Sailing the Danube River on Viking

In 2024, we set sail on our second-ever river cruise. We chose the Danube Waltz cruise on Viking from Passau, Germany to Budapest, Hungary with a pre-excursion in Prague, Czech Republic. We also extended the invite to our parents and they came along too!

Planning and lessons learned

We put a decent amount of planning into this trip, which was unusual for a Viking cruise. Viking has a lot of included excursions, and even offers to take care of your airfare, for an additional fee. But the things we’d learned so far on our cruises with Viking were that there’s always some time built into the calendar to explore at our leisure, and we wanted to be ready. We had food tours in Prague and Budapest pre-planned, restaurants and walking paths planned out for the rest of our pre- and post-cruise time, and even scoped out places to spend extra time at each of our stops along the way. We definitely overpacked because of the risk of colder weather, but it’s better to be overprepared than under.

The worst part of the planning though was the week leading up to the trip. Not only did temperatures plunge the week before we left, but central Europe experienced unusually late season heavy storms and flooding. With just about every other trip, you pack a raincoat and call it a day, but since we’d be traveling most of this trip on the river, flooding was a concern. I won’t get too far into the details, but I’ll leave this page here if you’re interested in how we tracked ships, lock availability, and water levels. Needless to say, we went into this trip expecting everything from business as usual, to possibly having to be boat nomads, being bussed from city to city and spending our evenings on a different boat each night.

We got to take advantage of the Lufthansa flight from St. Louis to Frankfurt again, I hope this flight stays forever, because it really does open up a lot more possibilities for us. In addition to our usual packing routine, we introduced Apple AirTags to the mix this time for a little more piece of mind. (International Travel)

Prague, Czech Republic

We arrived in Frankfurt on-time and with no issues. We were pleasantly surprised to find a Viking rep waiting for us and directing us to our next gate. That was a thoughtful thing for Viking to do and totally unexpected. We made it to our gate and caught our regional flight to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. Upon getting our luggage, we found that we already had a casualty with one bag missing a wheel. Luckily it was one that had backpack straps available, but it was still an unpleasant way to end 14 hours of travel. We did notice a cool thing about the airport, they had Uber kiosks. Using Uber overseas can be a bit daunting if you don’t have a cellular package or if Wi-Fi is spotty, the kiosks are a cool solution for that.

Czech Republic also uses its own currency, the koruna. I still thought they should have called it the Mark now that Germany wasn’t using it, but no one asks me. The Euro wasn’t widely accepted, so we’d need to stop at an ATM at some point.

Bags in hand, we found our Viking rep, jumped in the van, and were on our way to the Art Nouveau Palace Hotel Praha (Prague) in Old Town. This would be our base of operations for the next few days for, both Viking tours and, exploring on our own.

For our first day, our priorities were to find food and stay awake. As a group, we got lunch at a highly recommended restaurant around the corner called Tiskárna. We tried some of the local dishes and washed it down with a free shot of walnut liquor, courtesy of a coupon from the hotel. With everyone else in favor of heading back to the rooms, Miranda and I headed out for a walk to nowhere in particular. We made a big westerly loop, explored some of the green spaces inside of building squares, explored the big Prague Main train station, and then walked down Wenceslas Square. Here we found our first chimney cake, which was Miranda’s goal every day of the trip. We explored Primark, another Miranda must while in Europe, and then we headed back to the hotel. For dinner we all went out to a restaurant we passed on our walk called Fat Cat, a craft brewery and restaurant. The portion sizes were huge and the beer flight was certainly generous. Their shirts and hoodies have a clever decal of a beer bottle with the Prague skyline on it. When we couldn’t find anything that beat that, we returned a couple of days later for these as our souvenirs.

Panoramic Prague Walking Tour

We started the next day with breakfast at the hotel and a scenario that I’m sure plays out every morning there. The restaurant was on the second floor and breakfast opens at 7 am, and because of the small space available, they don’t open that floor to the elevators until 7 am. So both elevators were traveling to every floor, full, because the people wanting to get off couldn’t make the 2nd floor button light up, and the elevator was just going to the next floor it was called to. We finally exited and took the stairs down to one and back up.

Elevator comedy and breakfast behind us, we set out on our Viking walking tour of Budapest’s Old Town and Lesser Town. Before we could make it too far, our guide was informed that two more people would be joining us, so she went back to get them. In the meantime, someone needed to hold the Viking “lollipop” as they were commonly referred to as, and thus, Miranda’s tour guide career began. She shared with the group the handful of things she’d learned so far and had to turn a random tourist away because we had no idea what it is they were looking for. She graciously returned authority to the paid guide, and we set off on our tour. We made brief stops at The Estates Theatre where Mozart performed and the Old Town Square, home to the Prague Astronomical Clock. Anywhere Mozart performed, lived, visited, or just laid his head down for the night during his life was immortalized with at least a plaque at each of our stops on this trip.

Next we turned east and headed towards the Vltava River and crossed the Charles Bridge into Lesser Town where the tour gave us some free time to wander. It costs money to go up into the Lesser Town Bridge Tower, which didn’t feel worth it. We wandered a bit, got a drink, and hit the ATM for some Czech Marks (koruna). After the break, our guide led us on a hike that took us past the Urinating Sculptures, the Memorial of the Second Resistance Movement, and the Winged Lion Memorial. The last two were dedicated to the resistance against the Nazis, both at home and by the Czech pilots who joined the British Royal Air Force. We met with our bus at the end of the hike for a ride up the hill to “Prague Castle” overlooking the city. This is not really a castle, more of a palace that served as the seat of power in Prague for centuries. The focal point of the site is gothic St. Vitus Cathedral, and of course the Starbucks, which doesn’t feel like it belongs there at all. The cathedral is massive, you can walk around it for pictures, but there is an odd obelisk that seems to have been dropped there by aliens. It’s a WWI memorial made out of concrete, and it just looks ridiculously out of place. We started back towards the bus and had to dodge Instagramers along the way. At the top of the hill we grabbed a a beer and waited for the rest of the group and our ride back to the hotel.

We returned to our hotel for a little while that afternoon and then set out on a food tour that we had booked through Get Your Guide. The tour included a stop at a deli for a sampling of traditional Czech open faced sandwiches, then a not so short walk to Masaryčka in the Masarykovo train station. Here we tried a number of traditional comfort foods like fried cheese, goulash, fries, schnitzel, and dumplings. Our next stop was a much longer walk away for some Czech holiday food like beef shoulder in carrot puree, duck, and grilled trout at Cafe Slavia. Our final stop was for gelato and a pastry before heading to the river to share a toast of shots with our guide before making our way back to the hotel. We had a great time on this food tour.

Along the way to and from Cafe Slavia, we passed an art exhibit on the side of a building called The Butterfly Effect that had two British WWII Spitfires with butterfly wings attached. This is another monument to the Free Czechoslovak Air Force pilots who fought for the British Royal Airforce against the Nazis during WWII.

Terezin Labor Camp

Our final full day in Prague was a busy one and it started with a 45 minute bus ride to the town of Terezin. The area is dominated by the fortress of the same name built at the end of the 19th century. It’s days as a military fort were limited and it became a barracks and the prison. It eventually housed Serbian separatist Gavrilo Princip, the man who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the event that ignited the First World War. Twenty years later, Czechoslovakia would be carved up by foreign powers and offered as appeasement to Adolf Hitler, the fortress turned prison would then become something much worse.

Our first stop was the Terezín Memorial - Ghetto Museum. This building houses the records of everyone who ever came to the Terezin Labor Camp. Our guide said that it was not considered a concertation camp, because prisoners were not sent here to die, but what we saw in this museum made that feel like a distinction without a difference. Of the 150,000 Jews sent to this camp, 15,000 of them were children, and less than 150 survived to see the camp liberated. The camp was made famous as the set of a propaganda film used to try to convince the outside world that prisoners of the Nazis were not being mistreated. The film included scenes from schools, prayer services, and even a soccer game. We were shown parts of the film that had been recovered years later, the screening ended with the message that not a single person who appeared in the film survived to see the end of the war. The director, Kurt Gerson, and the entire performing cast were sent to Auschwitz on the last train to the concentration camp. The film was not finished in time to attempt to sway the opinion of neutral countries but is still used by Holocaust deniers to this day.

We boarded our bus for the short ride to the camp. On the walk in, we passed headstones marking the final resting place of 2,386 prisoners that were never identified or repatriated to their native countries. Some of the dates listed are weeks or months after the camp was liberated due to a typhoid outbreak that also claimed the lives of many Red Army medics. We walked through the processing areas, showers, and bunk houses of the prisoners. We also learned about a very rare successful escape, which was made by a handful of prisoners after discovering a ladder in an unused storage locker. At any given time, this camp housed over 88,000 prisoners with regular arrivals from all over Nazi controlled Europe and regular departures to extermination camps.

Our bus ride back to Prague included a stop for lunch and then we were dropped off back at the hotel where we had dinner that night and found out we wouldn’t be catching a bus until 1 pm the next day.

We checked our list of things to do and settled on the IAM Illusion museum. We knew it would likely rain at some point, so this seemed like a safe bet, and it was pretty fun. We saw some reviews that it was a tourist trap, but who cares. After we did the loop at museum, we visited the market next door and then returned to the hotel to catch our bus.

The Viking longship Vilhjalm

After our nearly 5 hour bus ride to Passau, we arrived at the dock and boarded the Vilhjalm. Initially, we were supposed to be on the Injvi, but the floods caused her to get stuck too far down the river. We didn’t have a ton of time to settle in before joining the rest of the passengers for the required briefings about the ship and then we participated in the evacuation drill. Prior to the trip, it looked like we’d be able to do some sightseeing after dinner, but the ship was docked outside of the main city center, and we were pretty tired, so we unpacked and called it night. (Viking River Cruising)

Vilhjalm docked in front of St. Paul Church in Passau.

Passau, Germany

We woke early the next morning to find that our ship had moved into the city center. We had breakfast and went for a short walk across the bridge to the other side of the river. I had assumed that this was Austria and I’d be able to officially check that one off, but I discovered that the Vilhjalm was actually docked on the Austrian side of the Danube, but within a pocket of land that belonged to Germany. Austria would have to wait. Passau was still emerging from the morning fog, so at least we did get some cool pictures of the ship.

Our walking tour was conducted by a Dutchman named Francis, living in Passau, and studying to be a lawyer. He was pretty funny and often times reminded us that his opinion did not constitute legal advice. He took us along the river front, pointing out the history of some of the buildings, areas that had marked floods for centuries, and the hilltop fortress of Veste Oberhaus, that we likely wouldn't have enough time to climb up to. We walked down the Höllgasse, which translated to Hell Alley, with its shops and painted stones. We walked up the hill to the Prince-Bishop's Residence, where Francis explained that Passau used to be ruled by a Prince Bishop until Napolean arrived and reduced the role back to a Bishop. The official walking tour ended at St. Stephan's Cathedral, home to the world’s largest organ with nearly 18,000 pipes. We had planned on staying and listening to the noon performance, but over 10,000 pipes have been removed for restoration, and the tour ended at 11. We decided instead to walk across the Marienbrücke bridge for some pictures, and then around the Dreiflüsseeck point where we could see the convergence of the three rivers. We enjoyed a couple of beers at Ratskeller before making our way back to the boat for lunch and then our departure in the 1 o’clock hour.

We would be sailing for the rest of the afternoon and evening to be in Linz by morning. We took in some of the sights from the sun deck, got a few videos of us sailing, including the first of eleven locks we’d go through on this trip. That evening, we started getting to know our crew since the previous day felt like we were pretty rushed. We’d gone with the drink package on this cruise, so it was time for us to start sampling. Miranda taught the bartenders how to make the Mocha Martini that had become a staple on the Antartica Viking cruise, and I started exploring the wine list.

Linz, Austria

Linz was our first Austrian stop, and it had a bit of an industrial look to it. This would be another long day with the Linz Walking Tour in the morning and then a visit to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in the afternoon.

Our guide met us for the tour and we begin walking down the river bank towards the oddly shaped Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz museum. From here we traveled into the city center. Our guide gave us a brief history of the city through the centuries and then some of her own family’s history living in a divided Austria during the first 10 years of the cold war. We stopped in the Alter Markt and came face to face with a gut wrenching memorial. The citizens of Linz erected 22 doorbell plaques around the city with the names and birthdays, as well as the date of deportation or death of Jewish citizens who were sent to concentration camps and never came home. When you push the button, you hear the sound of a doorbell ringing. They symbolize the sound of the Gestapo showing up at their front door. The doorbell going unanswered also symbolizes that they are no longer here, and names are etched in brass to show that they will always be remembered.

There was a bust of Mozart in the entry way to the Mozarthaus, where he wrote the Linz-Symphony in three days in 1783.

The second half of our day started with a bus ride through the industrial district. Linz was targeted multiple times by Allied bombers during the WWII due to its armament’s plants, logistics infrastructure, and its role as a communications hub. It was also considered Adolf Hitler’s hometown, although I doubt anyone was going to waste bombs on symbolism.

Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Our first stop along the road to Mauthausen was an almost ‘blink and you miss it’ opening along the side of the road. It looked like an abandoned stone quarry with an unassuming sign. Our guide played it down a little bit, letting people know they could stay on the bus if they wanted, because we’d only be here for a few minutes. Once we got to the middle of the quarry, we could see some stairs built into the wall, these are the infamous “Stairs of Death”. Up these 186 stairs, prisoners would be required to carry blocks of stone that were up to 110 lbs. Prisoners who looked like they couldn’t go on were thrown from the top, the Nazi guards called them parachutists. A plaque at the bottom of the quarry wall remains in memory of those individuals who met their end here. Back towards the stairs, we noticed another small plaque dedicated to the six British POWs who also died here.

The bus took us the rest of the way up to the hill and to the doorstep of Mauthausen Concertation Camp. This was when we realized where all those stones were going. In addition to providing building material for the Linz industrial center, the stones were going to build the walls of their own prison. As we started to head into the prison, our guide learned that the man who was overlooking the old cemetery, and accompanied by a small group, was a survivor of the camp. He was gracious enough to tell us a little bit of his story and he showed us his tattoo. We had learned earlier that Auschwitz was the only camp that tattooed their prisoners, he said he had initially been sent to Auschwitz, but due to overcrowding, was sent to Mauthausen and held on until the end of the war.

We proceeded to the back of the camp along the front wall, we saw the old cemetery and then turned the corner into a large courtyard full of monuments. This is Memorial Park, an area populated by monuments to the 190,000 people from over 40 countries who were imprisoned here. Each monument was contributed by their home country and its design and size immortalize the suffering of their countrymen. One of the most surprising, was the monument to the Spanish who died here. Spain was neutral during WWII, however, following the Nazi-supported fascist victory in the Spanish Civil War during the 1930’s, many Republicans fled to France. Once France fell to the Nazis, thousands of those Spanish nationals were rounded up and sent to Mauthausen. The largest monuments were those contributed by Israel and the Soviet Union. The Nazis didn’t see the ethnic Russians as equals on the level with other Allied POWs. They were often sent to some of the worst work camps and were even experimented on while Nazis looked for more effective ways of killing prisoners. There were multiple monuments to Soviet prisoners here, including one that dwarfed most of the others. We could have spent hours exploring every single monument, but the tour was moving on into the camp itself.

As we walked towards the gate of the camp, we passed one last monument. This one is dedicated to Soviet General Dmitry Karbyshev, who was captured early in the war and eventually helped organize the escape attempt that saw over 500 prisoners escape. All but eleven were recaptured before the wars end. He, and many of his fellow officers were lined up, doused with water, and allowed to freeze to death overnight.

The walls and some of the buildings have remained the same since it was liberated however much of the original camp had been stripped by the Soviets, looters, and then eventually locals just looking for building material. It was first used as a Red Army barracks after the war, and then it was abandoned for many years. The memorial didn’t officially open until 1970. We walked into some of the buildings, but they were mostly empty. One building was housing a new Spanish exhibit with pictures from Francisco Boix, the famed Photographer of Mauthausen. As the camp photographer who was responsible for intake photos and other documentation, he hid negatives that would later be presented at the Nuremberg trials and expose the horrors of the camp. Once we reached the end of the main street, we descended into the basement to see several exhibits. At the end of the room was the walkway to the gas chamber and crematorium. The final room was the Room of Names with screens containing the over 84,000 names of the individuals who died here. This was a hard day! It’s difficult to see how people can be so cruel to others, one plaque read that the gas chambers here ran until the very last day of the war.

Krems

We woke up the next morning and we were still sailing. The forecast said overcast with rain, but this was going to be our trip through the Wachau Valley. Our cruise director said this is where all the brochure shots are taken and we did see a number of picturesque landscapes. Most of us gave it a shot on deck until the rain arrived. By the time it really got going, I was all alone on deck keeping the camera still for the time-lapse pictures. The famous blue Dürnstein Abbey can be seen at the end of the first video. Our cruise director filled the two hour trek with interesting information about the role this region has played in history.

On the way into Krems, we’d be passing under another bridge. We got to see the versatility of the Vilhjalm in action multiple times, due to the high river water, but this time I was ready to get it recorded. On our previous cruise, the crew made us leave the main deck during these times. Our aspiring lawyer/guide in Passau did say that Germans take a more common-sense approach to liability, maybe that’s spreading.

Gottweig Abbey

We docked in Krems and boarded our buses to the Gottweig Abbey, which was established in the 11th century, although the buildings we toured were only built in the 18th century. The monks of the abbey own the surrounding 13,000 acres, which they rent out to local farmers to grow grapes and apricots.

The tour started with an apricot drink and a video that was created by Viking and the monks to help introduce us to the site. We toured the grounds, the beautiful church, and walked up the imperial staircase with its huge ceiling fresco. We had a little time to wander around on our own at the end, which included a wine tasting and perusing the gift shop. It was still overcast, so pictures from the hilltop weren’t as great as they could have been, but we still got some good ones.

We had a little bit of time left after we returned from the abbey, so we took the shuttle that Viking was running into the town center. Krems didn’t look like it was really ready for tourists, they had one good walkable plaza near the Steinertor gate. Many of the shops were closed or closing, and the one wine bar we had looked up seemed less than welcoming. We had a couple of samples at a liquor store and bought one of the chocolate liquors. We wandered around a bit more and then walked the mile or so back to the boat.

Vienna

Panoramic Vienna Walking Tour
We arrived the next morning in the ancient imperial city of Vienna, capital of the Holy Roman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire for over 350 years. The city suffered some damage during the second world war, but it remains largely intact. We were told we were going to have the entire day in the city, so we picked out a few spots and started out. The first thing on our calendar was a walking tour from the boat, to the subway station, and then through Vienna’s First District. We began with a walk through the Burggarten, making a stop at the Mozart Monument sitting in front of the Hofburg Palace. We got pictures from the Heldenplatz, a massive square surrounded by palaces, museums, and large statues. Our walk continued through Michaelerplatz to get a glimpse of the Lipizzaner horses at the Stallburg stable. The next stop was the Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial, built in 2000 at the center of what was once the Jewish community from the 13th to 15th centuries. The plaza also contains a plaque on the wall derogatorily announcing the mass murder of the cities Jewish population in the 1421. In fact, we learned that the Holocaust was only one of three times that the Austrians persecuted its Jewish residents. The tour took us to the Ankeruhr clock and then finished at St. Stephen's Cathedral. This is where we parted ways with our tour group and set out on our own.

We leveraged our new found comfort level with the subway system and took it south towards the Belvedere Palace. The noise level dropped off significantly once we were out of the city center. We stopped for lunch at Art Corner Restaurant and sat outside to do some people watching. The food was excellent, and we saw the first of several wedding parties heading into the museum grounds for pictures. We didn’t know that tickets were on a schedule, but we lucked out and managed to get tickets for about 30 minutes out, so we wandered the grounds a little bit before heading in. This was one of the highlights for Miranda, as she got to see Gustav Klimt’s original The Kiss, which we have a copy of at home. Mine was At the Latin bridge in Sarajevo by Friedrich Alois Schönn, can’t really tell you why, it’s just the only one that stopped me. We started back towards the city through the palace gardens. Everything we read said to enjoy the Vienna coffee culture, but everything we were told was that it would take an hour or more to order, get, and finish our coffee. With only a day in the city, we didn’t have time for that.

Art Corner Restaurant with Miranda’s Fish & Chips and my Veil Schnitzel

We walked back towards another subway station and took it out to 360° Ocean Sky, a restaurant situated at the top of a WWII German flak tower. They only allow you to stay for 60 minutes, so we ordered a glass of wine and enjoyed the view. These towers were built by the Nazis all over Europe around strategic locations. The glass was very clean, which you’d think would be a no-brainer if you’re selling the view, but still, I wouldn’t have wanted to get out there and clean those.

We jumped back on the subway to our stop near the boat, took the short walk, and called it a day. We could have spent a week exploring Vienna, so we’ll be back here for sure.

Bratislava
Never heard of it? Yeah, us either. Bratislava has a couple of interesting distinctions. It’s the capital of Slovakia, and the only capital city in the world to sit on the boarder of three countries. We were told we’d only be here for a couple of hours before we were back on the boat and making our way to our final stop, Budapest. We met our guide, Jana, at the dock and she began to lead us into town. Jana was a student at the university in Bratislava when the Velvet Revolution began in Prague. The next day she joined in similar demonstrations, and within two months, communism had fallen. She started the tour at the hotel Carlton, a place that was reserved for foreign visitors when she was younger, and a place that would have gotten her picked up by the StB secret police just for walking into it. We walked next to St. Martin's Cathedral, and then through the old town to Michael’s Gate and ending at the square with Maximilian's fountain. Along the way she pointed out a number of cannon balls lodged in the buildings. Some remain from the 1809 unsuccessful siege by Napolean’s army, some were added later after the government granted tax relief to the owners of buildings that had suffered damage. We did a little wandering with the small amount of time we had left, got some pictures of the Slovak National Theatre, and then made our way to the boat. On the way out of town, we got a great view of Bratislava Castle after we cleared the UFO Tower bridge.

Budapest

We spent the rest of the afternoon cruising, scheduling another cruise, and just relaxing on the boat. Right before dinner, and during the next day briefing, we were notified that we’d be passing the Basilica of Esztergom, the seat of power for the Catholic Church in Hungary. This site had traded hands between Christians and Muslims over the past 500 years, but the new cathedral that dominates the view was started in the early 1800s. After dinner, we were treated to some karaoke by our awesome cruise director, Kane, and then the moment we were waiting for all day arrived, the night time transit into Budapest. This was a pretty cool site, although we missed out on the parliament building because the recent flooding knocked out electricity.

In the morning, we boarded our bus and headed out for our Panoramic Budapest tour. We were dropped off at the top of the hill near the Buda Castle and walked towards The Church of Our Lady of Buda Castle. Along the way, we learned about Hungary’s history of being losers. For most of the last 500 years, Hungary was subjected to foreign rule, first by the Ottoman’s, and then by the Habsburgs. They were briefly a republic following the first world war and then were occupied by the Nazis and then the Soviets until the fall of communism. During that time, Hungarians initiated and lost 17 revolutions. It’s considered rude to clink your glasses during a toast in public because that’s what Austrians did after putting down the 1843 revolution attempt. Instead, Hungarians stare into each other’s eyes when they toast drinks.

A lot of the buildings in the Castle District were under construction, not really renovation, but in many cases they were being rebuilt. This area took heavy damage during WWII and little attention was paid to it during communist times. Since joining the EU, Hungary has received large amounts of money to rebuild, and so far, it’s looking great. We got some great pictures from the Fisherman's Bastion, which overlooks the river and the rest of the city. Our guide gave us about an hour to wander around before we had to catch our bus back, so we explored some of the souvenir shops and then visited the local grocery store for some paprika and an ice wine.

After returning to the boat, we walked down the river a little bit to visit the Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial. The memorial consists of 60 pairs of iron shoes, lined up along the bank of the Danube River, the same way that thousands of victims of the Nazi-aligned Arrow Cross militia would be lined up to be executed.

After lunch, we returned to our room to find a Viking bag with robes and slippers in it. We would be taking these to the Széchenyi Thermal Baths. We booked this through Viking, even though we probably could have figured this out ourselves, but at the end of a long trip, sometimes it’s just worth it to hit the easy button. There were 19 baths, 16 of them indoors, and one of them was just a large swimming pool. It was a little weird, because we didn’t have any idea where we were going or what to do. It didn’t help that the building was under renovation, and the middle area was closed. It was pretty crowded for a Monday afternoon, but it also looks like they’ve got deals during some of the off peak hours, which contributed to the crowd. We found one very hot bath, one very cold bath, and then a handful of larger ones that were somewhere in between.

Once we were back on the boat, we did a little packing, got ready for dinner, and then went up to the lounge to enjoy one more night with the staff. We’d gotten to know our bartenders, and a few of the waiters well enough. We’d also tried a few different drinks that were hit or miss in our group. We enjoyed dinner with our favorite waiters after our last talk from Kane, and a final dinner briefing from our chef. We had a day on our own in Budapest before our flight, so this was it for the us on the Viking Vilhjalm.

Disembarkation day is always a sad day, I still believe that Viking does it best though. On some cruise lines, that morning feels different, breakfast is often times a subset of the normal menu, the ship looks ransacked as the crew begins turning over cabins, and people are just sitting around waiting for their time to leave. I can’t be sure, but I feel like the lights are even a little dimmer on the boat. We had our normal breakfast, with our normal waiters, caught up with some of the staff that we wanted to give an extra tip to, and then set off for our airport hotel. We had arranged to do a food tour in Budapest, which required a round trip cab ride from the airport hotel. The Ibis Styles hotel we stayed at is literally in the airport parking lot, we knew with an early flight out, that this was going to be the way to go.

We woke up early the next morning for our flight to Frankfurt. The short walk across the parking lot was uneventful, although I had to load up now that my duffel was a backpack. Navigating the check-in process and security was pretty easy as well. Both of our flights were uneventful, and we were back in St. Louis just after 1 pm. As always, we just feel like you can’t go wrong with Viking. You certainly pay for that piece of mind, and the direct flight to and from Frankfurt was huge again. We couldn’t have gotten any luckier with the weather, we think that the ship that left Passau the day before we did, might have been the first ship that didn’t have its itinerary interrupted. This meant there were no ship changes, no excessive bussing, and no missed stops. In comparison to the Rhine, the Danube felt a little darker. This part of the world has had some dark times in its past, but its right there in the open for everyone to learn from. We can’t recommend this trip enough to anyone that’s interested in exploring this part of the world.