Nomads a drift

After leaving the lights of Budapest the boat motored its way through the night as we slept peacefully.  The morning adventure was going through one of the 60+ locks on the river.  The boat hugged one side of the locks cement walls as water raised it to the next level of the river.   Kevin was thrilled to enter the wheel house for an overview of the pilots instruments.  There was no wheel in the wheel house.  We also learned that the vessel has eight propellers powered by electric motors.  The motors get their power from 4 generators with a fifth one on standby for emergencies .  The vessel is controlled by joy sticks.  The captain spends a great deal navigating via instruments and the chart plotter rather than looking out the windows.  In Europe the vessels navigate with green on the right vs red.  In the USA most navigation follows the rule of "Red Right Return from a larger body of water".   To see the layout and instr...

We ate breakfast as we watched our bags being loaded in a large bus for an 8 hour trip to where the boat sat in waiting.  It was a smooth ride as the roads were in good shape.  They must invest in infrastructure! We left the Czech Rep., crossed thru a bit of Slovakia then entered Hungry.  There were 2 stops, one brief bio break with free toilets and one lunch stop where you paid 1Euro, but got it back as a credit when you purchased lunch.  Theresa had a very hearty goulash (beef stew) and Kevin tried some salad items that did not taste as he expected.  We arrived at the port in Budapest at about 4pm local time. Viking and other long river boats lined the shore and we were given permission to board the Magni and check in.  Our room was very nice and even had a small balcony fairly close to the waterline.  We unpacked our 2 suitcases each in short order for our 15 day journey on board. The next priority was a tour of the boat.  There were 4 decks...

It seemed like a long and bumpy ride from the Airport to the Art Nuevo Palace Hotel in the heart of Prague.  The roads had hairpin turns like a steep hiking trail decent. As we entered the congestion of the city the streets narrowed and had to be shared with street cars as well as pedestrians, bicyclist, and parked cars.  On occasion the buss would pause long enough to let a trolly car pass and then drift onto the tracks in an effort to navigate around the many obstructions. Once in the hotel the Viking coordinator gathered us to an orientation meeting. He explained about the Covid protocols including that only KN95 masks, not the paper surgical, or cloth masks were required at all times indoors. Then he handed out envelops with details of the Prague schedule and another envelop with the vile for our Covid saliva test for the next morning.  We were then released to check in to our room and figure out where to go for Dinner. The Viking host recommended a restaurant 1 block...

Kevin and I sat at the kitchen table on the morning of our flight with several outstanding questions that left us uneasy about a smooth departure. Our initial check in to our United flights required not only our passport info but several documents uploaded: our negative CO VID test within the 72 hour prior as well as a Czech passenger locator form(all completed per Viking Know before you go infopage). Our status was (yellow)pending and we had no boarding passes. We called the Viking travel hotline and spoke to Jarvis. He thought we also needed a German passenger locator form since we landed in Munich, for a transfer to Prague. He took down our questions and contact number and said he would call back once he got info from the airlines(United and partner Lufthansa). To our surprise he did call back with exactly what we needed. He informed us that once the RDU airline agent sees our documents (negative COVID test and Czech locator form, already uploaded) they can get us our boardin...