Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia off Canada’s Pacific coast, is a beautiful city on the southern edge of Vancouver Island. Butchart Gardens, also on Vancouver Island, is in nearby Brentwood Bay. The early spring is a perfect time to visit both. Flowers are blooming, the weather is still cool, but the surge of tourists haven't arrived yet.

After leaving Vienna, we headed west on the Danube to our final three destinations. Well known for its production of apricots and grapes, the Wachau Valley has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage landscape. Then to the Bavarian city of Passau on the border of Germany and Austria, resting at the confluence of the Inn, Ilz, and Danube rivers. Founded by the Celts more than 2000 years ago, over time the city gained great economic and political power due to its location. A final day would be spent in the medieval center of the Bavarian city of Regensburg declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006 due to its well-preserved architecture and historical importance.

After leaving Budapest, our next stop would be Vienna. With a number of locks to pass through on the Danube River, the Viking Egil longship needed to get an early start from Budapest and sail through the night, as it wouldn’t be until the next day when we arrived for two days in Vienna. We arrived in Vienna the next morning, October 31. We left the longship after breakfast for a tour of the historic Innere Stadt (Inner Town) inside Vienna’s famed 5.3 km circular grand boulevard, the Ringstrasse.

Thomas Lennox, my father, was a member of the “greatest generation” receiving a Purple Heart for injuries he received in action at Iwo Jima during World War II. Growing up, we knew this basic fact, but had very little knowledge beyond that concerning his service or what actually transpired on that fateful day, February 17, 1945. Like many combat veterans, he didn’t talk much about his war experience. These are things, as his children, we had always wanted to know and understand. This is his story and that of the LCI(G) Gunboats at the Battle of Iwo Jima.

In late October, early November, 2022, my wife and I took a Viking river cruise down the Danube River from Budapest, Hungary to Regensburg, Germany. We figured a river cruise from Budapest with stops in Vienna, Krems, and Passau, Austria ending in Regensburg, Germany was a good introduction to a part of the world we had little experience with. We had planned to extend our trip with additional stays in Budapest and Prague. We began with a two day stay in Budapest.