Delightful Danube

This excursion has it all! Join us and experience the sights, sounds and flavors of Vienna. Begin the tour with a walk to the iconic and colorful Hundertwasser House before enjoying a walking tour around Burgtheater, the Hofburg, the Habsburg Winter Palace and Vienna Old Town. Replenish with a rest and a bite of delicious Vienna sausages, famous canapes or delightful sweets from Vienna’s best confectionary, Altmann & Kühne. The outing continues with a taste of Viennese white wine, traditional dark bread, and local meats and cheeses before you board the bus to Prater Park, home to the best view of the city thanks to the Ferris Wheel. This is an excursion sure to leave your senses delighted.

You’re invited to a private reception at Artstetten Castle with a member of Habsburg royalty—a direct descendent of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. As a pivotal part of world history, Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in Sarajevo triggered WWI. The seven-towered castle, parts of which date back to the 13th-century, remains the private property of the Hohenberg family. It is the final resting place of the archduke and his wife, who are entombed in the family crypt, which you may explore. A museum within the castle walls is dedicated to Franz Ferdinand; you might be surprised to discover that the archduke, a stern military man if one judges him by his portrait, renounced his descendants’ claim to the Habsburg throne in order to marry for love.

Set off on an invigorating bike ride from Engelhartszell to Passau, led by an experienced professional bike guide. Wind your way through the lovely countryside, along the Danube’s right side, upstream into the picturesque Danube Valley. These particular landscapes are some of the most beautiful in all of Europe—characterized by expansive vineyards, tree-lined slopes, and castle-dotted hillsides—and seamlessly blend the region’s cultural, historical and natural components together. Make a pit stop halfway at an Austrian beer garden, where you can savor your choice of regional beer. Pedal onwards toward Passau, past more charming villages, meadows and orchards, rounding out your trip in Passau’s Old Town.

The skyline of Passau is dominated by two buildings that owe their existence to the prince-bishops who ruled the city until 1803: the great fortress looming on a hill above the three rivers, home to the bishops until the 17th century, and the green onion domes of St. Stephan’s Cathedral. As you walk through the cobblestone streets toward those green onion domes, you’ll realize that Passau retains the layout of the medieval town. However, many of the wooden medieval buildings burned to the ground in the 17th century, and the prince-bishops imported Italian artists to build a new cathedral and a magnificent new residence for the bishops themselves. As a result, these splendid structures flaunt Italian baroque and rococo style and ornamentation, complete with opulent gilding and wonderful frescoes. Your guide will introduce you to some of the architectural highlights—the rococo stairways of the New Residence; the cathedral; and the Town Hall, which boasts a magnificent atrium adorned by large paintings by Ferdinand Wagner—and make sure you get a close-up view of the point where the three rivers meet.

Put on your hiking boots, grab a windbreaker and a bottle of water, and head out with a local hiking guide and nature expert to explore the banks of the Ilz River. This small but rushing tributary of the Danube originates deep in the Bavarian Forest, near the Czech border, and is just 40 miles (65 kilometers) long. Its upper stretch is a premier whitewater rafting location, but you’ll be hiking along the lower, serene end of the river. Your starting point is Hals-Hochstein, where you’ll pick up a nature trail that follows a curve of the river and then climbs a steep hill, where you have a great view of the river and woodlands. You will cross the river repeatedly, once by way of a dam and again toward the end of your four-mile (6.5-kilometer) hike, as you loop back to the Hals.

Begin this three-hour excursion with a visit to the city center of Regensburg’s Old Town, which has much to offer including the Porta Praetoria Roman ruins, the Old Stone Bridge, St. Peter’s Cathedral, medieval patrician towers and the former Jewish Quarter among many other sights. Next, take a short walk to the Princely House of Thurn and Taxis. The family estate is difficult to miss: at over 1,000 years old, the mansion boasts over 500 rooms complete with chandeliers, gold leafing, incredible art and architectural touches to make it truly a sight to behold. The palace has an incredible history and stands as a tale of revival, endurance and baroque style.  What’s even more spectacular? The palace has a long list of celebrities who have stayed within its walls: Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Steve Martin, Plácido Domingo and more. These walls may not be able to talk, but if they could they would surely say, “Come see us for yourself!”

Here is your opportunity to see German engineering, famous the world over, in operation as you tour the state-of-the-art BMW factory on the outskirts of Regensburg. About a thousand cars a day roll off the assembly line here, many of them in the BMW 3 series. You’ll see various stages of the process, from rolls of sheet metal being stamped out into body parts to watching elements of the car being robotically assembled. Follow an already assembled car into the finishing department to see it painted, polished and have the final touch applied—the BMW roundel.

Note: For safety reasons, BMW does not allow those with pacemakers or insulin pumps to participate in factory tours. The plant is closed on Sundays and holidays, so no visit is possible if the tour lands on those days.

NOTE: If the tour lands on a day when the BMW factory is closed, we will visit the Museum of Historical Maybach Vehicles instead.

Hitler considered Nuremberg the perfect expression of German culture (partly because of its significance in the Holy Roman Empire, which he called the First Reich), and so beginning in 1927, he chose to hold his massive rallies in the city. By 1933, his favorite architect, Albert Speer, had designed the vast Nazi Party Rally Grounds, where thousands upon thousands of Nazi troops saluted Hitler. (Leni Riefenstahl captured these events in her famous propaganda film Triumph of the Will.) Not all of Speer’s plans were executed, and some of his grandiose structures were bombed out of existence, but the remainder stand as vivid testimony to Hitler’s megalomania. A four-square-mile (10-square-kilometer) complex known as Zeppelin Fields contains parade grounds and a huge grandstand, the excavation site where a stadium for 400,000 people was begun—the hole is now filled with water.

NOTE: The permanent exhibition at the Documentation Center will be closed until the fall of 2023. In its place, a special temporary exhibition may be available.

NOTE: Lunch will be on your own today.