Month: July 2015

Viking’s Danube Waltz (6): Passau

Viking’s Danube Waltz (6): Passau

June 6: Passau, Germany

con­tin­ued from part 5… Once called “Batavia” or “Batavis,” Pas­sau is a charmer of a medieval Bavar­i­an town at the con­flu­ence of the Danube, Inn and Ilz, the last out of the Black For­est, spew­ing dark peaty water into the larg­er, faster-mov­ing rivers.

With a pop­u­la­tion the same as Man­ches­ter, New Hamp­shire, it draws 1.6 mil­lion vis­i­tors per year, com­pared to 1 mil­lion down at Durn­stein, pop­u­la­tion 400 and a tenth the size. Result: you can move around with­out mass­es of crowds and enjoy the tran­si­tion archi­tec­ture, Goth­ic to Baroque.

St. Stefan’s Cathe­dral has one of the largest organs in the world and the recital there is tremen­dous.…

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“Iran is Not Nazi Germany…

“Iran is Not Nazi Germany…

…And Mark Steyn is not Win­ston Churchill,” writes Tim Reuter in Forbes.

—a rather thought­ful piece, though a bit harsh on Mr. Steyn, who offered exact­ly the right take on Neville Cham­ber­lain. He was “an hon­or­able man who believed he was act­ing in the inter­est of his coun­try.” That was also how Churchill eulo­gized him after Chamberlain’s death in 1940.

It is reas­sur­ing to know that Iran is (thank good­ness) not Nazi Ger­many; and that the Iran nuclear deal and Munich are not anal­o­gous. But some of Mr. Reuter’s sen­tences rest uneasi­ly next to each other.…

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Viking’s Danube Waltz (5): Salzburg and Linz

Viking’s Danube Waltz (5): Salzburg and Linz

June 5: Linz, Salzburg and Viking Cuisine

con­tin­ued from part 4…  Vis­it­ing Linz and Salzburg….

The qual­i­ty of Viking’s Danube Waltz cui­sine is uni­form­ly high. There is always a choice of three or four first and main cours­es, nice­ly bal­anced between meat, fish and veg­e­tar­i­an, with excel­lent soups (and again, there’s no rea­son why you can’t order both a starter and soup). At din­ner, sev­er­al sta­ple items always accom­pa­ny the choic­es: Cae­sar sal­ad, sautéed salmon fil­let and rib eye steak. Meats tend to be over­cooked, so spec­i­fy medi­um-rare if you mean medium—and some are tough, for which there are two solu­tions: send it back and ask for anoth­er (nev­er a prob­lem), or bring your own steak knives (unless they’ve accept­ed our sug­ges­tion that these be provided.)…

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Churchill on Socialism

Churchill on Socialism

This quo­ta­tion is now going around the web, broad­ly attrib­uted to Churchill. Is it accu­rate? “Social­ism is a phi­los­o­phy of fail­ure, the creed of igno­rance, and the gospel of envy, its inher­ent virtue is the equal shar­ing of mis­ery.” —M.S. via email.

It is more or less cor­rect, but it’s a trun­cat­ed ver­sion of two sep­a­rate com­ments, run togeth­er to make them more inter­est­ing (in the eye of the drafter).

“Social­ism is the phi­los­o­phy of fail­ure, the creed of igno­rance, and the gospel of envy.” —Perth, Scot­land, 28 May 1948, in Churchill, Europe Unite: Speech­es 1947 & 1948 (Lon­don: Cas­sell, 1950), 347.…

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Viking’s Danube Waltz (4): More Austria

Viking’s Danube Waltz (4): More Austria

June 4: Durnstein and Melk, Austria

Cruis­ing Aus­tria …con­tin­ued from part 3… Viking encour­ages you to buy local wine and beer and stash it in your state­room cool­er. In prac­tice this is super­flu­ous because there is so much of it aboard, espe­cial­ly with the pre­mi­um drinks pack­age. You only have to lift a fin­ger or a wine list, and it’s there 24/7.

How­ev­er, if you’re seri­ous about wine or cock­tails, the pre­mi­um “Sil­ver Spir­its” pack­age is worth $300 per cab­in. (It also includes espres­so and oth­er spe­cial­ty cof­fees, juices and min­er­al water.)

Accept­able house wine and beer are poured freely, but not the pre­mi­um stuff, and mixed drinks cost extra.…

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Viking’s Danube Waltz (3): Vienna

Viking’s Danube Waltz (3): Vienna

Vienna, Austria

con­tin­ued from part 2….

June 3: 

Viking’s cui­sine is gen­er­al­ly first-rate, high­ly var­ied, and the break­fasts lack noth­ing we could think of except the odd blintz. For exam­ple, there were three dif­fer­ent styles of yogurt, eggs any way you want them includ­ing cus­tom-made omelets, smoked salmon, fish, cheese, cold cuts, cham­pagne by the glass, a dozen or more vari­eties of bread and rolls, pas­try galore, all the usu­al things you find under hot plates, and every­thing of uni­form high qual­i­ty. For items you order from the table, like Eggs Bene­dict or pan­cakes, serv­ings are small, but this is a plus for two rea­sons: it gives you more room to try dif­fer­ent things, and if you want more of any­thing, a wait­er will hap­pi­ly bring you a sec­ond serving.…

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Churchill on July 4, 1918

Churchill on July 4, 1918

Hap­py 4th from Hills­dale College.

“The Third Great Title-Deed of Anglo-Amer­i­can Liberties”

Win­ston S. Churchill, Lib­er­ty Day Meet­ing, Cen­tral Hall, West­min­ster, July 4, 1918. Excerpt­ed from Robert Rhodes James, Win­ston S. Churchill: His Com­plete Speech­es 1897-1963, 8 vols. (New York: Bowk­er, 1974), III 2613-16.

 

I move that the fol­low­ing res­o­lu­tion be cabled from the meet­ing as a greet­ing to the Pres­i­dent and peo­ple of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca: This meet­ing of the Anglo-Sax­on Fel­low­ship assem­bled in Lon­don on the 4th of July, 1918, sends to the Pres­i­dent and peo­ple of the Unit­ed States their heart­felt greet­ings on the 142nd anniver­sary of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Amer­i­can Inde­pen­dence.…

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Viking’s Danube Waltz (2): Bratislava

Viking’s Danube Waltz (2): Bratislava

Bratislava

con­tin­ued from Part 1….  

June 2: Bratisla­va, Slo­va­kia 

If the Viking Leg­end is any exam­ple, you don’t need to wor­ry about table ser­vice. The wait staff, most­ly Fil­ipino, could not have been more atten­tive, but at the same time nev­er struck us as fawn­ing or gra­tu­itous. Our favorite waiter’s name tag read “Neri.” It turned out that he’d opt­ed for that because his real name wouldn’t fit: Alde­fon­so Ner­ia. He and his col­leagues were gems, always look­ing out for us, and soon began to save a nice place for four by throw­ing nap­kins over chair backs at a well-sit­u­at­ed table.…

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