Jacques and Rollande: October 13 - Linz

Today we were in Linz, Austria but we opted to take the 8-hour tour to Cesky Krumlof in the Czech Republic. It was a 1 1/2hour drive there and back but well worth it. It was like a fairy tale village with castles and towers and a river in the middle of it. Some of these buildings are from the year 600, now that is old.

We had lunch in a restaurant that served local fare. I had the confit duck and Jacques had the rabbit. Here again the portions were enormous. We each had a beer. Turns out that the dark beer is much sweeter than the light beer. I found that the pilsner urquell which is supposed to be the best has a bit of a bitter taste and I didn't like it very much, but I did like the dark beer. We sat with 2 couples from our ship who were almost finished when we arrived and after they left one of the couples from Ontario joined us.

We still had time left before we had to meet the tour guide again, so we wandered in the town where we found a cute wooden puzzle for Bianca in the shape of a giraffe with each piece having a letter of the alphabet on one side and the numbers on the other side.

After supper we had local musicians again but this time they were from Strasbourg. They sang some classical operettas and some traditional Austrian music. They also did a couple of dances after which they involved some of the guests. I kept my eyes down, I did not want to go dance in front of everyone.

All in all, it was a great day. I can't believe that tomorrow is already our last day on the ship. Viking has been great and much better than I expected. The food, the staff, the included tours, the service including free wine and beer at the meals have all contributed to a great trip.