Why “the river of Kings” is the best way to cruise in Europe
The Danube offers history, culture and great food and this journey takes you through four countries from Budapest to Prague.
It’s safe to say that every passenger aboard this “Blue Danube” river cruise is anticipating plenty of Baroque splendour, Strauss on a loop, and oodles of creamy tortes. What they may not expect is a woman with a carafe of wine balanced on her head twirling madly while a chamber ensemble of lovely old gents belts out fantastically fast-paced music at a private club in the historic Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.
With an imagination fuelled by reading too many spy novels, I can’t help feeling that rather than being on a river cruise with a gang of lovely Americans, I’m deep inside a Cold War thriller. The splendid room. Mysterious dry ice fog emanating from plump floral centrepieces. Formidable waiters with white gloves. Silver domes lifted in flawless unison above goulash and veal. Every detail conjuring a mood of old-world elegance and just a touch of Mission Impossible intrigue.
Dinner within this wonderfully atmospheric room inside Hungary’s most distinguished learned society is a rare treat. But for passengers aboard Tauck’s luxury river vessel MS Joy it’s standard fare on a 12-day voyage from Budapest to Prague jam-packed with thoughtfully designed cultural excursions led by top-notch guides.
US-based Tauck was founded in 1925, and over the course of a century has cultivated a loyal following that’s become almost a club of like-minded travellers. And it’s a club that’s all about options. Day 8: Linz, Salzburg or Cesky Krumlov? And extras. An unexpected performance by two singers on the broad marble staircase of Budapest’s glorious gilt and fresco-daubed opera house. Dinner in a sumptuous palace in Vienna. A private tour of the stunning Baroque libraries in Prague’s Strahov Monastery.
All aboard the MS joy
Our cruise starts with two full days and nights in Budapest, providing a pleasing mix of guided tours and free time to explore this beautiful city. We visit Buda’s castle precinct, the paprika-doused market in a soaring Art Nouveau building, and the compelling underground museum chronicling the 1956 uprising (our guide Eszter’s father was jailed for five years, two in solitary confinement).
With our free time, Estzer suggests skipping the queues at the famous New York Cafe for a local favourite, the breathtakingly beautiful Parisi Udvar. A couple of blocks from the Daube, this early 19th-century landmark houses a Hyatt (locals call it the Hotel Parisian) and charming restaurant and cafe nestled beneath a soaring glass cupola.
Our sail away to Bratislava is after dark, with cocktails on the top deck, as MS Joy glides by Hungary’s vast neo-Gothic parliament building lit up like a Christmas tree. In suite 323, floor-to-ceiling sliding glass windows open directly on to the river, and although it’s late autumn the weather is remarkably mild – perfect for enjoying the unspooling river landscape from bed. A castle on a hill. A buzzcut of bare trees. A rival riverboat attempting a sneaky overtaking manoeuvre.
Lovely MS Joy is too elegant (and polite) to be bothered. With the feel of a scaled-down ocean liner, carrying a maximum 130 guests in 67 cabins, our riverboat may have an impressive marble-clad lobby, but public spaces elsewhere are cosy and clubby, thanks to an elegant fit-out and wonderful crew. In the Panorama Lounge, Nevio is on the piano late into the night, while head barman Milos seems to have a photographic memory for cocktail preferences.
At dinner in the pretty Compass Rose, the indefatigable Stefan is constantly popping out to retrieve a red to impress. And here he is again at breakfast rustling up my standard order of scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. When we don’t feel like a multi-course meal, we can opt for breakfast pastries or a burger or bowl of soup in all-day dining Arthur’s.
In ancient Bratislava, the lovely old town of cobbled streets and rumbling trams retains a whiff of the post-Soviet early ’90s. On cue, a tiny Soviet-era truck splutters and belches around the corner, emitting enough fumes to anesthetise half the city.
Coughing into our hankies, we set off to meet MS Joy’s excellent and very funny cruise director Petr in a typical beer tavern for a dinner of pork knuckles the size of footballs. Petr is Czech, making him the perfect chap to elucidate on the finer arts of the “tap master”, because beer is taken very seriously in Slovakia and the Czech Republic (Czechia). A trademark dispute around the name Budweiser has been rumbling on between Czech and US companies for more than a century. There are four styles of pour, explains Petr. The first is almost entirely foam, entirely flummoxing our riverboat’s handful of Aussie passengers.
Exploring central europe
This is the last scheduled cruise of the season, late October into early November, so there are fewer people thronging the streets of Vienna and only a handful in Mozart’s house-museum in Salzburg. The weather is changeable, from sunny days to fog and rain. My Maria von Trapp flit through Salzburg’s Mirabell Gardens is postponed due to a monsoonal deluge. All in all, a very small price to pay for a much less crowded Europe.
As we cruise towards the Austrian/German border (mostly at night, leaving days free for onshore touring), the landscape becomes hillier. This is the “pre-Alps”, explains tour director Ludmila. In the glorious UNESCO-listed Wachau Valley, the copper-burnished forest is broken here and there by a church spire or tiny vineyards terraced at irregular angles.
Approaching Durnstein, the medieval town’s powder-blue Baroque tower comes into view, rising through fog. At the tower’s feet, narrow streets are dotted with chocolatiers, little wine rooms and vendors selling apricot liqueur.
This late in the season, there are almost no day-trippers and I’m able to explore the abbey complex in peace, almost alone in the jewel box of a chapel where someone seems to have detonated a Baroque bomb, scattering gilded paintings and putti on to every surface. In thick fog, my husband and other history-buff passengers are scaling the rugged hill behind the village to explore castle ruins where Richard the Lionheart was held for ransom. After a rowdy wine-tasting, it’s all aboard for hot refresher towels and a hot toddy, then onward to Linz.
Optional guided activities
In most ports, guided bicycle tours are an option, the loveliest route follows the river for 30km from Engelhartszell to Passau. I elect to stay on board, rugged up on the top deck (where there’s a jacuzzi and putting green) drinking tea and reading Simon Winder’s Danubia, my constant companion on this voyage. It’s a funny, insightful history of the Hapsburgs and their enormous chins and the complex history of central Europe. In fact, one of the great pleasures of river cruising is having time to read.
With Danubia to hand, I’ve moved on from Cold War spies and am now imagining emissaries from Rome bearing the skeletons of catacomb saints over the mountains or ragtag armies endlessly pushing and rearranging boundaries of territories long since forgotten.
When I’m not reading, there’s plenty of on-board action, Slovakian dance troupes, lectures, cooking demonstrations and a little gym. In 323, where I’d happily hibernate all winter, we have a king bed, wall-mounted TV with loads of movies and cosy sofa. A walk-in wardrobe provides plenty of storage (and an iron and ironing board), there’s a mini-bar and coffee pod machine and generously sized bathroom kitted out with Molton Brown bath products. A shout-out to Taufik and Darko for their immaculate twice-daily housekeeping and extra turn-down chocolates.
The entire 135m-long riverboat is spacious, carrying 130 passengers, which is fewer than most vessels of comparable size and with more suites (22 in total).
And a Tauck cruise is properly all-inclusive, from lunch money in Salzburg so we can do our own thing (foot-long wieners with mustard and horseradish in the grand Hotel Sacher) to plucky tour directors Kamila, Ludmila and Sinead on hand to pay for entrance to the loo in Buda (and everywhere else). From lavish dinners in castles to the constant flourishing of cakes and tortes on board. From gratuities to wine and cocktails.
In Regensburg passengers board coaches to travel on to Prague where Tauck has two more days of splendid activities planned, with accommodation at Hyatt’s stylish Andaz. It’s easy to understand the brand’s high rate of repeat business – this is one club I’d happily join.
In the know
Tauck’s 12-day Blue Danube cruises run from Budapest to Prague and vice-versa through late April-June and August-October. Fares from $9840 a person, inclusive of gratuities, food and drinks, shore excursions and special events.
Christine McCabe was a guest of Tauck
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