In November 2013, Bill and I took the AMA Waterways river cruise from Budapest to Nuremberg to visit the Christmas markets. It was a very special trip, and this blog post gives you all the details. Enjoy!
Budapest
Budapest
It is very important that you arrive in Budapest at least
one day before you sail. It is a
beautiful city and you can easily explore the highlights in a day or two. There is also wonderful shopping, and the US
dollar goes a lot further in Hungary than anywhere else on the journey.
At 10:00 am on the day the ship sails, you can store your bags on the boat. You can also enjoy
coffee from the awesome cappuccino machine, and food in the complimentary lounge. You do have to pay for beer and wine up until
3:00 PM (when it becomes complimentary as well).
We stored our bags, had some soup and a sandwich, and headed
back into Budapest for more exploring. The market hall is a must see. You can
get all kinds of specialty food items (paprika, Hungarian liqueur, etc.), as
well as handicrafts, t-shirts, and other typical souvenirs. There are also a lot of vendors selling
really nice Italian leather purses, gloves, etc. Again, the prices are really good because it
is in HUF’s not euros.
After 3:00 PM, you can get into your cabin on the ship. We loved the Ama Bella cabins. Most of the rooms have a full balcony with a
small table and two chairs outside, as well as a French balcony that you can
slide open to enjoy the fresh air. The
cabin is very spacious, with plenty of space to unpack and storage for your
suitcases under the bed.
The shower is very nice with a handheld attachment (as well as a
big rain shower); water pressure is great. Amenities in the cabin were also very nice – lotions, soaps, two bathrobes,
etc.
There is free Internet on board. It works very well while in port. When sailing on the river, you can get a
signal, but everything is a little bit slower.
Our cruise director was Rachel. She has a PhD in world history and speaks
seven languages. She is so cute and energetic. I want her job!
The ship did not sail until 9:00 PM that night, so we really
made the most of our time in town before sailing.
There is a great restaurant/pub in Budapest called For
Sale Pub located right across the street from the market. The portions are huge, and the food is delicious … many
Hungarian specialties. The goulash is
tasty and filling. They also have a huge
selection of beers. It is a bit of a
dive with sawdust and peanut shells on the floor, but definitely a great
experience.
Sailing out of Budapest will take your breath away. The combination of the castle on the Buda side, Parliament on
the Pest side, and the chain bridge connecting the two, is incredible.
Food on board is great, with many choices at each meal. They do a great job of serving local
specialties along the way, in conjunction with the places you are visiting. It’s an open seating concept, with tables of two, four or six. We really enjoyed the
dining on board the ship, and the wait staff and servers were awesome.
Bratislava, Slovakia
On day two, we docked in Bratislava, Slovakia. There were two choices for the tours – a
walking tour in town, or the communist tour.
We did the communist tour, knowing we would have free time to walk in the
city center later in the day. We boarded
a bus for the communist era and did a nice city tour hearing a lot about what
life was like in communist times, and what it is like now. We also visited the royal palace, which had
great views of the city.
From where the ship docks, you have many options to explore
on your own. To the right is a huge,
American-style shopping mall. Prices
were in euros, so it is more expensive than Budapest, but still fun to shop in the
stores you can only find in Europe and the U.K. My personal favorite is Next.
Walking left from the ship, it is a five minute walk into the
main city square. The cobblestone
streets wind around to the beautiful St. Martin’s cathedral. The Christmas markets were open, so we had a
great time sipping hot punch (you can get it with alcohol or without, and also
mulled wine). There were many small
stalls selling everything from Christmas ornaments to hand-knitted
sweaters. The food stalls were like the
fair, with everything you can imagine.
The ship brings on local entertainment each evening, and they
were all really enjoyable.
Vienna
The next morning we arrived in Vienna. Bill and I had been to Vienna 18 years ago, so
we were excited to be back. On all the walking tours, Ama gives you an option of three groups: Active Walkers, Regular Paced or Gentle Walkers. For the gentle walkers they often offer a
small trolley, etc., or the pace is just much slower.
Bill and I opted for the Active Walkers. The walking tour of Vienna was great. St. Stephen’s cathedral is the center of the
city, and close by is the Royal Palace.
Vienna is famous for its coffeehouse, where there are over
30 different types of coffees on the menu. We opted for Café Melange (which is like a latte with a Viennese
twist). We also got a strudel with
vanilla sauce. The service in these
coffeehouses is very slow by design. It
is not like a Starbucks where you grab your coffee to go, but rather a place to
meet and linger and really enjoy your coffee and conversation. It was a highlight of the day.
The ship was going to be in Vienna until late that evening,
so after exploring the shops and the Christmas markets, we headed back to the
ship for a nap and a plan to come back into town for dinner. Bill and I had been in Vienna 18 years earlier and had eaten at this very old, wonderful restaurant. Our goal was to find it and eat there again. It is still there. We had a wonderful dinner at Brezel Gwolb.
Durnstein and Melk in the Wachau Valley
Our first stop in the Wachau Valley was to Durnstein, which
is marked by the ruins of a medieval castle up on the hill. Our walking tour through this quaint town was
very special. This little town only has
800 people living there, including only 18 children under the age of ten. They go to school in a beautiful old
monastery. The baker for the entire region lives there, so the smell of
homemade bread is in the air all over town. The Wachau valley is famous for its wine, so all around the town were
rows and rows of vineyards. The area is
also famous for its apricots. The shops
were filled with specialty items made from apricots, including apricot gummy
candies, chocolate covered apricots, apricot schnapps and brandy, and of course
the wonderful wines of the region. The
items were definitely expensive, but we couldn't resist doing some Christmas shopping.
We had planned to do a guided 3-hour bike tour from
Durnstein to Melk, but the cruise director felt it was a little bit too cold
and windy, so the tour was canceled. Bill
and I did, however, take two bikes out for a short ride among the vineyards and
back through the town. I have never
ridden a bike along narrow cobblestone streets, and I loved it. We circled back and biked right along the
Danube River before boarding our ship for the short sail to Melk.
Melk is most famous for its Benedictine monastery, which has
been there since 1089. We were initially not that
excited about visiting the monastery, but we were blown away by its size and
beauty. It has been destroyed and
rebuilt several times, and its current Baroque buildings were stunning. The church and the frescoes on its ceiling
rival the Sistine Chapel. We were blown
away. The gift shop at the monastery is really great, with very reasonably priced wines, chocolates, schnapps, apricot brandy,
etc.
Linz
We made a brief stop in Linz, and several people got
off the ship for the day tour of Salzburg, where The Sound of Music was filmed. They joined up with us again later
in the day. We didn't do this tour because we had been to Salzburg before; however, I wish we had after
hearing about it. Everyone raved about the beauty of the snow covered alps, and on the bus
ride home they watched The Sound of Music while the guided pointed out again
all the sights they had just seen.
We enjoyed the relaxing day at sea, sleeping in, reading and
enjoying a nice lunch in the dining room.
Passau
Later that afternoon, we arrived in our first stop in
Germany -- Passau. Out of our window we could see a large
castle perched high on the hilltop. The
guided walking tour was brief, and we had a lot of free time for shopping, and of
course, the Christmas markets. A
highlight of the tour was St. Stephen’s cathedral, which is home to the largest
pipe organ in the world.
The shopping in Passau was great. There was a shop on the main street that sold
nothing but gummy candy, from bears to snakes to little marshmallows with
chocolate inside. There were also many
clothing and shoe stores. At the end of
the main shopping street were two very large shopping malls. We skipped the malls and went to the
Christmas Market, which was bustling with people and the smells of sausages and
mulled wine. We went to a food stall
that featured raclett. Basically, it is a
huge wheel of cheese cut in half under a heat lamp. As soon as the cheese bubbles up, the server
scoops up a generous portion onto a slice of bread. WOW!
This first German Christmas market had all the German handicrafts, including the Christmas decorations that spin around by the heat of the candles
surrounding them. There were also some
very unique and beautiful nativity scenes. We bought a wooden cross that says – God is watching over this home day
and night.
Regensburg
Today was a sailing day, so we really enjoyed sleeping in and
relaxing on board the ship. I had a
massage on board, which was really nice. We went through several locks along the river. It really is an impressive feat to watch the
ship go through the very narrow locks. We arrived right in the center of town when we docked, which was
great. It was literally a cobblestone
street as soon as you stepped off the ship.
The walking tour of this ancient Bavarian city was really interesting. This well-preserved medieval city is home to
a BMW factory; it really is where the old meets the new. There are all sorts of really great little
shops, including a German candy store, with every kind of gummy candy you can
imagine. Shop carefully -- that stuff is
heavy (as we soon found out).
There is a large department store in the center of town. If
you take the escalators to the top floor, there is a nice cafeteria where you
can sit and have a coffee. It also
happens to be the very best view of the entire city. It was cold and snowy for us, but in the
summer it would be awesome to go out on the terrace and soak it in. We also enjoyed the department store on our
way out. The Germans make really nice,
warm boots and we both needed some!
Before heading back to the ship, we stopped near the Old
Stone Bridge at Wurstkuchl (Sausage Kitchen). The oldest restaurant in Germany dates back to 1135 (600 years older than the United States). They only serve sausages on a bun with
mustard, but you can have it with our without sauerkraut. Delicious! There were also some really cute Christmas markets here as well.
Nuremberg
We left the Danube River and entered the main Danube
Canal, which links the North Sea to the Black Sea. This waterway is over 2000 miles
long and connects 15 countries. We
arrived at Nuremberg in the afternoon.
We had a choice of a walking tour through the medieval
city, or a motor coach tour of World War II history (which is what we
chose). Nuremberg is where Hitler held
his Nazi Party rallies. It was really
sad to see these places and hear the stories, but I think it is very important
to understand what happened, so that it never happens again.
We also visited Courtroom 600, which is where the Nazi war criminals were tried at the end of WW
II.
Nuremberg has one of the most famous Christmas markets, but
we were not able to visit it. Because of
the timing of Thanksgiving, and needing to get back home to our kids, we got off the ship one day early. We were packed when the ship arrived in Nuremberg, and we were able to put our bags on the motorcoach. After the tour, we were dropped at the train station, where we took a train to Frankfurt. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express (which
was quite nice) at the Frankfurt airport, and then took a direct flight back to
Dallas the next day.
