My grandmother, Nana Rose, is a very well-travelled lady who has somehow never seen Europe. For a long time, she has wished to do this “Grand European Tour” river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam. She does not walk well, so while I was living with her in Boise last summer, she asked me to come along to facilitate, and I was very easily convinced. The publicity photos for the cruise only show photos of white-haired people; therefore her one qualm was that I would be lonely as the only young person on the ship, but I reassured her that I would be perfectly able to entertain myself if necessary. She conceded and said, “I suppose you can always make friends with the sailors.”
Nana’s fears were unfounded—we have found the most interesting sets of people almost every day. Gentleman farmers, software businessmen, vineyard owners, energy executives…Nearly everyone is exceptionally well-traveled to boot, so just listening to conversations at the dinner table is an education in itself.
Nana immediately found “the most interesting people,” as she said, as smoking buddies: Nan and Sandy Van Ginkel (really, Nelleke and Arsène), two Hollanders who own a 7000-acre tobacco farm in Zambia, and Ursula and Eddie Koch, two Germans (although Ursula was born in what is now the Czech Republic and Eddie was born in what was then Poland and what is now Ukraine) currently living in Canada. We have had dinner with them every night since maybe Vienna, and every night we comment on how lucky we all are to have discovered each other at the very beginning of the trip. The conversation never flags. (And oh, neither does the wine. Eddie teasingly asks me to sign himself and Ursula up for the Canadian chapter of AA once they get home.) They are sources of all sorts of important life advice, like marry rich, visit Namibia, trust no boy no matter what language he speaks, and try smoked herring in Amsterdam. Each one has lived a very interesting life and tells very good stories. Eddie even recently published his memoir; he gave me a copy, and I am looking forward to reading it once I settle down in France in the fall.
But before all of this delightfulness on the cruise started, Nana and I first arrived separately in Budapest. Her flight from Chicago to Munich had an unexpected stopover in Boston for mechanical reasons, so she arrived a full four hours later than originally planned. After dealing with various airlines, hotels, and taxi services, I camped out with a book by the arrival gate and people-watched. Actually, those were probably the happiest hours I have ever spent in an airport, because watching the faces of people being reunited with their friends and family was pure delight.
Nana and I spent two nights in the Hotel Gellert in Budapest in decadent luxury—our room was directly across the hall from the entrance to the baths, and we made good use of it! A morning dip, and afternoon dip, even an evening dip…Nana also scheduled a water massage for me, and I don’t think I have ever been as relaxed in my life.
We revisted Oliva, the restaurant I loved so much on my first trip to Budapest, with the express purpose of drinking once more its heavenly sweet Tokay. This turned out to be very felicitous, because I was under the impression that it was a certain vintage of Tokay (the sweet Evinor), but upon ordering it, the wine that came was the wrong one. Distraught, I asked the waiter for help, telling him that before I had drunk a Tokay that was “sweet, sweet, sweet.” Proving the worth of good waiters everywhere, he pointed out a third Tokay hidden under the white wine section, the Royal Tokaji Borház’s Tokaji Arts Cuvée 2007/08 sweet (édes). That was exactly the wine I remembered; it tasted like drinking honey. Thank goodness I got to taste it again—my life is now complete, and when Christine imports it for her wedding (as is her plan), she won’t import the wrong Tokay!
After dinner a different night, I decided to go on an impromptu hike up the hill by our hotel to see the view. The spot I had in mind was only 30 or 40 feet up, so I headed off in my skirt and flats, camera in hand. Of course, once I got there, the path kept going, and the view promised to be worth it, and so up I went, all the way to the citadel at the top. About 720 more feet that I was expecting to climb that night, but such is life. The view was FANTASTIC; Budapest is a magical city by night. The only view I have enjoyed more was the Acropolis by night from the top of Filopappous Hill in Athens.
We dropped off our suitcases on the good ship Viking Pride on 4 July then visited the Hungarian National Museum, Nana’s Holy Grail for Budapest. (Oliva was mine.) We learned lots about Hungarian history, the details of which have already receded into the mists of my mind, and met a very nice young docent named the Hungarian version of Matthew who helped us with the handicap lift and with whom I spoke lots of French. Then that evening, a Fourth of July dinner on the ship with sparklers paraded around the room by the staff to the tune of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
On our final afternoon in Budapest, we went along on an excursion to the countryside to see displays of Hungarian horsemanship by mostly young men but also one young woman riding sidesaddle and representing the empress Sisi (who could do far more than ride sidesaddle). The horses were beautiful Lipizzaners, and the riders coaxed them into all sorts of strange positions—like sitting on their hindquarters as if they were dogs. The most fantastic was when one man stood on the backs of two horses, one leg on each, and held the reins of three more, then ran the whole team around and around the track.
The Hungarians did a lot of whip tricks as well, including knocking a wine bottle off a stump with the lash. They announced two audience members—“a gentleman and a lady”—would be invited to try, and I knew immediately that I was doomed to be asked to perform by virtue of my age. Representing the gentlemen, Sandy got it on the first try, but as for me, I hadn’t the faintest idea what I was doing. On my first attempt, I missed the bottle completely, and the whip wrapped around me instead, giving me a bright red welt across the back of my knees! On the third try, though, I let the lash stretch all the way behind me so it wouldn’t tangle then swung it out low and wide, and I cleanly knocked the bottle off!
The next day, 6 July, we arrived in Bratislava. The weather changed from sunny to cold and rainy exactly four separate times. Bratislava has very interesting statues—everyone there must have a good sense of humor—and nice coffeehouses. Nana and I tested one out for quite a long time in the afternoon; really, we are doing a coffeehouse tour of Europe. That evening, I came back into town with Nan and Sandy plus Adrian, a Dutchman living in Australia, to watch the World Cup semifinal game, the Netherlands versus Uruguay. Of course, I rooted for Holland.
We were in Vienna for 7 July. After the morning tour and another coffeehouse (over 300 different kinds of tea! I was overwhelmed and chose roobios), Nana and I had an adventure on public transportation to get to Belvedere Palace to see the Klimt gallery, which I have wanted to do ever since Clara spent an extra 12 hours in Vienna last spring and then told me about it. It was lovely and a wonderful collection of even more than Klimt, which I had not expected. Renoir, Degas, Monet, and so on, all popping out at you from the walls with no warning. I saw that very famous painting by David of Napoleon on a rearing horse, his red cloak swirling about him. It gives me a shock to see these things in real life when I don’t know they are coming!
In the evening, we attended a Mozart and Strauss concert at one of the historic concert houses. The buses had to do a U-turn into a tiny stone gate with only two feet of maneuvering room on either side; I was certain we were going to crash, but we didn’t…Only in Vienna would one find a tourist concert of such high quality.
The morning of 8 July, we cruised up the Wachau Valley in Austria, the most scenic stretch of the Danube. Castles, steeply rising hills, and a perfectly blue sky. I sat on the sundeck under an umbrella with a glass of white wine spritzer in one hand, reviewing articles for the Martin Journal. It was a perfect morning. We visited Melk Abbey in the afternoon, where there is a library of 85,000 books. I wanted to stay much longer than an afternoon, but as I speak neither German nor Latin other than a light smattering of words, I decided to not jump ship and to move on.
We arrived in Passau, where the Inn and the Ilz converge into the Danube, on 9 July. After a beautiful lunch with Nana at a sidewalk café, I met Flo (Florian, actually) in the afternoon for a local’s tour of Passau. A friend of the family via the DeVoes and river-rafting, he goes to law school at the University of Passau. He showed me all around his areas of Passau and treated me to ice cream and ice tea at the best café in all of Passau. It was so much fun to see him; we spent the whole afternoon telling stories and laughing.
On 10 July, we visited Regensburg, the first of a series of scenic Bavarian towns which rather run together on my mind but the only one of the series that is on the Danube. It was beautiful, there were actually a few people walking around in lederhosen as everyday wear, and Nana and I sat in a sidewalk café (really in a courtyard) which was decorated with beautiful fuchsias. And that evening, we switched over to the Main-Danube Canal…
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