Springtime—for Judy—in Germany
By Judy Newell

Yes, I found myself humming that tune to a new refrain on my visit to Central Europe in April. Locals said it had snowed two weeks early, but we found daffodils, edelweiss and green budding trees. Parks were filled with sunbathers and happy dogs chasing balls. Everyone was smiling in the warm sunshine.

The delightful Danube set the stage for our incredible river cruise through the Main-Danube canal between Budapest and Passau. No matter what Johann Strauss’ famous waltz says, the Danube is not blue, but rather a muddy shade of brown. In any case, the sentimental Viennese connotations of “Blue Danube” have made it into a sort of unofficial Austrian national anthem.

Jim and I flew into Munich, where we were surprised to see men dressed in lederhosen and suspenders quaffing huge steins of beer at the local brew house. No, it wasn’t a cast of The Sound of Music or Oktoberfest. Lots of folks still occasionally use traditional Bavarian dress in Munich.

The following morning we made an eight-hour train journey to Budapest through glorious countryside vistas. That run was a reminder of how lovely rural Central Europe can be in good weather. Much of the hinterland is sparsely populated—a wistfully beautiful landscape of farms, lakes and forests.

We boarded the MS Amadagio in Budapest and slowly cruised to the cultural capitals, picturesque villages, fortresses and abbeys of Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Germany. In the heart of one of Europe’s most famous rivers, we discovered the fascinating histories, cultures and cuisines of Central Europe, where a nineteenth-century style of life can still be found amid the modernity of vibrant cities.

We discovered that the most relaxing way to see Europe is by river vessel. There were no hassles from airports, traffic, finding hotels, or packing and unpacking. We could just relax and enjoy each day. Our floating hotel moved with us, and extras included shore excursions in each port and great local entertainment that came aboard in the evenings.

AMA Waterways spoiled us with luxurious ambience, fine dining and gracious service. We savored sunsets on deck, regional beers and wines with dinner and an open seating dining room to mix with other passengers. English was the official language aboard, and on our cruise there were guests from the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, France, Spain, Mexico, Argentina and Chile.

Each of the six river cruisers of AMA Waterways carries only 148 passengers on European waterways. All staterooms are outside, most with French balconies, and have comfortable accommodations. Internet access in each cabin was complimentary, along with a keyboard and monitor, and WiFi in the public areas. Standard amenities were similar to cruise ships—only intimate in size.



Budapest, Hungary

In Budapest, the MS Amadagio was docked directly beneath Buda Hill—also known as the Castle District—a UNESCO World Heritage site. That’s the best thing about river cruising in Europe; the ship moors near the city center and it’s only a 10- to 15-minute walk into the main platz at nearly every destination.

A sightseeing program featured the highlights of each destination. The tours included wireless headphones, so that you could wander about and still hear your guide. The afternoons were free to independently explore castles, cathedrals and museums, go shopping, or simply people-watch at a sidewalk café.

The city straddles a gentle curve in the Danube that runs through the heart of the city, dividing it into ancient hilly Buda and the more modern flat Pest. Seven lovely bridges, including the famous Chain and Elisabeth Bridges, connect the two.

Budapest is not only the capital of Hungary, but also the largest spa city in Europe. Founded by the Romans in 89 CE (who seemed to really like hot water), it is situated on 130 spring-fed thermal pools and is known for its grand Turkish bathhouses and spas. Soaking in one of the Art Nouveau palaces has been likened to taking a bath in a cathedral. The best include the exquisitely romantic Gellért Baths and the small, Bauhaus-styled jewel, the Dandár.

Budapest is Eastern Europe’s liveliest and most cosmopolitan metropolis and one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. The massive hilltop Castle District with Fisherman’s Bastion and the neo-Gothic Matthias Church are among the best-known landmarks.

The Pest side is home to nineteenth-century landmarks along the Andrassy—a grand avenue modeled after the Champs-Élysées—from Heroes’ Square with its many museums, to the opulent State Opera House, opened in 1884, with a gilded vaulted ceiling, murals and a three-ton chandelier. Here are also the stunning grandiose neo-Gothic buildings of the Hungarian Parliament and the Great Synagogue, a Byzantine-Moorish edifice with onion-domed towers, which is the second-largest synagogue in the world after Temple Emanu-El in New York.

“Shoes on the Danube” is a new monument to Hungarian Jews shot and thrown into the Danube in 1944. It’s a simple affair—60 pairs of old-style boots and shoes in cast iron, tossed on the bank of the river—but it is one of the most poignant monuments in this city of so many tears.

Our guide told us about the conquerors who swept this land from the Roman Empire—which conquered the Celts—to the Huns (as in Attila), to the Magyars of Central Asia, Germanic tribes, the Turkic Avars, Crusaders, the Holy Roman Empire, Mongol invaders, the Ottoman Turks, the Habsburg Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The guide also elaborated on Hungary’s loss of 60 percent of its land following World War I, Nazi genocide in World War II, being a Soviet bloc country, the failed 1956 uprising, free elections in 1990 and full EU membership in 2004.

It’s hard to believe, with Hungary’s turbulent history, that the Castle District still stands on the original site, built over 800 years ago. The art that we saw in the Castle Museum’s Hungarian National Gallery was incredible—an overwhelming collection that traces the development of Hungarian art from the tenth century to the present and includes medieval and Renaissance stonework, Gothic wooden sculptures and panel paintings, late Gothic winged altars and late Renaissance and Baroque art.

Architecturally, Budapest is a gem, with a wealth of Baroque, Neoclassical, eclectic and Art Nouveau buildings. Overall, the city has a fin-de-siècle feel to it. Budapest’s sobriquet, “the Paris of the East,” is well deserved.

We spent two nights in Budapest. Our first night aboard, we were treated to a Hungarian dinner accompanied by Hungarian Gypsy music. On our second evening aboard, we sipped wine on the sundeck as we sailed under the bridges and past the lighted monuments of Budapest. The following morning we passed through Gabcikovo Lock on the way to Bratislava, the capital of the Slovak Republic.



Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Towering above ancient Bratislava is the majestic Royal Castle, dating back to the ninth century. The small and charming Old Quarter below, with its Rococo buildings, leads to the Main Square—the historic heart of the city. It is lined with Renaissance and Baroque palaces including the Old Town Hall from 1325 and the Neoclassical Primatial Palace. Art Nouveau outdoor cafés line the pedestrian-only streets, tempting you with marvelous pastries and hot chocolate.

Bratislava was one of my favorite cities. It was a less manicured, less bustling version of the cities to come. Our guided walking tour through the restored old town showed us the Gothic architecture of St. Martin Cathedral, the former coronation cathedral of 11 Hungarian monarchs, as well as the Academia Ostropolitana, the oldest university of the city, which dates back to the fifteenth century.

We came upon a great piece of contemporary art in Bratislava—a bronze sculpture of a hardhat workman peering out of a manhole. It happened that the street was under construction the day we visited and I snapped a photo of the sculpture with the real workmen behind it.

Our third night we dined on Szegedienr Goulash and enjoyed a lively musical performance by Bratislava’s well-known female pop and classical quartet, the Aphrodites. It was the highlight of the evening concerts—four beautiful young women jamming on violins, cello and piano.





Next week: Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic. 

Judy Newell heads the travel company Perfect Journeys that specializes in discounted rates for airfare, hotels, tours and cruises worldwide, as well as luxury and adventure travel. Contact her with comments or suggestions at JudyNewell_03@msn.com  or go to her website www.PerfectJourneys.net.  





Travel News You Can Use
By Judy Newell

Mexico Travel News

Mexico City’s new tourism brand

Mexico City’s new brand identity features a logo with a drawing of the city’s statue Ángel de la Independencia, the words Ciudad de México, and the slogan Capital en Movimiento, or Capital in Movement.

The new logo and slogan were created to position the city as being a unique and different destination for tourism or business. Mexico City annually receives 20 million day visitors and 12 million national and international tourists who overnight in hotels.

Michoacán launches tourism website

Tourism officials for the state of Michoacán announce that it now has a tourism website, www.michoacan.gob.mx. Users can search the site by various geographic regions within Michoacán and then search attractions, hotels, restaurants, activities, events and tours available within each region.

Zacatecas gets tourism investment

The colonial destination of Zacatecas will receive more than 168 million pesos in tourism investment; 40 percent of the funding will benefit the new Palacio de las Convenciones. In addition, Mexico’s National Tourism Promotion Council (Fonatur) is to finance a 22.5 million-peso tourism promotion program for the destination.

Fonatur will create a tourism development program for the zone known as Región Pinos that encompasses seven towns: Mineral de la Luz, Sangre de Cristo, Mineral de Santa Ana, Santa Rosa de Lima, Monte de San Nicolás, La Valenciana and La Guadalupana. The money will finance nine tourism projects, including Zacatecas, Ciudad de Luces and the second stage of Zacatecas en Miniatura.

The Convention Center was inaugurated on April 22 with a concert by Spanish opera star Plácido Domingo, accompanied by Argentine soprano Virginia Tola and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Zacatecas. In addition to 13 salons on the ground floor and an additional 30 salons to the rear of the building for academic events, the upper floor of the convention center will be home to a museum.

International News

Rail Europe turns back time for tickets

Rail Europe, celebrating half a century of its popular Eurail Pass, is inviting travelers on board with a special promotion. Beginning May 12, the company offers its Eurail ticket at the 1959 rate: US$125 for a five-day, three-country rail pass.

The Eurail Pass may be turning the big 5-0, but a new generation of modernized trains is hitting the tracks equipped with upgraded sleeper carriages, meals cooked on board, bar cars and WiFi.

Frederic Langlois, president of Rail Europe, predicts that air travel in Europe will be obsolete in the not-so-distant future on short routes. “Once on board a train, you don’t have to worry about airport or traffic delays,” Langlois says. “It’s convenient, cost-efficient and eco-friendly.”

The discounted pass is available only online at raileurope.com, while supplies last. Travel is good for six months from the date of purchase.

Paris celebrates 100 years of jazz

From the dripping paint of Jackson Pollock to the paper cutouts of Henri Matisse and the tap routines of Fred Astaire, jazz has inspired some of the greatest artists of the past century. Those influences are celebrated in The Jazz Century, a new Paris exhibition at the Quai Branly Museum that runs through June 28.

Designed both for jazz aficionados and curious visitors, the show charts the 100-year history of jazz through magazines, posters, letters, cartoons, record covers, photographs, films and paintings.

A timeline takes you from the origins of jazz in the US and its arrival—during World War I—in Europe to the Harlem Renaissance and the Swing era, World War II and bebop, and the free jazz movement and contemporary jazz. Melodies of the different periods accompany the visitor, mixing flavors in a sort of quiet jam session.

Centuries-old Oberammergau Passion Play in 2010

Mark your calendars now for summer 2010, when the Oberammergau Passion Play will be performed for the first time since 2000.

The five-hour play, which begins with Jesus entering Jerusalem and follows the story through his death and resurrection, involves more than 2,000 actors and singers, many of them locals from this Bavarian town about 60 miles southwest of Munich. Performed for 102 days every 10 years, the show attracts viewers from around the world—nearly 500,000 of them each time.

Oberammergau has been hosting this spectacle every decade since 1634. Why the devotion? Back in the 1600s, when the bubonic plague was wiping out villages left and right, the Oberammergau townspeople pledged to God they’d perform the Passion Play every 10 years in return for his mercy. The rest is history.

The first performance isn’t until May 2010, but tickets go on sale this month and sell out quickly. Many tour operators have itineraries with tickets to the play included. The inexpensive seats, purchased separately, start at US$65.

It sounds like a beautiful experience—two acts, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, of nonstop action, in an impressive open-air theater with hillside views. The whole play is in German (with English translations on paper), but with material this dramatic, it’s sure to make an impression.

Airline News

Volaris airline expands into US

With 21 markets served in Mexico, Volaris will continue to grow by launching daily flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco to both Toluca and Guadalajara.

Volaris has formed a commercial alliance with Southwest Airlines and customers will be able to purchase local and international Volaris flights directly through the Southwest website. By 2013, Volaris plans to fly to 12 international destinations.

Cruise News

How small is too small?

Norwegian Cruise Line created quite a stir with the announcement that its next ship, the Norwegian Epic, would have some interior cabins that take up just 100 square feet.

Just how small is 100 square feet? Consider that even some of the balconies on existing NCL ships are bigger. And even the smallest cabins on most other mass-market cruise ships have at least 50 percent more space.

NCL’s new budget accommodations, dubbed The Studios, will be clustered around a communal living area on the 4,200-passenger Norwegian Epic called “the Living Room,” giving passengers who book the cabins a bit more room to spread out. Still, it’s going to be a tight squeeze.

NCL executives say the maximum-two-person Studios, 128 cabins in all, which the line is designing with a stylish, modern vibe, are aimed at a younger crowd looking for a fun, low-cost way to cruise.

Cruise ship fends off pirate attack with gunfire

The small white skiff approached the Italian cruise ship Melody after dinnertime as it sailed north of the Seychelles, the pirates firing wildly toward the 1,500 passengers and crew on board. What the pirates didn’t expect was that, in the darkness, a private Israeli security force would fire back. In a new twist to the increasing scourge of Somali pirate hijackings, security forces aboard the MSC Cruises ocean liner fired on the pirates April 25 with pistols and water hoses, preventing them from clambering aboard.

The massive vessel then sailed on, eventually escorted by a Spanish naval vessel that is part of an international security force in the region.

None of the roughly 1,000 passengers were hurt, and by the next afternoon they were back out on deck sunning themselves.

European press reports say it’s the first reported instance of gunfire exchanged between pirates and a nonmilitary ship, and that it is unusual for civilian ships to hire armed security due to safety and insurance concerns.

But, according to one expert, security forces on board do not make economical or tactical sense when dealing with ordinary cargo ships. He argued that arming ships is not a sustainable solution, given that an estimated 20,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden each year.

The attack occurred near the Seychelles and about 500 miles east of Somalia. The Melody was traveling up Africa’s east coast, from Durban, South Africa to Genoa, Italy. The ship had ironically changed its itinerary in mid-April to sail farther from the coast of Somalia. MSC Cruises announced that it would no longer operate ships in the pirate-infested waters off the coast of Somalia in the Gulf of Aden.

Deal of the Week

Voyages of Discovery offers two-for-one cruise fares with free roundtrip airfares on selected winter cruise departures in India, Egypt, Arabia, The Orient and Africa aboard its 650-passenger ship MV Discovery (the cruise ship that San Miguel travelers took to Antarctica). These voyages will include calls in more than two dozen new ports, as well as optional extensions to Angkor Wat, the Taj Mahal and other famous sites.

All itineraries feature talks by port lecturers and guest speakers, plus enrichment lectures and workshops onboard. Two-for-one fares are available on cruises sailing between November 28, 2009 and March 1, 2010. The free air program is offered from 25 North American gateways.

Sample rates, per person: Manila, Borneo and Brunei, 13 nights from US$2,287; Passage to India, 26 nights from $4,030; Egypt, Arabia and the Orient, 40 nights from $6,448; Grand Odyssey of the Orient, 60 nights from $10,123.


Sources: Travel Pulse, USA Today, Budget Travel, Associated Press, Voyages of Discovery


Judy Newell heads the travel company Perfect Journeys that specializes in discounted rates for airfare, hotels, tours and cruises worldwide, as well as luxury and adventure travel. Contact her with comments or suggestions at JudyNewell_03@msn.com  or go to her website www.PerfectJourney.net