The scheduled activity aboard the ship today is a trip to Salzburg to visit the city and also take in a Sound of Music show. Four buses headed off early this morning. It is apparently two hours drive each way. As much as I would love to see Salzburg, I wasn’t that keen to spend four hours on a bus and also have to endure those awful songs from the movie on top of that (it was bad enough hearing the buskers in Dürnstein playing Edelweiss over and over and over), and Marg has had a bad cough, so we opted to spend the day on board instead, cruising slowly to Passau in Germany. I am so glad we made that decision.
The Danube wound its way around a series of bends through some of the loveliest countryside we have seen. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. The forest on each bank was a sea of different greens, dotted with the occasional white blossom tree. Small riverside villages emerged around a bend and then were gone again. The Austrian countryside in spring is something of beauty to behold.
We have passed through a number of locks on this stretch of the river. Each time, the Avalon ship that is following us draws alongside, leaving only centimetres between boat and wall. The water level rises almost magically in front of your eyes and soon the ship is underway again.
Just a short time ago we passed through Engelhartszell. From that point on we have had Germany on our starboard side and Austria on our port side, but the ship’s crew has now swapped the Austrian flag at the bow to a German one, so I assume we are now in German waters.
On The Road With Garry 