A Journey through the Old Hapsburg Empire

Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Germany by road, train and a spectacular Danube Riverboat voyage.

(Last updated Oct. 11, 2007)

   Our route was through the Old Hapsburg Empire, which still defines Old Europe elegance, despite repeated invasions and occupations by inelegant people like the Turks of the Ottoman Empire, who ruled this region for six centuries. Follow the map at the left of this page to trace our travels in September and October, 2009, first to Dubrovnik, the sparkling jewel of Croatia, and then on to Montenegro before backtracking along the Dalmatian coast northward to the island of Korcula. From there we diverted inland to war-torn Mostar, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was devastated by Serbian artillery in the early 1990s ethnic cleansing attacks. We then backtracked to the ancient Roman city of Split, on the Adriatic Sea, and to the nearby island of Hvar, the beautiful playground of jet-setting and wretchedly-excessive, yacht-owning Europeans, and to the beautiful and unspoiled medieval towns of Omis and Trogir. After visiting Zadar we journeyed northeast, still in Croatia, to the stunning Plitvice National Park, consisting of a series of 16 terraced lakes connected by waterfalls as they stream downhill on a steep a mountainside.

We then visited Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, where our lodging for two nights was in the elegant Regent Esplanade Hotel, where Agatha Christie’s fictional murder victim, Mr. Ratchett, spent his last night before being mysteriously stabbed to death on the Orient Express shortly before reaching Belgrade. There are only a few hotels where we’ve enjoyed as much elegance and Old World opulence as this —the Waldorf Astoria in New York and the Ritz in Madrid spring to mind. I usually give little thought to the hotel in which I’m staying, but this one had a special charm that I won’t forget. We then boarded a train that took us to Budapest, which both of us later agreed was the most enchanting big city on our itinerary. Rich with baroque atmosphere and stunning monuments, Budapest, as those of you who have been there know, is actually two cities separated by the Danube River—the old city of Buda, dominated by the majestic Royal Palace, St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Citadel and Fishermen’s Bastion, and the newer, more commercial part of Pest, which, with its outdoor cafes and eclectic mixture of classicist, gothic, Turkish and art nouveau architecture, has its own attractions.

It was in Budapest where, on Sept. 28, we boarded the “Amadante” riverboat, a low, shallow-draft vessel with74 spacious staterooms, two lounges and a dining room that served surprisingly good meals from an interesting a la carte menu, all the wine you could drink at dinner and deserts designed to ruin a waistline. After an intensive two weeks road-and-rail trip through Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina and into Hungary, it was nice to unpack and kick back for a week on the riverboat, which stopped periodically for sightseeing  in Slovakia, Austria and Germany as it made it way up the Danube. The riverboat was all windows, and it had several sundecks from which to sit back and view the fantastic beauty of rural Europe slide by at a leisurely pace. Our little group of 18 Australians found a little-used aft lounge in which we occasionally parties into the night, and suffice it to say the riverboat’s main bar was kept busy by the Aussies. The major stops along the way included Bratislava, Vienna, Durnstein (where Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned in 1192), Melk, with its magnificent Benedictine Abbey, and Linz and Passau in Germany.

The riverboat was supposed to continue past Passau, where we stopped for some sightseeing, and go on to Regensburg and Nuremberg, where the cruise phase was scheduled to end. But the “Amadante’s” Dutch captain, fearing his vessel would ground in the increasingly shallow river (because of a lack of rain) tied up at the little German village of Vilshoffen, where we stayed for the next two nights. During the day we drove 100 km to explore Regensburg and another 100 km to visit Nuremberg.  On out last day we walked around the beautiful little city of Bamberg, and finally, we went to the painfully quaint town of Rothenberg, which Alma, Sarah, Lisa and I visited in 1982. Once again, we were a bit put off by the kitschy “Christmas Shop” and the Disneyland character of the town. On Oct. 6, we boarded our Thai Airways plane for the interminable 20-hour flight home, via Bangkok.

    Below are some of the hundreds of pictures I took during the trip. It’s unlikely you’ll want to see more, but if so you can go to the following link for 13 galleries of photos, each representing a different segment of our journey:

http://picasaweb.google.com/william.claiborne/

Medieval fortress in Dubrovnik’s walled Old City	Dubrovnik, Croatia’s famous walled city	A square in Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik’s picturesque harbor	Dubrovnik, seen from hilltop on the outskirts	Budva, Montenegro
Kotar Bay, in Montenegro	Korcula Island, off Split,  along Croatia’s Dalmatian coast	Korcula has narrow, cobblestone streets, too
The “Great Wall,” in Mali Ston, is second only to China’s	War damage is Mostar, Herzegovina, is evident everywhere	The famous Mostar bridge links Moslem and Christian sides of the war-ravaged city.
Omis, on the Dalmatian coast, has stunning beauty	Omis also has a picturesque harbor	Croatian women shop in Split market
Trogir was one of the prettiest towns we saw during our 10 days in Croatia.	Besides an Old Town dating to Medieval times, Trogir has a beautiful harbor which is a favorite of European yachtsmen.	Throughout Croatia there are towns like this that   exude Old European elegance of a bygone era.
Sun-drenches cafes like this are found everywhere	This is the “Amandante,” on which we sailed for a week up the Danube River, stopping regularly to visit towns and cities in Austria, Slovakia and Germany. The riverboat carried 148 passengers and was very comfortable.	Our spacious stateroom had spectacular views as we sailed through rural farmlands along the way from Budapest to Vilshoffen, Germany. We were supposed to go all the way to Nuremberg but the water levels got dangerously low and we had to go the final leg overland.
One stop was in Melk, where we visited this hilltop abbey	Views like this were commonplace on the Danube River	The sundeck offered a good vantage point for viewing both sides of the Danube.
Beautiful churches like this became so commonplace that one tended to forget later where they were located.	In Durnstein, we saw a fortress where Richard Lionheart, King of England, was imprisoned in the 12 Century.	Mile after mile would pass with no sign of human habitation, and then a lovely little village like this would appear along the Danube’s shoreline
The captain steering the “Amadante” riverboat	Dinner aboard the Danube riverboat, the “Amadante”	Passing another of many riverboats on the river
Entering one of dozens of Danube River locks we had to pass through during our weeklong journey	Alma does a bit of repair work in the riverboat’s lounge	Viewing another lock passage from the bow deck
We went by train from Zagreb, capital of Croatia, to Budapest, capital of Hungary, where we boarded the Danube riverboat, the “Amadante.”	The Royal Palace in Budapest was directly across the river from out hotel. Like many buildings in Budapest, it exudes Old Europe elegance and at night glitters with lights	While Alma went to visit an art colony, I tried out the old Gellert Baths,  fashioned during the Turkish Ottoman Empire era and featuring statues like this. I couldn’t take my camera into the 38-degree (C) thermal baths, but they were just as ornate.
This violinist was busking in Heroes’ Square in Budapest	Parliament  House in Budapest	St. Stephen’s Church and the Fishermen’s Bastion
The blue Danube flows through center of Budapest	Fishermen’s Bastion in “Buda” side of Budapest	The “Pest” side, or newer side,  of Budapest
Buildings in Pest, the newer part of Budapest, opposite Buda, which is the Old City across the Danube River	Entrance to the Hofburg Palace complex in Vienna, which includes the Imperial Library and the Spanish Riding School	The ornate statues and imposing architecture are typical of Vienna.
These magnificent horses were being led to morning exercises in the Hoffberg Palace arena	We watched the training session and I got off this photo before I was told to put my camera away.	Inside the Imperial Library, Vienna
An adjacent private home with glowing chandeliers	The Neue Hofburg in Vienna. The balcony is where Hitler spoke to his Landsmaenner for the first time after the Anschluss in 1938.	Austrian Army soldiers in a remembrance ceremony in Heroes’ Plaza at Hofburg Palace
Having lunch on the “Amadante” riverboat during visit to Vienna.  The boat trip was to have been Budapest to Nuremberg, but because of  dangerously falling water levels on the upper portion of the Danube, the captain was forced to tie up at Vilshoffen, Germany, just beyond Passau, from where we traveled overland to Regensburg and Nuremberg, returning each night to sleep on the riverboat.	While we were walking around Regensburg, Germany, we stumbled across this beatification ceremony for a local priest, with all the celebrants wearing orange scarves. Regensburg was where Pope Benedict XVI taught theology, and where he gave a controversial lecture in 2006 in which he made unfavorable comments of Islam.	They even gave me a scarf,  showing no sign of discriminating against heathens and agnostics
Regensburg, one of the more interesting old cities we saw	The famous ancient stone bridge in Regensburg, Germany	The fortress in the old walled city of Nuremberg commanded the hilltop majestically, but it was a long climb up there, indeed.
The enormous and thick walls of  Nuremberg’s old city	The wall and tower atop a hill in old Nuremberg	Alma walking through Nuremberg
The Coliseum that Hitler built in Nuremberg for his Nazi rallies. The swastikas have been removed, but the ghostly ruins look almost as if they are being preserved for a comeback…well, I won’t go there now.	Adjacent to the Coliseum is the infamous parade ground where tens of thousands of Nazi supporters listened to Hitler’s rants about  the “Thousand Year Reich”	We decided that Bamberg was the loveliest German town that we visited on this trip
The central canal featured houses with flower boxes	Buildings like this in Bamberg were stunningly beautiful	The last city we visited on this trip was painfully-quaint Rothenberg, which we visited nearly 30 years ago with Lisa and Sarah and decided then was a bit too Disneylandish for our tastes. It hasn’t changed.

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