Photos from the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Once two separate towns with Pest on the mainly east bank of the Danube with Buda on the hilly west bank. It was here that we boarded our Scenic Cruise the ship the Scenic Diamond where about a week later we would disembark at Nuremberg to catch our bus to Prague. Landmarks such as Castle Hill and Saint Matthias Church with its mixed Catholic and Islamic influence from the Ottoman Turks who occupied the city for 150 years are located in western Buda while the Parliament which I photographed at night from the sun deck of the Scenic Diamond lies on the River's east bank in Pest.
From late Thursday night the 28th until mid afternoon Friday the 29th we sailed on the Scenic Diamond from Budapest to Vienna. Early on the Friday morning you can see the Castle prominent from Europe's smallest national capital city, that being the Slovakian capital of Bratislava just before we crossed the border into Austria.
In the evening we visited the very impressive Palais Liechtenstein to witness a concert. The Liechtenstein Museum contains much of the art collections of its owners, namely the Princely Family of Liechtenstein, rulers of the principality of Liechtenstein. It was built in the 18th century. The frescos are amazingly beautiful.
The Schönbrunn Palace is a former imperial summer residence in Vienna. The 1,441-room Baroque palace is one of the most important architectural, cultural and historical monuments in the country. Since the mid-1950s it has been a major tourist attraction. The history of the palace and its vast gardens spans over 300 years, reflecting the changing tastes, interests, and aspirations of successive Habsburg monarchs.
Our visit to the Schönbrunn Palace was plagued with terrible weather so after seeing the palace we returned the boat. Our room was down in the very bottom of the boat at water level where we were greeted by the sight of beautiful swans coming almost right to our window. By late afternoon the weather cleared and we took a short walk along the river and more photos of the gorgeous and for us Aussies, exotic white swans.
The beautiful village of Dürnstein on the Danube in Lower Austria's Wachau Valley. Itwas first mentioned in 1192, when, in the castle above the town, King Richard I of England was held captive by Leopold V, Duke of Austria after their dispute during the Third Crusade. Richard the Lionheart had personally offended Leopold the Virtuous by casting down his standard from the walls at the Battle of Acre, and the duke suspected that King Richard ordered the murder of his cousin Conrad of Montferrat in Jerusalem. The village of Rossatz lies on the opposite bank of the river with a regular ferry service between the villages. The castle ruins which we climbed up to offer a wonderful panorama of the valley with the church steeple prominent in this wine growing area.
We only spent a rushed couple of hours Dürnstein in the morning before reboarding our boat to Melk with its magnificent late 11th century abbey. Here you will find scenic shots along the river. Some of the passengers opted for the push bike ride from Dürnstein to Melk.
The town of Melk from the Slavic word for 'border' is first mentioned as Medilica in 831 in a donation of Louis the German. The area around Melk was given to Margrave Leopold I in the year 976 to serve as a buffer between the Magyars (called "Turks" in that time's sources) to the east and Bavaria to the west. In 996 mention was first made of an area known as Ostarichi, which is the origin of the word Oesterreich (German for Austria). The bluff which holds the current monastery held a Babenberger castle until the site was given to Benedictine monks from nearby Lambach by Margrave Leopold II in 1089. Melk received market rights in 1227 and became a municipality in 1898. In a very small area, Melk presents a great deal of architectural variety from many centuries.
Český Krumlov is a small city in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. Old Český Krumlov is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was given this status along with the historic Prague castle district which we visited a couple of days or so later. Construction of the town and castle began in the late 13th century at a ford in the Vltava River, which was important in trade routes in Bohemia. Its castle is unusually large for a town of Krumlov's size and within the Czech Republic it is second in extent only to the Hradčany castle complex of Prague. Inside its grounds are a large rococo garden, an extensive bridge over a deep gap in the rock upon which the castle is built, and the castle itself, which in turn consists of many defined parts dating from different periods of time. Even on this bleak day, it was beautiful. Being on the Vltava River, we had to take a bus there and later the bus would take us back to the ship at Passau just inside Germany from over the Austrian border.
