May 24 2024 Bratislava Slovakia

Bratislava Slovakia

May 24, 2024

Today the ship was cruising up the Danube from Budapest to Venice.  Last night we left late because of a mechanical problem with the ship. Everyone thought that the problem had been fixed.  However this morning we were not traveling very fast and by 11:00 it was pretty apparent to everyone that we were not going to make Vienna by 7:00 PM.  Then there was an announcement that there was to be a meeting in the lounge and everyone was suppose to attend.  At the meeting we were told that the ship was going to put in at Bratislava which is only about half way to Vienna.  Viking repair experts were going to met the ship there and would have the necessary parts to repair the ship.  Well hopefully (not exact words).

Today we cruised through the second largest lock on the Danube. It was construction originally started back in 1977 but was not finished by the fall of the Communist governments in 1989.  So construction was further delayed and was not finished until the early 2000's.  It is a really interesting lock as it is really huge and must have close to a 75 foot lift.  The down stream lock gates are the standard barn door gates which swing closed. However the upstream lock gate is a round gate which swings down under water when the lock is flooded. The overall time in the lock was no more than 30 minutes so it was really quite speedy.

As we cruised the lake on the upstream side of the lock there were the dykes which contain the lake.  These are the dykes which Jim and I cycled when we did the Paris to Istanbul ride back in 2008.  Further along the lake was a large area of water which was out side of the shipping channel.  There were literally thousands of white swans on the lake.  The long lens of the camera was able to catch a few pictures of these beautiful birds.  

An update on the ship.  We limped into Bratislava and docked on the opposite side of the river so no walking tour of the city.  The Viking specialists met us on the dock and have been working on the ship for the last 2.5 hours.  There is a ton of speculation amongst the passengers as to what is going to happen. I really hope that they are able to get the ship repaired and under way.  I am going to be really disappointed if this turns into a bus tour.  

Terry