An update from James and Wendy
Dear Fellow Rotarians
Wendy and I are nearly half way through our three week river cruise holiday with Travel Marvel Cruises. After a long nearly 24 hour flight from Melbourne, via Singapore and Frankfurt we finally landed at Prague where we spent three wonderful days exploring the city. Prague is really a beautiful city like most European cities that we have visited in the past and in our current holiday. The thing we remember most is that Prague is a city dissected by a river that is a branch of the Danube with 20 bridges some of them with a lot of history. The old city and the new city of Prague are quite distinct as well.
On the third day of our visit we travelled by air conditioned coach to Budapest, two cities separated by the Danube. During our visit to both countries of the Czech Republic and Hungary, we learned that both Hungary and what was then known as Czechoslovakia were both part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire ruled by the Hapsburg Dynasty of Austria for nearly 600 years until after the World War I. Once again we thoroughly enjoyed Budapest with its Baroque architecture buildings, wide avenues and history.
From Budapest we sailed upriver to Austria along the Danube. The scenery is simply stunning with small Austrian villages located along the Danube. The ship docked at one of the villages named Durnstein where we were given the opportunity the explore the tiny village for a couple of hours. On the third day of our holiday Wendy had a gout attack on her left foot and as a result I had to wheel chair her around. It is no fun pushing a wheel chair on most European cobblestone streets uphill but the downhill part was fun and easy. Wendy still has a very painful left foot and has been taking painkilling tablets and hopefully in a few days the gout swelling on her left foot will subside and we can enjoy the rest of our river cruise.
We spent two days in Vienna and spent one day touring the city centre with me pushing Wendy on her wheel chair. Europe is at the moment enjoying the peak tourist summer season. The day time temperature can be quite warm except when it rains and there are literally thousands of tourists everywhere we went. In fact quite a lot of tourists are from Mainland China as we understand the Mandarin the speak. Once again we cannot say we were disappointed with Vienna either with its beautiful churches that were built so many hundreds of years ago as well as its Jewish Museums and beautiful parks. Due to Wendy's gout on her left foot we opted to stay on the ship on the second day of our stay in Vienna.
Currently we sailing upstream towards Germany towards a town called Passau. At some stage we will be reaching the highest lock from which we will not be sailing upstream but instead downstream. As you all will know the Danube empties not only into the Black Sea in the east but also into the North Sea in the west. Therefore at some point we will start to sail downstream towards Amsterdam. We are told altogether we have to pass through 68 locks before we arrive at Amsterdam.
The River Boat we are sailing on is not very big unlike some of the ocean liners that Wendy and I have sailed on in the past. There are only about 200 passengers and most of whom are Aussies with some Kiwis and a sprinkling number of Poms. So Wendy and I feel quite at home. The service is superb and the Cruise Director is English and does a wonderful job to keep us all happy. I would say that 90% of all the passengers are retired in their 70s and 80s. We have yet to meet anyone that is less than 70 years of age. So therefore it looks like river cruising is not for those young or even middle aged people and certainly no children as they will die of boredom, compared to ocean liner cruises where we have seen young and not so young passengers including children. In fact the ocean liner cruises we have been have special daily programs for children and teenagers as well.
Well that will be all for the time being. We will try to send another email when we arrive in Paris where we will spend another 4 days and then fly to Vietnam for 7 days before we arrive home on 22 July 2015.
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Pres. Bruce with RI Pres. Ravi
Our much loved exchange student Carina left at 6.00pm on Saturday 4 July. She was farewelled by a selection of her host families and counselors Judith and Peter. Carina's adopted sister and brother (Peters grandkids) were there too. 
Carina and friend having brekky in Dubai!!
