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<\/a><\/p>\nBy: Lisa Troute, OLLI Advisory Board Member<\/p>\n
Imagine floating down the beautiful Danube River on a riverboat, exploring history along the way!\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s exactly what 32 friends and family of OLLI did from June 26-July 9, 2019. These lucky people sailed with Dr. Jeffrey Morton on a fabulous excursion through the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary. \u00a0(Some OLLI members also took pre or post excursion trips to Germany, Poland, or Budapest.)\u00a0 \u00a0What a grand experience it was, as the food, the service, the tour guides, and the scenery were all superlative\u2014and punctuated with amazing lectures from Dr. Morton who provided the background and history of the storied places we were seeing!<\/p>\n
<\/a>Lisa Troute and the OLLI’s tour guide, Zsanett (Jeanette)<\/p><\/div>\n
Dr. Morton\u2019s five excellent lectures, distributed throughout the cruise, took us from the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg reign, WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and finally to the political and economic status of the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary.\u00a0\u00a0These lectures were especially meaningful since we were visiting the places he talked about.<\/p>\n
In Prague we visited Stare Mesto<\/em> (Old Town), the fabulous Charles Bridge with historic statues on each side, and a castle. In a Prague garden, we heard from a local professor who told about his personal experiences during the communist takeover, and the events surrounding the fall of the Iron Curtain.\u00a0 History truly came alive!<\/p>\n From Prague, we took a bus to Cesky Krumlov<\/em>\u2014a well preserved medieval town and UNESCO World Heritage Site.\u00a0 We visited Mauthausen<\/em>, one of the Nazi\u2019s first large-scale concentration camps\u2014and the last to be liberated.\u00a0 It was sobering to see the barracks, the gas chambers, \u00a0the\u00a0crematorium and\u00a0the 180,000+ names of those who had perished there.<\/p>\n Durnstein in the Wachau Valley of the Danube<\/p><\/div>\n Floating through the Wachau Valley, we admired the stunningly beautiful landscape of sculpted hills, vineyards and medieval towns on both sides of the Danube that comprise this UNESCO World Heritage Site. A stop at Krems included a visit to Gottweig Abbey,<\/em> a still-active monastery that has been sitting on a hilltop overlooking the unspoiled Wachau Valley since 1072.\u00a0\u00a0 Another stop was at Durnstein, a charming little town with cobbled streets and a distinctive blue church, and then it was on to a winery.\u00a0 Winzer Krems<\/em> is part of a wine cooperative of all the wine growers in the region.\u00a0\u00a0And of course we tasted the wines while learning about the area\u2019s wine heritage.<\/p>\n Vienna was our next stop, boasting 1,000 years of Jewish cultural history\u2014including a period in the 18th century, when more Jews lived there than anywhere else in the world. The city has seven synagogues (among them Europe\u2019s oldest), a Jewish Museum and an Old Jewish Cemetery where the stones are practically atop one another.<\/p>\n OLLI members: Donna Adair, Lois Steinberg, Marcia Halpern, Lisa Troute (seated)<\/p><\/div>\n While walking past the Imperial Palace, home to many generations of the Habsburg family, we saw Lipizzaner horses from the famed Spanish Riding School trotting around one of the castle\u2019s courtyards.<\/p>\n But what is Vienna without music?\u00a0 One evening we went to\u00a0Kursalen Vien<\/em>,\u00a0a palace built in 1865, and thrilled to the music of Strauss and Mozart. \u00a0Vienna has many palaces, and we toured the expansive summer estate of Habsburg royalty, Schoenbrunn Palace<\/em> (whose name means \u201cbeautiful spring\u201d). It features 1,400 rooms, meticulously maintained gardens, and an architectural legacy that stretches back to the 17th century.\u00a0 It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.<\/p>\n \u201cMan at Work\u201d \u2014the most famous statue in Bratislava<\/p><\/div>\n Bratislava,\u00a0Slovakia\u2019s capital, known for its picturesque setting at the foot of the Little Carpathian Mountains, is the smallest of the four capitals we visited. It was once the seat of power of neighboring Hungary.\u00a0 One evening we broke into small groups and joined local Slovakian families for dinner in their homes.\u00a0 This interpersonal connection allowed us to glimpse everyday life along the Danube.<\/p>\n The Grand Circle Foundation usually includes school visits in its tours, but because it was summer vacation, a teacher came on board to talk about the educational system She explained the exams that were necessary to graduate from high school, and the exams needed to get into a university, which is free to those who qualify.<\/p>\n Another interesting opportunity was riding a communist era bus, which took us to the border between Slovakia and Austria.\u00a0\u00a0Two parallel roads ran side by side, about 10 feet apart with a no-man\u2019s line of grass or low bushes in between.\u00a0\u00a0Many died trying to bridge those few yards.\u00a0\u00a0Today, there is only grass and some bushes between the two borders (roads). Until 1991, it might have felt as if there were hundreds of miles between the two roads as people looked across at each other with guns drawn.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a>