Er, right. Krakow.

I don't quite seem to have the hang of blogging...  Brief , largely uninteresting, summary of where we've been:

Vienna was wonderful.  Lovely apartment on the Danube, which my brother  located on VRBO.   Gorgeous city.  St. Stephen's cathedral surprised me with its tile roof, which is patterned.  And bells.  SO MANY bells.  Of course, being there on Easter may have had something to do with that.

Interesting  day visiting Korneuberg, a town outside Vienna where a friend of mine grew up; local market, bakery, coffee shop, bookstore.

Train (Railjet) to Budapest was fast, comfortable, shiny.

Budapest is a city of contrasts.  We stayed at the Hotel Gellert, connected to the Gellert hot springs. Impressively art-nouveau and also on the Danube.  Of course we "took the waters", visiting the spa.   The springs are  beautifully decorated, and a range of temperatures.  Didn't beat Noboribetsu, but that's a pretty high bar.  The weather was cold enough that we didn't try any of the other hot springs (of which Budapest has many).  Buda was impressively rocky; Pest was flat and built up.  The whole city has kind of an air of "faded glory"; lovely ornate buildings everywhere, and the castle and parliament are incredible.  But off the main tourist drags the plaster facades were often peeling and dirty.  The front of the main train station is lovely; the back is disintegrating.  Easy to see the grandeur underneath, though.

Night train to Krakow.  Very long train, and our car was almost at the head end, so a real haul from the station.  Decent compartment, neither the best nor the worst I've been in, znd comfortable enough.  Very friendly conductor, very smooth ride.

And now we are in Krakow.  The train station, and attached mall, are 21st century; the old city across the street is clearly centuries old, with stone wall and cobbled streets.  Our hotel, the Hotel Polonia, is in between.  Our room is large by American hotel standards, and even larger if you consider cubic feet -- the ceilings must be 12 feet high.  Unlike everything we have visited so far, Krakow was barely damaged during World War 2, so there is not the focus on restoration we saw, for instance, in Vienna.  Anything less like a grim Soviet-era city it is difficult to imagine!  I have (inevitably?) developed a nasty cold, so activities for the next couple of days will be very low-key.

I'll post more thoughts or observations and less recital of locations as I get a chance.  Now you at least know where we are!

Last lock on a trip with over 80 of them.  Vienna is on the other side somewhere.

Another kind of lock

 It has apparently become the custom many places in Europe for couples to create "love locks".  A couple engraves a padlock, locks it to a bridge, and tosses the key into the river.  We saw them on many bridges, although in some places they have been banned because the added weight on the bridge was an issue. These were on a railing along the Main in Wurzburg.

There is a long row of locks:

Why does Scheinfurt cage its rocks?

 Is it afraid they will get away?

Sheep??

Internet has been iffy for a while, so these will be some random comments as I think of them.

We are sailing up the Main river.  It has locks.  MANY locks,  From the Rhine to the Rhine/Main/Danube canal, there are 34 locks.  So we're getting quite acquainted with them.

A few are just metal and concrete, as I would have expected.  Most have narrow strips of land separating them from the rest of the Main, which mostly has small dams.  These strips typically have grass, and sometimes bushes, and even occasionally decent size trees.  So okay, they've been there a while and they have acquired some plant life.  Occasionally there are ducks.  Nice.

Noticing this did not prepare me for sheep!  Three or four of them cheerfully grazing, or just relaxing, along the lock.  Right.

Am Rhein

We have sailed up the Rhine all day, stopping in Koblenz, sailing past the Lorelie, and docking this  evening in Rudesheim .   Koblenz had very steep roofs, sometimes two or three stories worth, leading to impressive rows of gables, stacked three rows high.

Frankfurt tomorrow, with a side trip by bus to Heidelberg. I'm not at all sure I want a couple of hours of bus trip in order to spend a few hours in Heidelberg.  I might just stay in Frankfurt.

And we say goodbye to Amsterdam, passing an impressive cheese shop on our way through the train station to mail some postcards before the Captain's dinner.  (six courses!)

We sailed through our first two locks, going along the Amsterdam-Rhine canal and starting up the Rhine, on our way to Cologne.  We should arrive tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.