We left Bratislava in mid-afternoon, a deliberate choice so we could enter Budapest after sundown.  Our first stop was the last of the 79 locks on the trip, at the Gabčíkovo Dam, in Slovakia.  This was part of a huge joint flood control project between Hungary and Slovakia, over which both countries are suing in the International Court of Justice.  Meanwhile, there is this dam, and its lock, with probably the biggest rise of the trip.  I suspect it was more than 100 feet.  Below you can see the Embla in the lock, with quite a distance left to rise.

Lock in the Gabčíkovo Dam, Slovakia

Unusually, the lock was wide enough for at least 2 riverboats abreast.  I’m not sure it would have taken 3 abreast.

Multiple boats in the Gabčíkovo Dam lock – Embla is on the right

We finally floated out onto the lake behind the dam, and on down the Danube.

All the photos in this post, and more, are in this photogallery on my SmugMug site.

Continue reading »

Between tours we had some time to explore St. Stephen’s Cathedral.  The current form of the cathedral dates to the mid-14th century, a combination of the Romanesque and Gothic styles.  The first church on the site was consecrated in 1147.  The Wikipedia article has detail on the cathedral’s ring of bells, which is still in use, although we didn’t hear it.  I’ve been interested in church bells since reading Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Tailors.  The Wikipedia article has much interesting information about the cathedral.

In some towns, the Dom or the church is up on a hill (so people can take refuge in it when the river floods).  I didn’t check the topo map for Vienna, but the Dom here is right downtown, in (of course) the Stephensplatz.  In fact it’s right across the square from some of the most modern architecture you can imagine:

St. Stephen’s, Vienna

The bulgy glass edifice is Hans Hollein’s “Haas Haus.”  Wikipedia doesn’t have much on it, and neither did any of the tourist sites I found when I Googled it; it’s just a building.  It seems to have been built deliberately to reflect the Dom.

Notice the elaborate tile patterns on the Dom roof.  You’ll see it again in Budapest, where it’s even gaudier, when I get that tour posted.  I don’t know if that’s a Central European thing or what.  None of the other cathedrals had patterned tile roofs.  Notice also the three black gables with Gothic arches, on this side of the Dom below the tile roof.  Those are not black because they’re in shadow.  They’re black because they haven’t been cleaned yet, from seven hundred odd years of wood and coal smoke!  That’s what the scaffolding is all about, next to them.

Continue reading »

Having left Melk Abbey around noon, we sailed on down the Danube toward the Wachau Valley.  This was the first day we had had unfettered access to the soi-disant “sun deck,” and of course it was overcast, although by the time we set out the rain which had poured down on Melk had slacked off.  As usual, this post includes some but not all of the photos I took that afternoon; you can find more of them at the gallery Dürnstein and Wachau Valley.  You can also see larger versions of anything in the gallery.

Continue reading »

We were supposed to dock in Passau at 9:45 AM and spend two and a half hours walking around the town and attending a noon organ concert at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, before returning to the ship for lunch.  You’ll find all my photos in this gallery.

I’ve mentioned before that we had trouble with traffic jams at locks.  At 9:45 that morning we were stuck in a major traffic jam at (I’m fairly sure) the Kachlet lock on the Danube, just upstream of Passau.  I don’t know exactly how long we stayed there; my diary says that “we” (the passengers) suspected the Embla of paying off the barge Loretta so they could use its dock long enough to offload the passengers into buses.  No proof of this except a photo of the Loretta, floating near the dock.

Continue reading »