Regensburg-an ancient city

We cruised for the morning and reached Regensburg just after lunch. This town was first established by the Romans in the 2nd century. The Romans abandoned this area in about 400 AD. A missionary established a bishopric in 739 AD. There is Roman remains in the city and it became a free city in 1245. It was a very important salt trading area on the river.
We had our walking tour and then free time to explore. We saw the old stone bridge which us now being restored; old city hall; an old sausage house and the old buildings around town. St Peters's Cathedral was built in the baroque style with many outstanding medieval stained glass windows. The church was started in 1250 and completed the final spires in 1869. We received voucher for sausages, sauerkraut and beer to enjoy at the Old Sausage Factory. 
We crossed town and visited St. Emmeram- a magnificent cathedral that has a church, the huge main cathedral and several other worship areas. Beautiful frescos covered the ceilings.Very old tombs are here as well. Some of the tombs were dated 779 AD. It was amazing what artists and craftsmen constructed in those days.
In the evening we had the formal Captain's Farewell dinner. Outstanding food with a grand finale. The staff marched around the dining room with flaming baked Alaska.
We continue to sail thru the night and tomorrow morning toward Roth. We pass the European continental divide. This is the highest point if the Danube River. We will now be going thru locks that lowerthe ship. The first lowered the ship about 81 feet The entire lock system was quite an engineering process. We will go thru 16 locks on this cruise.
















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wolfhound Tours- Day 5- Dingle Way, Slea Head, ruins and ring forts

Image
After breakfast, we headed towards the coast. Those looking for a hike were dropped off at the Dingle Way trailhead. There were only three of us. Marty, Emilie and myself. The trail hiked up the mountainside and followed the stone walls. As we got to higher elevation, the views were incredible. We felt sorry for the rest of the group for missing such views. We hiked along with the sheep. We passed a small waterfall, ring forts and many, many stone walls. We could see the beach where we would meet the rest of the group. At the top, we also had views of the Blasket Islands. Our hike ended at Coumeenola Beach. The beach was beautiful with jagged rocks on the edges. We  hiked about 7 miles.                                        Dave gave us a demostration of Hurling- a national Irish game. A bit crazy with a ball and stick. Once agai...
Read more

Durnstein and Melk-Austria

Image
This morning we arrived in the small town of Durnstein. One of the apricot centers of Austria. Everything apricot!!!!!!. Liqueurs, schnapps, lotions, soaps, candies and more. This quaint town has a population of 400. They also are surrounded by vineyards and produce many wines, mostly white. They have the perfect climate for white wine grapes.  Durnstein has many historical sites such as the Augustiner Abbey with the beautiful blue clock tower, the remains of Kuenringer Castle where Richard the Lionhearted stayed after the Crusades and a small town area with shops. We tasted many varieties of apricot liqueurs and other products. We are bringing liqueurs home. Walked back to the ship and we sailed thru the Wachau Valley. Vineyards are terraced up the hillsides. Beautiful churches and castles can be seen from the water. We had a picnic lunch on the sky deck as we cruised. Around 2 pm, we arrived in Melk, Austria. We visited the Benedictine Abbey Melk which is the first Benedicti...
Read more

Heli HIke onto Franz Josef Glacier

Image
Only 7 of our group chose to do the Heli Hike. The rest will go do a hike in the area. We were dropped off at the tour operators and outfitted with a jacket, pants, socks, boots, mittens, crampons and a bag. Everyone was weighed and then placed in the helicopter. We flew up the valley and landed on the glacier. After a safety briefing and putting on our crampons and getting our hiking pole, our guide, Zac had an axe which he used to cut steps into the ice on steeper sections. He showed us an ice cave and asked if we wanted to go through it. Everyone said yes. He tied a rope on each end and one by one we lowered ourselves down and though. It was wet and very slippery and even a bit scary, but fun. After we finished with that, we hiked up towards the large pieces which Zac told us were over 6 stories tall. The sun came out and you could see the blue ice. Incredible! Some areas were starined and streaky with dirt and sediment which gave them black and white...
Read more