MELK, THEN VIENNA

 Ah Vienna....... A beautiful city, very clean wonderful buildings, wide boulevards, palaces the lot.

Spent an evening at the opera in the Lobkowitz Palace, stunning place where Beethoven had conducted. The singers were so expressive.

The ship's lounge.

Wandered around the palaces, saw the Lipitzaner horses, only stallions because the presence of mares causes disruption & fights.

Sat in the park and admired the statuary, especially the golden Strauss only disfigured by posing Koreans???

We waited around for the coach back to the park but we would have been better walking back and taking a trip on the Wine Ferris wheel. Can you hum the Harry Lime theme?

Melk abbey underlines the money that the Catholic Church has. I think Henry VIII may have had a point. The walk up to the abbey was very demanding, a lot of steep steps Linda did well - red, exhausted, but well.

DUMPLINED OUT

Underway now, started at Passau, a pleasant town 45mins away from Munich. Did a walk round the town to see the usual cathedrals, rathaus and landmarks. There have been some substantial floods here in the past. What do you global warming - weather catsrophe proponents make of the dates?

Had a nice visit to a a local small farming family who invited us in for afternoon tea & cakes. Interesting people who had that morning  just taken delivery of calf twins.

Moved into Czech Republic to a world heritage site - Cesky Krumlov. It has a long heritage since the 12th century and boasts a lot of no historic sites in a quiet, traffic free cobbled setting. The castle has a moat with no water, but how to keep invaders out, I hear you ask. They went for bears 

There is a local sculptor based here who is obsessed with feet & hands.

Interesting bridge building techniques in use. The church in view is St Vitus, anyone for a dance.

 Like their food here, plenty of handmade sweets & gingerbread. We went to lunch & had the guides recommendation of dumplings stuffed with plums & marzipan liberally coated in sugar. Huge serving. To add to that we had an even more massive fluffy pancakes with whipped cream, cherries & topped with even more sugar all washed down with a large glass of port. The 10000+ steps we achieved didn't even touch the calories needed to balance it out.

GERMAN EFFICIENCY......NOT

Beautiful day yesterday, rained all day today. Planned for it with a comprehensive 3 route HoHo bus tour.

Visited all the major sites in Munich, which I have to say is a very nice place. BMW world & offices are impressive, you must be paying too much for those wagens. Perhaps DT has a point. Went for lighter grub today, not sure we succeeded with an Asian bowl for lunch followed by coffee & cakes German style at 4pm. Our last HoHo was a Swabian trip that was scheduled every 2hours from 10:30. We were wandering near the HoHo terminal at 13:30 & up pops an unscheduled bus. We hopped on, as you do, & off we went. Not many people on it, being unscheduled - German efficiency1.

Got back to hotel this evening to pack & sort out trip to airport on Sunday, don't wanna mess up, what with clock changes to discover that rail trip planned now has bus replacement service due to leaves on line or some other stupid excuse - German efficiency2. Re-plan now going ahead.

That walking man's a big boy, BayernFC supporters pretty happy in town today, top of league by 6 points, HK to get his first trophy?

EIS ZWEI G'SUFFA

 Here we are in Munich, journey had it's ups & downs. The train journey & everything leading up to the flight were all great, not so good the rest of it. Boarded early, started to push back and the dopey man operating the tug turned it at too great an angle & got it jammed on the nose wheel. Finally got it released but now the Captain wouldn't go any further until it was checked by an engineer to confirm it hadn't over rotated. Half hour later we started to taxi again & flew off to Germany wondering if the nose wheel would collapse on landing. It didn't! At Munich we got lost on the way to passport & had to re-trace our, so instead of being first in the queue we were last.

This is the town hall, it has an animated mechanical clock where knights joust & beer barrel makers dance.

Beautiful little baroque church that was once a private chapel for the Asam brothers

Hofbrauhaus beer Keller holds about 4000 people. Apparently there's a sign inside that says Gooners not allowed 

These are the clock characters in the town hall

Had a nice meal in the Pschorr beer Keller. Lovely place that brews it's own beer and only sources produce locally around Munich. Had traditional German fare, sauerbraten and pigs hock with pickled veg. Amazing I got the beer to balance on the food like that.

CAN WE GO?

Off to Munich this morning, not sure if we going when we run into a red light at the exit from the apartment. It was OK it went green soon after. Public transport to Heathrow but weaver train late so we would miss our connection on to the Elizabeth line. Driver saved the day & cut out all the scheduled stops between Seven Sisters & Liverpool Street. Good for us but other passengers not impressed. Otherwise perfect trip & now lounging in business class room at Heathrow.

Other good news pension increase of 1.7% & postcode win - woohoo.

Can't decide to do Nazi walk or HoHo, let's see what the weather brings.

DONE &....

 dusted in Zeebrugge. Last leg across the North Sea, home tomorrow with any luck. No too lucky so far, what with Hamburg strike we now have train strikes in Belgium. So we decided not to go to Bruges & instead took a tram ride down to Knokke. A really nice seaside resort town about 20mins on the tram. Tap in system again €2.5 for one hours travel. Nice sunny day & warm if you kept out of the wind. Didn't go on the sandy beach but did don cossies to get in the hot tub overlooking the port and it's fleet of minesweepers. Tonight we have a nice curry coming up & packing to complete.

HAMBURG, BEST LAID PLANS...

 go awry. Planned to have nice breakfast, go ashore at midday, meet up with the family, quality time & go back on board in the evening as ship didn't sail until 5am next day. About 8:15am Captain comes on in the cabin - Germans on strike, have to leave port early at 3:30pm. Panic in the cabin to try and re-arrange meeting, got people out of bed, but still Aunty Ruth & family had to cancel. Public transport now not quick enough to make the time so good old Uber steps up & does the job. 

The Steinwerder Cruise Terminal in Hamburg is a mess, it has no decent transport links at all, you probably have to walk close to a mile to the bus stop. Next stop Zeebrugge, which we here is also on strike, let's see.