Weissenkirchen, Dürnstein and Melk Abbey

Like many boys, I loved "The Adventures of Robin Hood."

I enjoyed both the Errol Flynn version on TV's "Million Dollar Movies" and the picture book Mom and Dad bought me.

Robin Hood, despite being the hero of a well-known story, has had his mission distorted for years.

He didn't rob from the rich to give to the poor, even though that's how most interpret the legend, a sentiment found even in the movie's trailer.



Robin Hood actually robbed from government tax collectors to return the money to the serfs and tradespeople who earned it.

According to the story, the tax collectors were acting on the orders of  evil Prince John, who was sitting on the throne of his brother, the good King Richard.

Richard had embarked on a holy Crusade in 1191, and throughout most of the movie, the subjects of England hopefully await Richard the Lionheart's triumphant return to restore justice to the land.

The town crier announces disheartening news from Vienna with these words: "Leopold of Austria has seized King Richard on his return from the Crusades. Our king is being held prisoner. Nothing further is known. His Highness Prince John will make further public pronouncement tomorrow."

What type of fake news will Prince John have for English subjects?

Well, you'll have to watch the movie to know.

The historical reality of the imprisonment of King Richard was not without justification.

King Richard had insulted Duke Leopold of Austria in the Holy Lands by taking down the Austrian flag when Leopold's cousin Conrad raised it alongside the flags of England, France and Jerusalem.  

With this affront to his honor, Leopold stormed home. Later, his cousin Conrad was murdered, and Leopold believed Richard was involved.  He wanted revenge.

King Richard also had some kind of run-in with King Phillip II of France in the Holy Lands, so when it came time to head home to England, Richard found French ports closed to him.

He may have shipwrecked, but one way or another Richard had to take the long way home over land through less than friendly territories.

While traveling incognito through Austria, something gave him away in a tavern or brothel on the outskirts of Vienna.

Perhaps it came down to royal mannerisms, or perhaps his men called him "Sire" out of habit, but Richard was captured and turned over to Leopold, who transferred Richard 50 miles away to be imprisoned secretly in Dürnstein Castle.

Duke Leopold then demanded a huge ransom estimated to be one fourth of the wealth of  England to return their sovereign.

As such, it seems far more likely to me that the onerous taxes imposed on the people of England would have been in order to pay "a king's ransom" rather than to over-stuff the pockets of evil Prince John and his henchman, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

The transfer of wealth was sufficient to build new city walls and other fortifications for Vienna as well as founding some additional cities.

Duke Leopold was excommunicated by the Pope, but apparently he could live with that.

Without this re-distribution of wealth, I question whether the Habsburgs of Austria would have risen to such prominence.

It seems to me that Leopold of Austria was sort of the embodiment of the widely perceived Robin Hood legend of robbing from the rich to give to the poor...or at least to re-distribute wealth from a greater world power, England, to his less privileged kingdom.

 

Our morning cruise through the Wachau Valley brought us past our port to allow us to view Dürnstein Castle from the Danube River.

When we returned to dock in Weissenkirchen, we departed the ship for our tour of Dürnstein and Melk Abbey.

We drove through the beautiful countryside's grape vineyards and apricot orchards to reach Dürnstein.

In the village, merchants prominently feature apricot products including candy and brandy.

We enjoyed the tour of the town plus some time on our own before heading up to Melk Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery that's home of an impressive library and lots of holy artifacts and relics.

The subject of relics always makes me wonder how anyone knows what is real, a subject humorously explored in an odd book I read on another cruise, "The Relic Master," written by Christopher Buckley, who normally writes political satires like "Thank You for Smoking."

When we returned from our excursion, we had some time to relax before dinner, but after our meal, we were off on another included excursion to a small family-owned bar for a wine tasting.

These family taverns are only allowed to open a few weeks each year and must serve exclusively their own vintages.

It sure sounds like a great program, but unfortunately the wines weren't very good.

I would say AmaWaterways needs to find better wine bar hosts, perhaps paying them to bring out better vintages.

Considering how good wine was on board, it's odd Ama couldn't find better hosts in the village.

Still, it was a fun outing to walk through the village at night and sip wine in a rustic weinstube.

Thanksgiving at Sea

Before you cruise to Hawaii from Los Angeles or take any transoceanic cruise, you better be sure enjoy days at sea.  It's not unusual to find a few people on such cruises who love sea days so much that they skip some ports of call entirely.

My friends Brion and Rita cruise to Hawaii every Christmas, but their primary focus is the on-board experience.  They enjoy the great meals and entertainment, but their biggest passion is ballroom dancing.  Julie and I took fun Latin dance lessons taught by Oz on Star Princess on our recent cruise, but I can't say we're devotees.

Taking a holiday cruise can be an opportunity for a family reunion at a time when kids are off school and salaried workers receive paid holidays that save valuable vacation days.  Multi-generational family members can do what interests them alone or together and gather around the dinner table to share their experiences.

For other folks who opted to focus on careers rather than families, there's a sense of belonging among travelers exploring the world together on all cruises.  That's true in spades for holiday cruises in particular.

Drs. Christian and Caroline, the psychologists we briefly encountered on the rental car bus in Hilo, spoke about 7 kinds of love for the modern world in one of their presentations.  Among their list was enjoying shared interests together and the sense of belonging to something greater than ourselves.  I don't recall all of the details, but the exact categories as defined by Christian differed from those carried forward from classic Greece.  It's good to remember that just because a relationship isn't hitting on all cylinders doesn't mean that love ceases to be.  This is especially important for couples should Eros love that sparks the initial attraction may wane.  Other types of love remain, and of course we can also experience with people beyond our soulmates.

Christian actually began that presentation by recounting an intermittent conversation he and I had on the Promenade Deck when we passed as I did laps.  Julie had opted to do the aerobic dance class that morning, which I also enjoyed on a couple of other days.  As always, we are forced to make choices on cruises between interesting activities, which is why I only attended two of the psychology presentations despite quite enjoying both of them.

The prior day, the Heims presentation had been that "Laughter Is the Best Medicine," and it was hilarious as well as educational.

Julie was reading by the pool when I attended this very funny seminar, but she came to mind as I laughed together with the audience, and she was the topic of my interaction walking laps the next day.

Some early jokes humorously attributed to Aristotle made fun of Cretans, and Julie's grandfather happened to come from Crete.  More current jokes of this type made fun had British making fun of Irish, and Julie's mother's maiden name is associated with a castle in Northern Ireland, so Julie is both Cretan and Irish.

Then, there were some jokes about lawyers, and Julie spent many years essentially acting as a lawyer in negotiations with lawyers.

Of course, there had to be some blond jokes, and Julie is blond.  Christian also told a couple of jokes about strong-willed redheads like his wife Caroline, which actually are much applicable to Julie than blond jokes.

Anyway, I revealed an element of this with each lap, which amused both Christian and me, so when he started his presentation the next day, he spoke about how he had insulted one person in every way possible within five minutes of starting his presentation the day before.  As he recounted them, I wished Julie had been there, but she was reading in a lounge chair in the sun, with Shania Twain in concert on the poolside movie screen.

Music on board is always important to us.  Each time, we tend to gravitate to some particular performers who we follow during the voyage.  One was the Hawaiian duo Makani E, made up of my Ukelele teacher Kimo and his wife Lokelina, who taught Julie the hula in a separate class.  As family friends of the late Hawaiian music icon Bruddah Iz (famous for his version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"), they carry forward his gentle style of island music.

We rarely missed a show of the Ukranian violinists, the Adagio Trio.  I especially enjoyed their renditions of Strauss and Mozart, whose music was prominent on our Danube River cruise, but they also did shows based on other themes, including one based on "The Sound of Music," which for me also brought to mind our AmaWaterways excursion to Salzburg.

The incredible orchestra band did some great jazz concerts outside of their usual venue of the Princess Theater, where they back guest performers as well as production shows.  It's always so amazing how these band members gel as a unit and produce flawless back-up for guest performers and production shows even if a replacement band member has only arrived on board the day before.

The production shows were also outstanding, with a gifted group of performers where all were stars, and as always there were guest artists to keep add to the variety.

I personally enjoy movies, and in addition to "Yesterday," which we both loved, I enjoyed seeing another great movie I'd missed in theaters,  "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood."

The meals aboard our cruise were all delicious.  A highlight this time was at the alternative dining venue, Crown Grill, where we savored 8-ounce Filet Mignons cooked to perfection and great sides.  I must say the similarly prepared Princess Medallions in the dining room while smaller were quite excellent, and as usual, I enjoyed all the savory seafood dishes.

I think Julie wanted to take this cruise primarily to get away from the kitchen, and of course another dining highlight was Thanksgiving Dinner.  Some other guests skipped turkey for other tempting entrees, but we went with the traditional meal.

Our kids had gathered at Gina and Laszlo's new home in Pennsylvania, and I must confess I would have rather been at that feast.

However, we had flown to four family reunion vacations already this year, and also had Emma in California stay with us for an extended visit during the summer, so at the time when flights needed to be booked and seemed very expensive, we somehow talked ourselves out of going.

While I love travel, nothing beats spending time with our family.  I'm excited to be getting together with Jay and Sasha plus my sister's family for Christmas.

Make no mistake; we definitely enjoyed this entertaining two-week escape to paradise.

Our final port was Ensenada, where we took our morning walk but then returned to enjoy our final afternoon and evening aboard the ship.

With a simple Lyft home from the port, we returned home totally relaxed and renewed, which I'm not sure would have been the case had we endured holiday airport hassles for a quick turnaround trip east.

Cruising the Wachau Valley

While traditional ocean cruises include two or three sea days during a typical week, river cruises call on a port every day.

River cruise itineraries nonetheless plan a few hours for simply gliding along scenic shores to enjoy cruising.

That's only logical in light of the fact that many people on land trips choose to take river boat excursions to easily see cities and countryside.

On our recent Romantic Danube River Cruise, we were blessed with a sunny morning to take in the awesome cruise through the lovely Wachau Valley.

Being aboard AmaWaterways meant we could enjoy the refreshing pool during part of the voyage.

We took advantage of this pool several times, including while cruising the Wachau Valley.

There was a swim up bar, but I never saw a bartender serving drinks there.

Whether that was because so few people used the pool on our cruise or to avoid the pool becoming too crowded I couldn't say, but it did seem to be a missed opportunity.

Not that I care so much about having a drink in the day time usually, but as our oldest daughter Gina says about having a Margarita on the pool deck during an ocean cruise, it's one of the moments she envisions as part of a cruise vacation.

In any case, we had previously enjoyed an afternoon cruise from Vilshofen to Passau, and later in the trip we'd experience and incredible evening cruise through beautiful Budapest, so we were able to enjoy scenic cruising at diverse times.

People who love traversing the locks of the Panama Canal, or dream of doing so, will be interested to know that most river cruises in Europe include occasional passes through narrow locks that are equally fascinating despite not being on quite such a grand scale.

Actually, I don't know anyone who wouldn't love a river cruise.

"Better service leads to better trips!"