The Danube Waltz Begins

Today we boarded the boat, MS My Story, for our next bike tour. We were not scheduled to board until around 5 pm so we had to store our bags at the hotel until then. We had also arranged with the hotel to store one of our bags long term as we are returning there for one night when we are finished our bike tour. This will certainly give us more room in the cabin as the storage is limited. We took a walk down to the harbour beforehand to see where the boat was docked -- to determine how far and the best route to walk with the bags. The boat was quite far down from the hotel and the streets are mostly cobblestone which makes it tricky pulling wheeled luggage. As we walked back along a different path we discovered a much shorter route with smoother walkways. Sometimes it pays to scout things out! The My Story is a very nice vessel. It is more than 3 times the size of the Kapetan Jure (our Croatian sailing ship) and there are 87 cabins aboard (compared to 15 in Croatia). So, there are a lot of people on board here (130), but the good thing is the biking is self-guided so we are on our own with a map. That will make it much easier rather than trying to manoeuvre in such a large group. The boat is quite nice, actually. There are winding staircases to the upper decks with first a sundeck, then bar area and dining room, then main reception and main deck rooms, then hauptdeck rooms below. Again we are below but it is much nicer than Croatia - big windows and roomier. There is one single day bed against the wall and then a single Murphy bed which housekeeping pulls out for you at night and they make up the beds. They also remake the room in the mornings while we bike. At first it seemed everyone coming aboard was speaking German and we wondered if there would be many English speakers. As it turned out we already met some very nice people who we chatted with before dinner. We were seated for dinner with another couple from Wisconsin and we will share our assigned dinner table with them for the week. They are a very lovely couple (Alan and Susan). They live in Madison, were originally from the San Francisco Bay area and have been on 5 other bike/boat tours previously. They are well-travelled and got married 1 ½ years ago at Lake Louise in June and couldn’t believe the lakes were still frozen! Alan has an interested career past (although he is now retired). He was formerly the press secretary for Governor Reagan in California as well as one of his front men during his term in the White House. Can't wait to hear more about his career experiences -- interesting man! We had a choice of three menus for dinner - a typical German roasted beef with horseradish sauce, a fried lake trout or a vegetarian pasta dish. Richard had the trout and I opted for the beef. Both very delicious but filling. Great big salad bar before that plus a soup was served. Dessert was a chocolate banana mousse with fruit sauce -- couldn’t finish that! Looks like this is going to be another week of gluttony!! We have to be up early tomorrow to get our bikes assigned and get on our first biking along the Danube pathway. We have to take two small ferries to cross over the Danube in two spots on our route so that will be fun. We left Germany today and will wake up in Austria tomorrow to begin our cycling. As a point of interest, we will be going through 22 locks on our return voyage to Budapest. Wunderbar!