Travel Log - Austria to Passau

The next couple days on our cruise was a little simpler - we had a morning stop in Krems, Austria which is one of my favorite places on this trip. A cute little village with tons of old world charm complete with beautiful old doors and flower boxes in the windows. Much slower and quieter here - we walked from one end of the city to the other stopping in little stores, eating gelato, and one fun find was a store front that sold apricot liquor, schnapps, filled chocolates, etc. The business has been family owned and operated for 5 generations and the day we visited was the first day of their apricot harvest for the season so everyone was busy. I wasn't sure how much room I'd have in my suitcase to bring some back so just bought a small bottle of apricot cream liquor and some chocolates - yum. (Yep, we got to taste everything before deciding - fun!). Then back on the boat to continue cruising towards Germany, it was a very scenic trip and I took a few pics from our veranda - I enjoyed the lazy afternoon cruising by the small villages and castles tucked up on the hills while the cruise director pointed out interesting sights along the way.  What a nice day. 

this cat peeking out the window box, awww.

walking into town we went thru a tunnel filled
with graffiti - and look what I found! No, I might be
crafty but I did not do this artwork haha!! 

I love this picture of Cathy... 

...and I love these doors too!

Krems

my lazy afternoon on the veranda

street sweeper in Krems, I've never seen this before!

view from our room

check out the castle on the hill in the background. I'm tellin' ya -
there's no shortage of old castles and churches in this part of the wor

Later that day there was an apple strudel demonstration - they pulled up a couple volunteers (I didn't get my hand up quick enough!) and we watched while the chefs helped them prepare the strudels. I'm including the recipe and a couple of pictures if you're interested in trying to make it - didn't look hard at all. The best tip I got from watching is they rolled the dough out right on top of a flour dusted white tablecloth, then after filling with apples they used the tablecloth to help roll the strudel up into it's shape and then roll onto the baking sheets - good idea.

this isn't the strudel they made on the ship, we had it in town though and since I didn't take a picture of
the finished product on the boat I figured I'd at least show you what it looked like (without the lattice
decoration on top!). 

rolling up the strudel using the tablecloth

brush with butter before baking

Dave is allergic to nuts so needed to be especially careful with his food choices this trip since it seems there are nuts in just about everything. So they gave him a small card at check in that he was supposed to bring to all on-board meals to remind the waitstaff of his allergy. (Naturally he didn't carry the card and made me do it for him) Anyway, they would show him the menu everyday and talk about what he could and couldn't have and then usually made him a special dessert that was nut free. So after the strudel demonstration everyone was invited up to try a piece and Dave walks in from outside (he didn't watch the demo) and goes up to get a piece and the head waiter swoops in and takes it from him saying "no no that has nuts, you can't have it" and basically slapped his hand - HA! He was so bummed I said I'd make it for him without nuts so he can at least try it at home.