Retreading for Retirement

What I Learned on My European Trip

My major reason for traveling is to learn about other people and their world. I learned a lot on our recent trip to Europe.

Build Your Fortress on High Ground

I knew that early people built their fortresses on high ground for two reasons:

So they could see their enemy approaching
So that they would defend their city by shooting down, not up, at their attackers

But it wasn’t until I saw with my own eyes so many castles built on high ground that I fully realized the truth of this dictum:

Thanks to my husband for this photo, which well illustrates the advantage folks in the castle would have if invaders moved in, particularly if those invaders came by river.

European History, Culture, People

I didn’t know much about European history before this trip, and I learned a lot about how different cultures developed. I particularly enjoyed recognizing how people who we think today live near each other developed differently. Distances were much greater 500 years ago, and people who now live a short train ride apart developed different values, beliefs, and customs. Yet there are similarities, too, in language, religion, food, and culture.

I love “it’s a small world” stories, and this trip presented one after another.

Many Europeans Speak at Least Some English

In shops just about everywhere we stopped, someone spoke enough English for us to converse and do business.

My husband and I both caught a cold that ran through most of the people on our ship. In one German city we visited, we went into a pharmacy to get vitamins A and C to boost our immune systems. As soon as I asked the pharmacist if he had vitamins A and C, he said, in perfect English, “Oh, are you from the States?” He asked what I needed and why, then went over to a shelf and pointed to two packages. “This is what we take over here.” We left the pharmacy feeling we had gotten exactly what we wanted.

Most Europeans speak a second language because their schools start them early on studying another language in addition to their own. Although English isn’t usually their only option, some people we spoke to said that many choose English because it’s nearly universal. And it’s not unusual to come across someone who speaks at least a bit of three or four languages.

Our city guide in Budapest, Eszter (pronounced like the English name Esther), told us she speaks three languages. She also said that when she was in school during Russian rule of Hungary, students were required to study Russian. She and most others refused because it was the language of the oppressor, and their teacher let them sit in the back of the room and do homework while she worked up front with those who wanted to learn Russian. Eszter said that she now regrets not taking advantage of the opportunity to learn another language.

It is only here in the United States that we think learning a second language is unpatriotic. One of our fellow travelers said that his seven-year-old grandson attends a school in the U.S. where he’s learning Chinese along with English. I’ve always thought it extremely arrogant that we think everyone should learn our language while we make no effort to learn theirs.

Always Buy Travel Insurance That Includes Medical Coverage

I don’t know about other American health insurance, but Medicare is not in effect outside of the United States.

The old streets of many European cities are paved with very old, very uneven cobblestones. One of our shipmates, K., who is not particularly infirm, got wrong-footed and fell down, breaking a bone in her ankle. It can easily happen to anyone.

I did not ask K. about the details of payment for seeing a doctor and having her leg casted, but what happened to her did make me think about medical coverage. We recently booked a trip on a different cruise line. When I asked about medical insurance, the cruise line rep told me that they have two levels of travel insurance: one that includes medical coverage and one that doesn’t. We snapped up the one with medical coverage, even though it’s a bit more expensive. It’s comforting to know that if we get sick or injured and have to be helicoptered off the ship, we’re covered up to $10,000.

Three Things Thursday

It’s time once again for Three Things Thursday, the purpose of which is to “share three things from the previous week that made you smile or laugh or appreciate the awesome of your life.”

Trip Summary

We arrived back home from our European Viking River Cruise on Monday and are recuperating from the cold we both brought back and the jet lag.

Here are three memorable icons from the trip.

1. Ice Cream

The preferred form of ice cream on our travels was Italian gelato. We saw these sidewalk enticements everywhere we went.

2. Towel Art

We found this in our stateroom one afternoon near the end of the voyage.

3. Getting Off the Plane

This is what we felt like after the 10-hour flight home.

No, You Probably Can’t Check in Online for Your International Flight

We felt lucky that we could get a direct flight to Amsterdam via Delta Air Lines for our European trip. When Delta contacted us by email, my husband followed the link to the Delta web site and filled in preliminary information such as our address and passport numbers.

The day before we were to leave, he got another email telling him that we could check in online for the next day’s flight. Again he followed the link to the Delta web site, filled out all the forms, and printed our boarding passes.

I thought it all sounded too easy for an international flight. Nonetheless, we had boarding passes with assigned seats. When we got to the airport, there was a sign at the Delta counter saying that you could get in the “check baggage only” line if you had a boarding pass. I even asked the Delta rep standing at the sign if this applied to international flights, and she said yes.

So we stood in line. When we finally got our turn to check bags, the agent looked at our boarding passes and passports, and said, “Oh, you two are in trouble.” She pointed to the top of our boarding passes, where very tiny letters said “document verification required.”

Fortunately, she was very nice. She sent my husband over to the self-check-in kiosks and told him to scan both passports and print out new boarding passes. She put our bags aside and let me wait near the baggage check area while he did this. When he came back, the new boarding passes said, in the same very small letters, “documents verified.” She then checked our bags and we were on our way.

But what I want to know is this: Why did the online check-in process never indicate anywhere that we would have to scan our passports at the airport? In fact, why did the online process even allow us to print out boarding passes, since they weren’t valid boarding passes anyway and had to be replaced at the airport? Why did Delta put us through the whole online check-in process and lead us to believe we had checked in properly when we hadn’t?

Next time we’re flying out of the country, we’ll know better.

4 Out of 5 Stars to Viking River Cruises

I give Viking River Cruises four out of five stars for our Grand European Tour. The only thing that kept me from giving the experience a five-star rating was the unreliable internet access.

Here are the categories of the experience that were important to me:

Value

This trip was a great value. Many companies nickel-and-dime you for everything, especially meals. But, except for our days of arrival and departure, our trip cost included three meals a day. Of course we were always free to eat meals on shore, but that was a choice, not a necessity. Beer and wine were also included with meals.

Our additional expenses included goods and services you would have to pay for on just about every tour: liquor and soft drinks consumed outside of meals, laundry, local postage, optional excursions.

Educational Opportunities

In this area, also, our tour was a great overall value. We had a local guide who spoke English on a free guided tour at every location along the way. All the guides we had discussed the history, culture, art, architecture, and language of their region, and they knew a lot. They also pointed out the major local points of interest for tourists so that we could explore them more on our own during our free time. Discussions with our cruisemates revealed that everyone thought their guides did an outstanding job.

There were also many optional excursions available at additional cost, including the Mozart and Strauss evening concert we attended in Vienna. The variety of these optional activities throughout the cruise allowed people to choose aspects that particularly interested them. The prices of these excursions were reasonable, and the guides were as knowledgeable as those on the free city tours.

When we had to travel by bus, the local buses Viking employed were large, air-conditioned, and comfortable. Drivers were helpful with people who needed a hand getting onto or off of the bus.

Staff

I cannot say enough good things about how friendly and capable the Viking staff was. The ship’s hotel manager, concierge, program director, and reception desk staff all went out of their way to interact with passengers and to help in any way they could. The dining and housekeeping staffs were also attentive and professional.

Just about everyone working on the ship—at least those who interacted directly with passengers—spoke English. It is arrogant of us Americans to expect everyone to speak our language, but I appreciated their ability to speak English because it allowed me to talk with some of them a bit about their own countries, which included Serbia, Romania, the Philippines, Austria, and Germany.

Food

The food was outstanding. After just a few days on board, passengers were joking about how we all planned the rest of our day around meals. There were several dining options available: open-seating sit-down dining, with both a buffet and menu, in the restaurant on the middle deck; lighter fare in the lounge and the enclosed terrace on the upper deck.

At dinner each evening the restaurant featured dishes that originated in the area we were visiting, such as goulash during our time in Budapest. Open-seating in the dining room allowed us to sit with lots of different people over the course of the trip.

Internet Access

This is the only area that caused me to give the trip an overall rating of four stars instead of five.

I expected not to have an internet connection when the ship was moving, but I also expected the connection to be more reliable than it was when we were docked. Many times my computer (Apple MacBook Air) indicated that it was connected to the on-board wi-fi network, but Apple Mail could not connect to download my email. I had intended to publish a few blog posts during the trip, but I gave up that intention early on when I discovered how unreliable internet service was.

Overall, this was a wonderful trip. I now recommend Viking Cruises whole-heartedly to anyone who will listen to me rave.

Home Again, Home Again

Today was homecoming day for us, via a 10-hour Delta direct flight from Amsterdam to Sea-Tac (Seattle-Tacoma) International Airport. We were on an Airbus 330, which has entertainment screens for each passenger (on the back of the seat in front of you). This entertainment system provides music, games, and movies.

On the flight out I had planned to do a lot of reading and had packed my briefcase with everything I thought I’d need. As a result, my briefcase was too heavy for me to carry any distance, and my husband F. valiantly volunteered to tote it around for me. For the flight home I had learned my lesson and had packed little more than my laptop and my iPad in the case. I still hoped to do some reading, but this time I knew that I’d be able to plug my iPad into a USB port in front of me when it began to run low.

However, both F. and I decided to check out the entertainment system, which we had resisted on the flight out. Among the movies F. discovered The Equalizer starring Denzel Washington. I usually go to see any movie that Denzel appears in. I had wanted to see this one when it was out in theaters, despite the violence, but never got there. So we both tucked into this one.

After The Equalizer, we discovered the whole Taken series, starring Liam Neeson, available. We had seen the original Taken, but not 2 and 3, so we both went through those. It’s definitely time for this series to end, as Liam has noticeably slowed down in the action sequences. Next we watched The Drop, written by one of my favorite mystery writers, Dennis Lehane. This was the best of all the movies, as it had at least a bit of character depth and an intriguing twist at the end.

One other nifty feature of the Airbus 330’s video system is the section labeled “this flight,” which shows you a world map with the plane’s projected flight path and current location. Somewhere over the cold North Atlantic I took a break from my movies long enough to raise my window shade and snap this photo:

The only thing worse than a long plane flight is a long plane flight with whining, crying children. One row ahead of us in the middle four-seat section of plane was a group of four children who looked about 12, 10, 8, and 6. There was no sound at all from them for the entire flight as they, like us, sat enthralled by their personal entertainment systems. It must have been kid nirvana: endless movies, music, and games interrupted only by the occasional delivery of meals, snacks, and beverages.

I didn’t get any sleep on the flight, but I didn’t expect to. Despite the entertainment, it’s been a long day for us. We had to get up at 4:30 AM to have our suitcases out by 5:15, and our bus left the boat for the airport at 6:15. We got home by late afternoon and are now just about ready to hit the hay for several hours.

Unlimited mindless entertainment stunts human growth, but sometimes a limited dose of it is exactly what the circumstances require. Just ask those four kids if you don’t want to take my word for it.

Cologne, Germany, and Kinderdijk, The Netherlands

(Click on photos for a larger version.)

June 13, Cologne, Germany

The main feature of this city is the Gothic style Cologne Cathedral. Its construction was begun in 1248 but was stopped in 1473, before completion. Work began again in the 19th century, and the cathedral’s original plan was completed in 1880. Although badly damaged during World War II, it remained standing. Repairs were completed in 1956.

Rain fell steadily during our Cologne tour and we therefore have no outdoor photos of this massive cathedral, which is 474 feet long by 283 feet wide, with towers approximately 515 feet tall. It’s the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe.

However, you can get a sense of the cathedral’s size from this interior shot:

I’ll have to go back to Cologne some time to visit the Roman Germanic Museum, located near the cathedral. The Romans established a major settlement here around 50 CE. In 1941 workers building an air raid shelter discovered what is now known as the Dionysus Mosaic, a well preserved art work created around 220 CE. The Roman Germanic Museum was later built around the mosaic to preserve its integrity.

June 14, Kinderkdijc, The Netherlands

Kinderkijk, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997, comprises 19 windmills dating from 1738:

The purpose of the windmills was to pump water from the river into a reservoir to keep the land dry. When the river level fell low enough, the water in the reservoir could be pumped back into the river.

These historic mills are built from brick and have large sails that come within one foot of the ground.

Two diesel pumping stations now move most of the water when necessary. But the windmills of Kinderdijk remain one of the best known Dutch tourist sites.

Wertheim, Cruising, Koblenz, Germany

(Click on photos for a larger version.)

June 11

This morning there was a one-hour walking tour of Wertheim before the ship left for Koblenz, Germany. Because my husband and I were still feeling poorly, we skipped the Wertheim tour.

The ship spent the afternoon cruising along the Main (pronounced mine) River and then the Rhine River. My husband took both of these two photos on the Main River:

June 12, Koblenz, Germany

On the morning of June 12 we continued cruising. My husband took this photo of Pfalzgrafenstein Castle, a toll castle on tiny Pfalz Island in the middle of the Rhine River near Kaub, Germany.

After lunch we arrived in Koblenz, at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers. We took the Moselle excursion, on which we learned about the history of wine making along this river and visited a winery in the town of Winninger. Wine making is the main occupation of this town, which features grape vines as street decorations:

Vineyards line the Moselle River:

Notice that the rows are vertical rather than horizontal, despite the steep slope of the hills. Vintners originally adopted this arrangement to take advantage of having rain water travel downhill. Some vintners now use irrigation systems but continue this arrangement because it’s cheaper to install long vertical pipes than it would be to install many more shorter, horizontal pipes.

Notice, also, that just about every available bit of space on the hills is cultivated.

Our tour guide told us that the annual grape harvest requires a lot of people. All the wine makers help each other out, and family and friends also come to help. Our guide herself takes time off from her job to help with the harvest because it’s such an important part of her town’s identity.

Three Things Thursday

It’s time again for Three Things Thursday, the purpose of which is to “share three things from the previous week that made you smile or laugh or appreciate the awesome of your life.”

Psychology of Baroque Art and Architecture

I never took an art appreciation course in college. Over the years I picked up on the fact that Baroque art and architecture are heavily ornate and complex, but on this trip through the heart of Europe I learned why.

The lovely Baroque churches of Europe were created to demonstrate visually for a mostly illiterate populace the grandeur of God and His heaven.

(Click on images to see a larger version.)

1. Ceiling of Benedictine Abbey Church, Melk, Austria

Our tour guide at Melk’s Benedictine Abbey explained that the church was built as an audience for God. The ceiling presents a portrait of the beauty of God’s Heaven.

Ceiling, Benedictine Abbey, Melk, Austria

2. The Pillars in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Passau, Germany

The bottoms of the church’s pillars are ordinary, unadorned, to demonstrate the plainness of everyday existence on earth.

St. Stephan's Cathedral, Passau, Germany — St. Stephan’s Cathedral, Passau, Germany

3. Top of Pillars and Ceiling, St. Stephen’s Cathedral

The bottoms of the pillars suggest the drabness of human existence on earth, but as congregants look upward, they see the beauty and grandeur of Heaven in the gilt and ornamentation higher up. This use of decoration served to remind people that Heaven is better than earth and that they should follow the church’s teachings if they wanted to end up in Heaven.

Ceiling, St. Stephan's Cathedral, Passau, Germany — Ceiling, St. Stephan’s Cathedral, Passau, Germany

Wurzburg and Rothenburg, Germany

(Click on photos for larger version.)

The trip itinerary lists today’s stop as Wurzburg, but we took the optional excursion bus to nearby Rothenburg, the best preserved medieval town in Germany. A 1.5-mile wall surrounds the city. Just in case the wall wasn’t enough to keep enemies away, the wall builders employed scary faces as well:

The wall connects five medieval gates with guard towers dating from the 13th to 16th centuries.

Here’s another indication of the town’s medieval origin:

Typical German souvenirs were on display in the city’s shops:

And the local delicacy is the snowball, which was described as a dense, hard pastry:

We stopped at a little shop for Italian gelato but passed on the snowballs, which some of our fellow travelers said weren’t very good.

Bamberg, Germany

(Click on photos for a larger version.)

Instead of the walking tour of the city of Bamberg, we opted for the optional bus tour of the Franconian countryside. This area is geographically within Bavaria, but Franconians still think of themselves as ethnically different from Bavarians. The two groups speak distinctly different dialects of German.

This tour made three stops.

1. Seehof Palace

Located not far outside of Bamberg, the Seehof Palace, begun in 1686, was built as a summer residence for the Bamberg Prince-Bishops. After the fall of religious rule, the palace and grounds fell into disrepair under private ownership and, by the end of the 20th century, required extensive renovation.

The palace is now owned by the Bavarian State Conservation Office, which has renovated the gardens and restored the original fountain with their waterworks, which work by gravity:

Central to the garden is the cascade created in 1772, which dilapidated increasingly after secularisation and was put back into operation in 1995. Its programme heralds the glory of Hercules, in allegory of the Prince Bishop’s glory.

The nine rooms of the Prince-Bishop’s apartment have been restored and are open to the pubic, including the White Hall with its ceiling painting by Guiseppe Appiani:

Several other rooms are available for rent for events such as marriages, receptions, banquets, and concerts.

2. Drei Kronen (Three Crowns) Brewery

According to our tour guide, all Franconia is divided into two parts: the beer-making part and the wine-making part. We rode through the beer-making part and stopped at a brewery to try the region’s specialty, “smoke beer” or rauchbier.

Smoke beer gets its name and its distinctive taste from malt that has been dried over open fires. All beers were originally smoke beers because of this drying method, but modern brewing procedures no longer dry malt this way. As a result, smoke beers are becoming rare.

The brewery’s name translates as “three crowns,” and groupings of three crowns surrounded the tasting room:

My husband and I both enjoyed the smoky taste, although he’s much more of a beer aficionado than I.

3. Pilgrimage Church

This church must have a real name, but all I remember is that it has been a pilgrimage church since the 18th century, when a peasant girl with an eye disease went there to pray and was, according to tradition, cured. Many groups still make pilgrimages to the church every year.

The interior was still decorated with streamers because of the recent celebration of Corpus Christi.

The church contains a large organ, although we did not get to hear it.

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June 13, Cologne, Germany

June 14, Kinderkdijc, The Netherlands

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June 11

June 12, Koblenz, Germany

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Psychology of Baroque Art and Architecture

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