European Vacation - Part XV

This is the absolutely last post with this title!

I have other photos but they will have other titles when I post them.

A brief synopsis: June 1st we flew to Helsinki, Finland arriving June 2nd.  We spent three nights there then flew to Budapest, Hungary on the 5th and connected with an AmaWaterways river cruise on Monday the 6th.  The river cruise had stops in Bratislava, Vienna, Durnstein, Linz, Passau, and ended in Vilshofen. (Countries: Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Germany with a side trip to Czech Republic by bus.)  

Once we disembarked we took a train to Munich, stowed our luggage at the train station and walked around the Marienplatz.  We caught a westbound train to Kaufering, 1/2 hour away, where we had rented a cottage for three nights. We headed home on June 16th.

Here are photos from Munich and Landsberg, a nearby historic town.

First, where we stayed.  The taxi from the Kaufering Station had trouble finding this small side street.

The cottage is there on the right.

Read more about the cottage here: Kaufering Cottage.

This is the lovely Lech River.

Dan and I walked to Landsberg on our last full day in Germany.  It was reminiscent of our walking tour of the Cotswolds in 2014.  It was over an hour walk on a beautiful day.  We took the train back to Kaufering, 10 minute trip, and then the bus to the stop closest to the cottage.  Nice not to depend upon a car.

Landsberg was a beautiful historic town and unlike the towns we had visited on our cruise, it was not jam packed full of tourists.

So by the time we got to Munich I was almost tired of taking photos.  Here are just a few from the center of town.

 There was a big display against slaughtering pigs in the Marienplatz.  This is the sausage capital?

We were not dissuaded and had our sausage for lunch.

A wonderful trip.  

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European Vacation -Part XIV

I think I took too many photos on our European vacation.  I know poor readers you are tired of seeing them by now.  I'll try to collapse the remaining towns we visited into two or three more posts.

Durnstein, Austria
This small picturesque medieval town was over run with riverboat tourists the day we were there.  Luckily we had opted for the hike to the Durnstein Fortress (Kuenringer Castle ruins) above the town.

The town is situated in the Wachau Valley known for its vineyards,

The ruins above the town once housed Richard the Lionheart, King of England.  He was captured returning from the Third Crusade in 1192 and held for ransom.  The ransom paid helped fund some of the spectacular buildings in Vienna and Budapest (if I remember correctly).

Traveling again on the Danube we came to Linz.  I'll save photos from there for another time.  From Linz we took a bus trip to Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic.

This town boasts Bohemia's second largest castle.  The old part of town retains its historic charm.

Our first stop in Germany was Passau.

We loved the color of the buildings here,

and the narrow streets.

This plaque let us know how old this town was.

This one spoke to the dangers of living on a river with the flood heights marked on this wall.

The riverboat part of our trip ended in Vilshofen, Germany where we took the train to Munich and then to Kaufering where we had rented a cottage on Air BnB for three nights.