A Book About Our Danube River Cruise

The first time I can remember writing a history report was for Mr. Cole's class, when Mike Rood, Chris Crabtree, Michelle Gallahair and I were among 15 fourth graders in an advanced combination class with the same number of fifth graders.

I would sit down at the kitchen table with Mom and a stack of encyclopedias on Thursday evening so I'd have my error-free, ink-written two pages ready to turn in the next morning.

Many was the time I started writing a sentence two thirds of the way down the page only to realize I had started the wrong word, which forced me to be resourceful and find another word in the dictionary that started with the same letters or restructure the sentence. Often, it involved restructuring the sentence to use the new word.

Yes, I could have just started the page over, but that sounds a lot easier in this word processing age when to rewrite means a couple of quick keyboard strokes followed by hitting print.  Handwriting neatly in ink without corrections was for many in my generation the hardest part of a report.

Admittedly, the first few reports were more Mom reading the books aloud and then telling me what to write, but she gradually left me more and more time and space to figure it out on my own.

While neither of my parents went to an academic-type university (though my dad did graduate from barber and beauty schools), they were both very intelligent and life-long learners who could hold their own in any conversation.

Education for their children was always a top priority, so they bought the prestigious World Book Encyclopedia as well as several grocery store encyclopedia sets to have in our home, which was definitely a huge advantage at the time.  Looking back, I can't help but wish I had been a more dedicated student to honor their faith in me, but I've enjoyed such a wonderful life, I honestly can't say it could have turned out any better if I had tried.

These days, of course, we all have access to the internet, where the problem is not finding information but sifting what is true from what google engineers have programmed to be the most popular answers based on their personal biases or black-ops advertising.

Mom and Dad also helped my sister and me sort through that type of misinformation (albeit in different forms) by teaching us how to learn through their examples.

At the time I was writing those papers for the affable Mr. Cole and the next year for the tough-minded Mrs. Burroughs, I never thought I would voluntarily take time away from watching TV or playing sports to write those reports.

And yet, when I go on vacation, even after I tell myself that I will not get carried away with history as I did before our recent Danube River Cruise, I find myself returning home to research more about what I learned along the way.

This time, I felt compelled to write what turned out to be a multi-article report about Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, but herein I have broken those episodes out as an overview of the region in this 300th Anniversary Year of Empress Maria Theresa.  It should be noted that many of the pictures and some other information about our trip are only found in those posts.

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 1

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 2

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 3: Prague Castle

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 4: Bavaria

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 5: Schönbrunn Palace

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 6: Pressburg

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 7: Belvedere Palace

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 8: From Vienna to America

Why should you cruise on AmaWaterways?

Chex Mix to the Czech Republic? Check✅

Touring Prague

Regensburg, Bavaria

Boarding AmaCerto in Vilshofen

Passau, Germany

Mondsee in the Austrian Lake District

Salzburg, Austria

Confronting the Nazi Past in Linz

Cruising the Wachau Valley

Weissenkirchen, Dürnstein and Melk Abbey

Music of Vienna

Biking to Klosterneuburg Monastery

St. Martin's Cathedral in Bratislava and a Brief History of Slovakia

Chilling in Bratislava,Slovakia

City Park of Budapest Featuring Heroes' Square and Vajdahunad Castle

Buda and Pest

Illuminated Budapest

If you want to cruise the Danube River or experience any other part of the world, I would be happy to help you learn more about your possibilities.

"Better service leads to better trips!"

Time to Splurge for a River Cruise in Europe?

Are you looking for a great way to celebrate a milestone like a wedding anniversary or retirement?

Or do you just want to enjoy an incredible immersion in some of the most beautiful regions in the world?

Either way, is hard to beat a river cruise.



While ocean cruising wins over 95% of people who try it, the one whispered complaint that cruises battle consistently is a perception by some of being "nickel and dimed."

To combat this, more inclusions have been added, and unlimited beverage packages on Celebrity, Azamara, Oceania and Norwegian Cruises have definitely worked.

While some luxury lines charging two to four times as much have been all-inclusive for years, it seems like river cruises showed mainstream cruises the way.

In fact, when Viking River Cruises took their river cruise philosophy to the ocean, they quickly became the top ranked ocean cruise line in many surveys of travel agents and past guests.

Viking includes free-flowing regional wines and beer with lunch and dinner. free internet and even a free shore excursion in every port.



Other river cruise lines like Uniworld and AmaWaterways take that philosophy of all-inclusive even further, with more additional free shore excursions, bicycles and, in the case of Uniworld, free drinks anytime on board.

Of course, some luxury ocean lines like Regent and Crystal have been providing anticipatory service and amenities for decades, so when Crystal decided to enter river cruising, we knew it would be very special.

Crystal River Cruise ships are among the most beautiful of all, and their own "all-inclusive" approach demands premium prices on rivers just as on ocean liners.

Regardless of whether you choose Viking, Crystal or any other fine river cruise line, you will not feel nickel and dimed.

It comes down to the level of exclusiveness you want with your inclusive value.



I feel compelled to point out that the lowest advertised prices are almost inevitably for November and December, when snows fall in Central Europe.

These Christmas Market cruises have their own special magic and are well-worth experiencing, but don't hold your breath waiting to get that same low price during prime weather months.

You will nonetheless find your money has been very well-spent when your splurge for a river cruise.

St Martin's Cathedral in Bratislava and a Brief History of Slovakia

Bratislava is less than 125 miles from Budapest.

Vienna is just 37 miles away from Bratislava, making them the geographically-closest capital cities of any two nations in the world.

Overshadowed by world-renowned Vienna and Budapest which came before and after Bratislava on our Danube River cruise, the vibrant capital of Slovakia is approached by many guests with few preconceptions and possibly as an after-thought.

Coronation of Maria Theresa, 1741, Pressburg by Johann Daniel Herz

One reason you may not have heard of Bratislava is that until 1919, it was known by the Germanic name Pressburg.

During the Ottoman occupation of Central Hungary, Pressburg became the de facto capital of Royal Hungary as well as its coronation site.

The ceremony held here for Maria Theresa included her well-rehearsed horsemanship that revealed her deep respect for the equestrian traditions of the Magyar people that in turn indirectly resulted in 60,000 Hungarian troops heroically riding to the rescue of her royal claims.

Beautiful St. Martin's Cathedral served as the coronation church for Maria Theresa and 18 other Kings, Queens and Consorts between 1563 and 1830, beginning with Maximillian II and ending with Ferdinand V.

Julie and I had taken AmaCerto's Active Walker Bratislava Castle Hike Tour, which did not include St. Martin's, but fortunately Julie had written this historic site into the "Itinerary Guide" furnished by AmaWaterways as a must-see.

The stained glass is exceptional, but it was the statue of St. Martin by Georg Rafael Donner completed in 1744 that most grabbed my attention.

It's supposed to represent St. Martin sharing a coat with the poor, but to me it looks very much like an Ottoman Turk revealing a scimitar from behind a cloak intent on slashing a defenseless man.

A Google search shows several takes through history of the exact same subject with similar representations of this fourth century Hungarian Saint as a man on horseback brandishing a sword of some sort and sharing a coat.

To me, most of this art seems to represent a hidden danger behind the cloak of charity.

St. Martin's father was an officer in the Imperial Horse Guard of the Roman army.

As a young man, Martin himself was in the cavalry, so perhaps this is just showing he was a horseman who had served in the military as his father had.

In a History and Appreciation of Art at Golden West College, however, I learned that sometimes artists make political statements that could not be safely voiced in a more direct manner, so I always wonder about the motivation of artistic choices.

Artists often adapt subjects to conform with the cultural norms within their own homelands and eras to make them more relatable to their audiences

So was this some kind of political statement with the fez and scimitar, or does it say more about how I personally perceive the current influx of Islamic refugees who seem to have no interest in assimilating?

Art is always subject to interpretation, just like politics, but political statements are more likely to be quite direct.

I should note that our Hiking Tour brought us past several interesting sculptures, often revealing Slovak good humor.  On the weekend day of our visit, so many tourists pushed to have their photos taken with them that it seemed silly to jockey for position, especially when photos are available on line.

In stark contrast, we had remarkable St. Martin's Cathedral and its beautiful art essentially to ourselves.

Getting back to an earlier point about historical perspective, knowing this city was once Pressburg, you may wonder why the name changed.

As World War I concluded, the new country of Czechoslovakia earned freedom from the talons of the Habsburgs.

No longer dominated by Austria, the new country chose to change the city's Germanic name of Pressburg to the Slovak name Bratislava.

Under the leadership of intellectual idealist Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, a parliamentary democracy emerged with great promise, combining Slavic peoples with slightly different languages and complementary economic strengths into a new country, but it would not have been possible without support of the Allies who defeated Austro-Hungary and Germany.


The Czech part of Czechoslovakia was an industrial powerhouse, while Slovakia was primarily agricultural.

From the outset, some Slovaks felt somewhat under the thumb of Czech leaders, but the alliance generally worked.

Almost exactly two decades after the founding of this peaceful democratic republic, Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland, the primarily German-speaking border areas of Czechoslovakia which Hitler considered a natural part of his country.

Not incidentally, this happened to be a heavily industrialized part of Czechoslovakia, which would subsequently feed the insatiable Nazi Blitzkrieg machine.

It also contained Czechoslovakia's border defenses, damning the fledgling country to inevitable conquest by Germany.

Under the Munich Agreement signed at the end of September, 1938, Great Britain's Neville Chamberlain infamously declared they had achieved "peace for our time."

Not quite.

As has been the case repeatedly throughout history, appeasement of evil failed.

Hitler immediately began making plans to crush Czechoslovakia.

The agreement between Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy became known as the Munich Betrayal to those whose fate was decided without their input.

On March 15, 1939, Hitler's Nazi forces conquered the Czech region.

Meanwhile, after years pushing for independence for Slovakia from perceived Czech domination, Joseph Tiso and his Slovak People's Party met with Hitler and struck a deal for an independent Slovak State.

Tiso's deal with the devil brought his "independent" country into Hitler's evil Axis, and there would be a heavy price to pay for this sin.

Unlike the Czecholovak Legion that fought on the side of Russia against their own country, Austro-Hungary, in World War I, the Slovak Army fought against their Slavic brothers in the Soviet Union in WWII.

No political movement is monolithic, as we might like to imagine.

Far less than all Slovakians supported their country's alignment with Nazi Germany, and an uprising by the Slovak resistance in 1944 continued clandestinely through the end of the war.

The "liberation" of Czechoslovakia by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics led to Russian communist domination for the next 44 years.

The heavy hand behind the Iron Curtain attempted to crush all dreams from that initial bold, successful experiment with democracy between WWI and WWII for this region that had previously been ruled by royal monarchies for centuries.

However, a spark of freedom ignited.

In the last two months of 1989, emboldened by the words of American President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, Czechoslovakia threw off the confining shackles of communist Russian rule with the non-violent Velvet Revolution, which had morphed from a communist-sanctioned memorial for a martyr killed by Nazis.

Happy to be free from decades of one-party Communist rule, they were nonetheless unable to reach suitable terms for reestablishing that pre-war union of Czechs and Slovaks.

Slovakia and the Czech Republic amicably decided to go their own ways, and on January 1, 1993, the independent Slovak Republic, more commonly known as Slovakia, was born.

Slovakia has embraced American traditions of capitalism, freedoms as found in our Bill of Rights, and democratic governance.

As a result of this mindset combined with their intelligent, highly educated workforce, Slovakia has made itself an advanced economy with one of the highest standards of living in the world.

"Better service leads to better trips!"

Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs, Pt. 6: Pressburg (Bratislava)

When the mob figuratively lost their collective heads during the French Revolution, many nobles literally lost their heads.

Marie Antoinette is the most famous victim remembered by "popular history," but an estimated 300,000 royalists (1 in 50 French residents) were arrested during the Reign of Terror and 40,000 died by force or disease, with over 16,500 sentenced to death by guillotine by Maximilien Robespierre and his blood-thirsty followers.

In the aftermath, a young officer named Napoleon Bonaparte rose to become Emperor of France.

City Gate in Bratislava

Napoleon championed a new meritocracy with systems of justice designed to make everyone equal under the law, so of course the royal families of Europe, including the Habsburgs, felt their feudal order was now being threatened in their own back yard as well as across the ocean in far-away America.

A series of coalitions formed to take down this upstart who had no legitimate claim to power by "royal blood."

Napoleon dealt with these threats, keeping territories captured during the successful defense of his realm through successive coalitions.

Unlike Hitler's detestable rule by fear, Napoleon and the common people in the territories he subsequently conquered saw him as a liberator.

Strolling through beautiful Bratislava

When the Third Coalition met with utter defeat at his hands, the Peace of Pressburg was declared on December 26, 1805, under a treaty between Napoleon and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, a grandson of Maria Theresa.

So total had been the defeat that the Holy Roman Empire itself, the last official vestige of the amazing Roman Empire, collapsed entirely.

Emperor Napoleon's son by Austrian Archduchess Marie Louise, was called "King of the Romans" from birth, inferring that the Roman Empire almost resurrected under a Habsburg descendant, as royal family lines have occasionally reclaimed thrones in the past.

That was not to be, as royal blood apparently demanded that royal kingdoms destroy Napoleon and all that he stood for to stem the tide toward a more egalitarian world, even if it might have eventually evolved full circle back to the Roman Empire.

The eastern branch of the Roman Empire based in Constantinople (modern day Istanbul), which by historians came to be called the Byzantine Empire but considered themselves Romans, had ceased to exist with the Fall of Constantinople in 1456 at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.

This was obviously a significant milestone for the Ottoman Empire, which had been rapidly expanding since the year 1300.

When Suleiman the Magnificent came to power as the 10th Ottoman Sultan, he set his sights on expanding deeper into Eastern Europe and beyond.

To those ends, Suleiman's army decimated the Royal Hungarian army at the Battle of Mohács in 1526.

In retreat, Louis II, the 20 year-old King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, fell backwards off his horse riding down a steep ravine.  He landed in a stream, and the heavy armor he wore for protection in battle proved to be so heavy that he couldn't stand up before he drowned.

This defeat brought central Hungary under Ottoman control.

Transylvania became a semi-independent vassal state of the Ottomans and eventually a "suzerainty" under the rule of both the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburgs.

The remaining Kingdom of Hungary was primarily modern day Slovakia, including Pressburg plus Transnubia, an area east of Vienna along the Danube encompassing modern day Budapest.

Separate Hungarian noble groups elected two Kings almost simultaneously for "Royal Hungary": Slavonian noble John Szapolyai, who would become known as Hungarian King John I, and Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria, who was brother-in-law of' the recently deceased Hungarian King Louis II who was married to Maria of Habsburg.

John and Ferdinand both claimed to be King of Hungary.

Suleiman was not finished, and whether because he thought Ferdinand had stretched Hungary too thin with his power grab or because it simply fit his general plan, in 1529 at the absolute zenith of Ottoman power in Europe he went after the Austrian capital for the first time with the unsuccessful Siege of Vienna.

These unresolved, less-than-absolute claims of sovereignty by the Habsburgs as to who ruled Transylvania and Royal Hungary would seem to fall under what our guide in Vienna referred to as Austrian compromise as opposed to German compromise.  In that case, he was talking about a popular Viennese chocolate cake and conflicting claims to be "Original Sacher Torte" versus "The Original Sacher-Torte."  Austrian compromise means living with ambiguity until the situation can be settled later, whereas German compromise would require immediate satisfaction, even if that would mean a duel to the death over whose cake was the original.

As it turned out, the talons of the Habsburgs overcame occasional setbacks like those at the hands of Suleiman and Napoleon, clinging fast to Hungary through World War I.

In 1699, at the culmination of the 15 year Turkish War, the Ottomans withdrew entirely from Hungary, marking the first time they had lost significant territory after centuries of expansion.

When Maria Theresa was crowned King of Hungary in 1741, she promised to keep a residence in Hungary as well as Austria.

Pressburger Schloss (Bratislava Castle), which was just across the border from Austria, served that purpose.

As her successful reign progressed, Maria Theresa began remodeling Pressburger Schloss in the ornate Rococo style she preferred

Getting back to the promise at the end of my last lengthy post, Empress Maria Theresa's favorite child was Maria Christina.  Both strong-willed and extremely intelligent, "Mimi" was the most like her mother.

Her parents ensured Mimi received an excellent education, and she developed to be a fine artist by any standards, irregardless of her royal position.

Add in her beauty, and it becomes obvious why her siblings might be a bit jealous when their mother treated Mimi as her favorite.

Like Maria Theresa, who had been allowed to marry for love,  Mimi eschewed unions with more promising Princes to marry the younger son of the King of Saxony (Poland) rather than the heir apparent to the throne of a more significant prospective ally like France.

Albert of Saxe-Teschen was merely the Duke of Teschen, a title that would proceed to be held by Habsburgs for future generations.

However, they did not marry until 1765, when Mimi's father had passed away, possibly indicating the Emperor never gave the final green light to the marriage.

Mimi and her hubby moved to the beautifully refurbished Pressburger Schloss in 1766, and acting as a mother-in-law who wanted her favorite daughter to be married to a successful man, Maria Theresa appointed Albert Governor.

Because the Governor needed more space, a new palace in Classic style was built inside the walls.

Further upgrades included gardens similar to Schönbrunn Palace plus summer and winter riding schools along the lines of the Spanish Riding School in Hofburg Palace in Vienna.

In addition, Maria Theresa upgraded the furnishings, adding more valuable art.

While she visited there in keeping with her promise to live there part of the time, this remodeling would seem to be primarily for the benefit of her favorite child while at the same time providing mother and daughter the opportunity to maintain their close relationship.

Maria Theresa died in 1780, and the next year Mimi's brother Emperor Joseph II eliminated the position of Governor and moved many of the treasures to Vienna.

Did sibling jealousy weigh into those decisions?

In any case, Albert and Mimi took some treasures with them to Brussels for Albert's new position as Governor of Austrian Netherlands (modern day Belgium).

In 1783, Emperor Joseph II moved the seat of power to Buda (half of today's Budapest) and the Hungarian Crown Jewels to Hofburg Palace in Vienna.

Stripped of its treasures, Pressburger Schloss became a Catholic seminary.

In 1802, the aging seminary became a military barracks housing 1500 soldiers.  That made it a target for bombardment by Napoleon's forces in 1809 after Austria joined Britain in the Fifth Coalition to break the French Empire.

Austria had stayed out of the Fourth Coalition, abiding by terms of the Treaty of Pressburg, but no peace lasts forever, it seems.

By the way, all of the photos in this post are from our port stop in Bratislava (formerly known as Pressburg), except the last one which is a picture of Bratislava from the AmaWaterways brochure.

City Park of Budapest Featuring Heroes' Square and Vajdahunad Castle

Recently in the news, we've seen controversy over Confederate statues being taken down in the United States, some as a result of local consensus and some through mob violence.

In Hungary, this symbolic cleansing of its past has been more common.

Five statues of Habsburgs, including Maria Theresa, formerly stood among the Hungarian heroes in Budapest's City Park.

Constructed in 1896 to commemorate the 1,000 year anniversary of the arrival of seven Magyar leaders and their Central Asian tribes into the Carpathian Valley to conquer and settle what is now Hungary, Heroes' Square was the impressive first stop of our AmaWaterways excursion into Budapest.

Our arrival by river had already intrigued us with the beautiful cityscape of Hungary's capital, including the world's largest and arguably most beautiful Parliament Building.


On a distant hillside, we could also see the Liberation Monument, constructed seventy years ago to “perpetuate the memory of Soviet soldiers fallen in the liberation of the capital city of Budapest."

Despite the fact that Hungarians fought hard for freedom from Communism and eventually cast off the Soviet shackles as the 1980's came to a close, they have not removed that monument to Soviets who died.

They did, however, place a counterbalancing statue of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, whom they credit for helping them win their freedom, facing the Soviet monument directly, although we couldn't see that from the ship.

We traveled by modern tour bus to Heroes' Square (Hősök Tere), which includes the Hungarian War Memorial along with assorted hero statuary.

Only two of the hero statues remain in their original spots: Árpád, who was one of the seven Magyar clan lords who arrived in 896 AD, and Saint Stephen, the first King of Hungary, who was crowned on Christmas Day in the year 1000.

Other statues, including those of five Habsburgs, have come and gone, or sometimes simply been relocated, as regimes went through some rather sweeping political swings including monarchism to communism to Nazi-ism and back to communism and finally democratic freedom.

The Habsburgs, regardless of what anyone may think of royalty in general or the sometimes enlightened and often self-aggrandizing rule of Maria Theresa's family specifically, were without question significant figures in Hungarian history. I would have liked to find them included.



To learn more about the Hungarian heroes who are represented by statues, please click the different hotlinks above.

The wars that usually brought about these changes in hero statues also brought about death and destruction.

For the same Millennial Expo of 1896, which incidentally occurred when Austro-Hungary remained under Habsburg rule, also brought about the construction of Vajdahunyad Castle near Heroes' Square.

Based primarily on the Hunyard Castle of Transylvania (also part of the Habsburg's Austro-Hungary), it contains several architectural styles representing great buildings of the region.

Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque building styles are all represented in this castle on a small island accessed by a faux drawbridge across a moat.

Originally built as a temporary exhibit of cardboard and wood, it became so popular that between 1904 and 1908 that the castle was rebuilt in brick and has continued to be a popular attraction ever since.

This forerunner of Disneyland proved people enjoy fantasy recreations of castles and beautiful architecture, a lesson not lost on Walt Disney or, in most recent years, the newly emerging industrial powerhouse, China.

Approaching the castle you'll see a serene lake, where you can rent paddle boats that look like cars.

In the winter, the lake freezes and becomes an ice skating rink.

It seems to be a pretty good re-imagining of an area that used to be a swamp.

Another attraction located in the same park is the Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden, which was not included in our tour.

There are also restaurants in the area, so you could easily spend the day in Budapest's City Park, but we had only begun our day ashore.

"Better service leads to better trips!"

Soviet Era Buildings Approaching Budapest (Repainted Post-Communism)