We are part way through our marathon tour of a little bit of Europe. The last leg is on the Danube—or as the Europeans mistakenly call it, the Donau—aboard the Viking Hermod. Hermod is apparently a little known figure in Norse mythology. From everything I’ve read, he is a psycho God who guides people to and from the Underworld. In other words, Michael Cohen.

We’d missed a day in Budapest, because Lufthansa couldn’t find its way out of Munich, but for the first time in twelve days, we could unpack more than our toothbrushes.

Lesson one: It’s Budapesht. If they want you to say “Budapest” they would have been spelled it Budapezst. Of courshe.

Lesson two: Never tell anyone you have been to Budapest. They will immediately ask if you were in Buda or Pest. There were two cities once upon a time, separated by the Danube, but they merged into one in 1873. The answer, for us, on this trip, was “we’re on the river, you idiot.”

Because a visit to a cathedral is required at every stop in every city in Europe, we went to the King Matias Cathedral. It was very cathedral-esque. Leaving there, it began to rain and since it was the only day we hadn’t schlepped our rain gear with us, we took refuge in a traditional Hungarian Starbucks. Plus it had a bathroom, though you had to buy something in order to use it. Apparently, they hadn’t heard the news.

Later, we found our way to at least as many bakeries and shops as ancient buildings. As good as it was, Budapest was most impressive at night. And they know it. We were up on the deck when the ship left that evening, and after passing through a couple of bridges, it turned around and headed back. I assumed the captain, who spoke only Russian, had forgotten his map. Actually all the cruise ships were circling around, waiting for it to get dark enough for the lights to come on.

Lesson three: Just as the highways of Europe are filled with coaches (don’t call them buses) bumper to bumper, the Danube is clogged with cruise ships. At most ports, they tie up two or three deep and passengers have to climb from one ship to another to get to shore. Makes for a bit of a start when you look out in the morning and see someone looking back at you, two feet away.

As we left the lights behind, we were on the way to Bratislava, which is the capital of Slovakia. It used to be part of Czechoslovakia, but Czecho split off to pursue an acting career with his brothers Groucho, Harpo, Pepto, Jello and Drano.

I didn’t expect much from Bratislava but was pleasantly surprised. It has the requisite number of cathedrals wrapped in scaffolding, but it also has a sense of humor. In Old Town—which seems redundant in Europe—there’s a sculpture of a worker in a manhole, not working, and I traded hats with a statue of a greeter outside a restaurant, tipping his top hat. Saw a sign at a Mexican restaurant that read, “eat here or we’ll both starve.”

The guide for our walking tour of Bratislava was a cheery, but large woman who found the walk aerobic. We all wore little radio receivers and earpieces so she could point out the sights without repeating herself. She managed to huff and puff in my ear until I shut down the receiver.

Later, on our own, we found a farmers’ market that sold a number of things we’d never seen anywhere else but resisted buying now. Somehow. We also came across several groups of young performers whose youth is misspent learning folk dances.

And now, on to Vienna. It’s called Wein by people who don’t understand that Vienna is a way cooler name. And, it’s got cathedrals – but come on, it’s Vienna. It’s about pastries and coffee and food and pastries and chocolates. And Lipizzaner stallions. But, as Mister Ed taught us, a horse is a horse, of course, of course.

We stopped at Café Demel, because, we’re cool. I wanted something traditional, but I didn’t order Coffee Melange. It’s pretty much a cappuccino, with whipped cream instead of foamed milk. I did not, however, make the mistake of ordering “coffee.” Ordering “coffee” in Vienna is like ordering “beer” at a craft beer tasting room. It’s just not done. I did, therefore, order a Coffee Maria Theresa. That’s coffee with whipped cream and Grand Marnier. Maria Theresa was one of 16 children from the family that included Marie Antoinette, though she met a better fate. I know that because there is no Marie Antoinette coffee in Wein-Vienna. There may, however, be Marie Antoinette cake. But I ordered the apple strudel, with vanilla sauce. I meant to take a picture of it. Honestly.

Vienna is all about food. I’m all about Vienna.

Now, let me tell you about the ship. It’s fine. It’s good. It had a restaurant, it had a café, it had coffee and cookies all day long. The cabins or staterooms or something were a little close, but were as comfortable as they needed to be. And every time we left for a minute or two, the guy assigned to the bloc of rooms on our deck came in and completely cleaned the place. I’m guessing, on average, he cleaned the room fourteen times a day, often just to rearrange the water bottles.

We searched around at every meal to try to find someone we wanted to sit by and be pleasant with. Pleasant not being my strong suit, my answer was always “let’s find an empty table” but often we were forced to sit by someone else. We ended up often eating with a guy from Boston and his daughter. Ended up liking them. The retired music teacher from Colorado was interesting, but his wife, the art teacher, was even less social than I am. Rita and Peggy are from Minnesota, and so am I, but that was about the extent of it. We made the mistake one day of sitting with a couple from Dallas. He was an ardent supporter of everything we are not, and she only spoke when she tried to sell us a house. In Dallas. Which is in Texas. We ate quickly and left to go to the deck and scream into the darkness. Then the couple who live part of the year in the north, and part in the south. They think it’s because they follow the good weather, but the truth is, no one can put up with him for a full year. 

The ship next stops at Krems, Austria. I’m not going to say it’s a boring town, but its English name and its European name are the same. That’s why they whisked us away to the Guttweig Abbey, where the scaffolding has been in place for hundreds of years.

Much of the Abbey burned down 300 years ago, and somehow they have managed to get only two-thirds of it put back together and are now reworking the parts they did renovate.

I guess they work slowly.

The monks on the other hand, are busy working the vineyards, making wines and enjoying the view from the abbey. They have enormous acreage and this might account for why the abbey hasn’t been rebuilt.

As we looked around the rooms of the Abbey, we saw ancient Chinese vases, made in The Netherlands. Turnabout is fair play. 

The next day we’re off to Linz, Austria. It’s a little less than a mile from Krems, but somehow took us all night to get there. I think the captain drinks a bit.

The point of stopping in Linz was to get on a coach (don’t call it a bus) to go to Cesky Krumlov in Czecho.

The Czechos, having failed at their movie career, decided to build a casino on the border with Austria. No fools they. There are coachloads (don’t call them busloads) of retired people coming down the road several times a day and what better place to put a place called “American Chance Casino.”

Other than that, the big deal in Cesky Krumlov is a castle, I guess. Facades were all painted to look like brick, but were flat in real life. It could have been a Universal Studios tour. Enough said, I’m afraid.

Which brings the ship to its last stop before it turns around and goes back the other way, with a whole shipload of new people.

Passau, Germany is a pleasant enough place, filled with cobblestone streets too narrow for a single car. And, because it’s Europe, we stopped at the Cathedral of St. Stephen. The statuary behind the altar was the stoning of Saint Stephen, so I guess the message to the flock was mind your p’s and q’s because the stones are still piled up. That’s Christianity for you.

The Cathedral of St. Stephen also boasts the largest pipe organ in the world. Not that they need it, but there are a lot of cruise ships stopping here and those folks need to have something to do.

There are apparently five sets of pipes in various parts of the church and 90 miles of cable has been strung to connect the pipes and make the whole thing sound entirely intolerable. We sat through a half hour “concert” listening to someone in the balcony pound on a keyboard for no particular reason. I was hoping he would play “The House of the Rising Sun” or “Riders on the Storm” or some organ solo I would recognize, but, no. Not even “Eleanor Rigby” which doesn’t have an organ solo, but is at least about a woman in church. He didn’t take requests. Instead, it was a cacophony or unrelated notes. Pretty much like any church service, except the tone deaf minister didn’t sing.

Passau is a tourist town. That’s all it is. 

2,800 ships a year stop or start there. It’s pretty much on the edge of Bavaria. I could see Austria from my lunch. Which was haddock.

The next morning we were rousted from our cabin to go to Munich where we checked in at the airport with more than a little trepidation, but found our way to our plane and left more or less on time. From there to San Francisco where they accept dollars at the bar, and then home to San Diego.

And that was that. The dogs were glad to see us, and we were glad to see them.