If you think you saw this already, you might have. It accidentally posted a few days ago and I pulled it back until today.

From The Sound of Music’s “How do you solve a problem like Maria?”

There I was, cruising down the Danube watching The Sound of Music in my cabin on TV–talk about peak experiences.  Describing our trip is rather like trying to hold a moonbeam in my hand–just like all of the best experiences in life, it’s elusive and hard to hold on to.   If you’ve been reading along as I described the festive markets and other events on my trip, I hope you think I did justice to Hungary, Austria and Germany. They certainly did themselves justice, as we can’t wait to go back. I can foresee actually having Christmas one day in one of the beautiful countries we visited.  This will be the last Christmas-themed post from the trip, but I will share a few other cool parts of our trip in the future.

Holding a moonbeam is nearly impossible, but looking at photographs brings back beautiful memories.  So come along while I share some final images from our Christmas market cruise down the Danube River.

A huge Advent wreath in Passau. We’ve decided to keep the tradition next year, but not quite so large.

I’m pretty sure this was outside City Hall, where apparently, neither officials nor the burghers seem to have a problem with religious symbols.  We saw numerous Advent wreaths on our trip, but this was the biggest.
Fish market street.  There was also a Jesuit street. And so many other vividly named alleys.

Beautiful old ironwork. I never have had the knack of working those old keys, but was forced to learn when I rented an old apartment in Rome a decade ago. It was traumatic.

Snowflakes in a window.

We enjoyed this, because….

Not. Snow.

This was the only white stuff we saw on our entire trip.

Cruising down the Danube.

The river has a thousand faces.  This was one of them.

Cute little Fiat.

I just liked it. So I took a photo.

In Budapest.

We saw fewer buildings like this one than I’d expected. But I loved them.

Another face of the Danube as we cruised.

The light changed all the time. This day the sun burnished everything with gold.

Lit candles at a Christmas market in Vienna.

I loved these votives.

Sunrise on our way to Regensburg.

Early risers like me sometimes get the prize and on this day, I surely did.

Crochet work in Budapest.

My grandmother crocheted all the time and I still have some of her handiwork.

The narrow alleys in Germany were less cluttered than those i saw in Sicily.

So quiet. Peaceful.

A fountain of chocolate in the Simon bakery in Passau.

Smooth, silky, sweet stuff.

Cruising along the Danube

I love the reflection in this photograph.

Castle ruins on a hill, as we cruised by.

History around every bend.

Pulling back on the castle gives yet another beautiful view.

Lovely, isn’t it?

More. They say to always leave readers wanting more, and so there will be more…