the chance. Although we still have the Caribean booking I suspect that we will not be able to meet the requirements either to fly long haul, or cruise, or both by the August deadline to pay the balance.

While we were on board the Constellation we booked two more cruises for the following year. So first of all we are flying out to Dubai on 30th March and doing a 15 day repositioning cruise back to Rome via the Suez Canal. One of the highlights will be a trip to the ancient city Petra in Jordan. Later in the year we will be off to the Caribean at the tail end of the hurricane season on 8th October for a 10 night Southern Caribean highlights and a short stay in Florida.

After a good breakfast in the hotel we checked out, put our bags in storage, then caught the water bus to the Rialto bridge. We had a cappuccino in the canal side cafe and walked to the nearby market. We bought some Porccini mushrooms and olives to bring home and we walked back to the hotel stopping for a snack lunch on the way where Mark finally got to try an authentic Spaghetti Carbonara. We took a private water taxi to the airport, it's an  exilorating 20min speedboat  trip across the lagoon directly to the end of the travelator to the terminal. We had a good flight back and landed in the rain at about 6:00pm.

The cruise finished in Venice but our holiday is not quite over. Mark booked an overnight hotel for 4 of us on the Grande Canal but Katie had to go home to go to work on Friday. We dropped the bags off early and bought 24 hour water bus tickets to take us on a circular tour to St Marks Square. We had a snacky lunch in the back streets and then a stroll round the square before taking the water bus back again via the Rialto Bridge. We had dinner in the cheaper student district not far from our hotel after having drinks on the hotel roof top terrace.

I booked a Viator tour in Slovenia for us to visit the two most popular places in this beautiful little country. It did not get off to a good start as the bus broke down, fortunately by a service station, on the way to Lake Bled. After a 30min delay we arrived in Bled with the sun breaking through so it was a blessing in disguise. We spent just over an hour walking along the picture perfect  lake shore, taking photos and having a coffee and Bled cream cake before the coach collected us. Then another hour stop in the capital Ljubljana for more photos and local sausage before being delivered back on Celebrity. It's just as we remembered it from 12 years ago when we drove here in our first little motor home. It's our last night so just packing and dinner before bed and a day in Venice.

Spent a sunny day wandering around Croatia 3rd largest city. We were berthed alongside the container terminal which was not a pretty spot. The shuttle bus dropped us near old town so that we could spend a few hours looking round markets both fish and farmers. Rosemary bought a bag of walnuts and a few funny wooden spoons, while Mark bought a typical cheese and potato pie. Then we walked under the actual 300m air raid tunnel built during WW2 before stopping for coffee. We took the bus up to Tsrat Castle for the views over the town and a glass of beer or in my case a spritz, then we walked back down via the 536 steps back to the shuttle. We arrived back on board in time for afternoon tea and then it's the last of the smart dinner nights. The surf and turf, lobster and beef wellington, was outstanding. In fact the food and service in the main restaurant has been excellent all week. 

We are heading into Zadar for a late arrival sailing between some of the offshore islands. Another sunny day is forecast and we plan a more relaxing day with some time spent chilling on board. Katie did 10 lengths of the pool and I did 3 widths of the jacuzzi in the morning before we all caught the shuttle bus into Zadar for the afternoon. We wandered around the old roman/venicien town for a couple of hours and experienced the sea organ, a rather erie sound produced by sea water powered pipes under the sea front promenade. The sunset was amazing and afterwards we went to Qsine for dinner, ordered too many dishes again and were completely stuffed. A cruising day without to much exertion for a change.

It was a perfect warm and sunny day to visit Dubrovnik. We had a delayed start so took a taxi to town. Mark and Christina did the walk on the wall and the Hole in the Wall bar while we went with Katie to the small Island of Lokrum on the ferry.  We took peacock and rabbit photos, dipped our feet in the Dead Sea and had some Rosemary Gin cocktails, before taking the 15min ferry back to meet Mark. We had a late fishy lunch in a restaurant by the Shame steps (Game of Thrones). We had been here before and the owner remembered us from Leicester City winning premiership. He is a big football suporter. We caught a local bus back to port just in time for the 5:30pm sail away into the sunset.

We cruised in before sunrise and dropped anchor in the bay for tendering to the town pier. After a lazy breakfast we went ashore and walked around the quaint little walled town known for looking after it's cats, which are everywhere. Katie set us the challenge of taking the best cat photo and we all bought some locally made cat related momentos. We found a nice restaurant that did a very good fish dish of sea bream, mussels and prawns. We had a quiet table on the roof terrace with 3 cats for company and enjoyed our lunch. Unusual finger cloths that expanded from a lozenge size when wetted. The waitress gave us a hand full for the motor home. We had some ice creams on the way back to the tender and were back on board by about 4 o'clock. We went down to the trivia quiz and we were joint 1st, before going up to the top deck for the scenic sail away. A day of sunny periods was only spoilt by a cloudy end.