Tag: Sudetenland
Viking’s Danube Waltz (7): The Pleasures of Prague
Two full days in Prague, an optional extra on the Danube Waltz Tour, costs an additional $1500 per couple, and includes three nights at the very handsome new town Hilton. Breakfasts there are the same comprehensive assortment from nuts to soup that we encountered aboard ship. The coach ride from Passau, Germany, takes four hours through the historic Sudetenland, the dispute over which ended in the fateful Munich Agreement of 1938, last stop on the road to World War II.…
Viking’s Danube Waltz (6): Passau
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.…