Budapest Tour

We were up with the lark to take a guided tour of Budapest by bus. The tour began at 8:00am, so we needed to be up early and breakfasted in time to leave. The ship would be departing Budapest once we were aboard our coach, and we would rendezvous with it further upstream.

The first part of the tour was being driven about various sites in Budapest, and being told about them by our tour guide, Annamarie. This was interesting, but covered some of the ground that we’d seen yesterday, and also it was difficult to take photos from the bus; even though it slowed down and in one place went round the roundabout twice. We stopped to visit the oldest church in Budapest, the church of the blessed virgin Mary, which contains many historical relics. We walked to the central square, and decided that we’d go for a cup of tea at the historic Gerbeaud Café. This turned out to be a mistake, as their service was…historically bad. Tea-less, we rejoined the coach and went to look at the Heroes’ Square instead.

Parliament buildings (seen from across the river)

The Old Palace

The oldest church in Budapest

The scene of the crime...there was no tea

The Heroes’ square contains statuary of the heroes of Hungary. These include the seven chieftains of the Magyars, other important national leaders, and the Memorial Stone of Heroes, which covers all other heroes not previously mentioned. Atop the column is the archangel Gabriel, for reasons that weren’t made entirely clear. Other statues include personifications of Labour, Wealth, War, Peace, Knowledge and Glory. 

Across from the square is the city park, which contains several museums – we viewed them from the outside, including the Vajdahunyad Castle, a copy of Corvin Castle in Romania (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), and built for the Millennial exhibition celebrating Hungary’s 1,000 anniversary. (Hungary as a nation formally started with three events: send for German missionaries, to convert the population to christianity; marry a Bavarian princess; and the bestowal of a crown by the pope. That’s what you needed to start a new country in olden times.) It also sports a memorial to Bela Lugosi on the outside. 

Bela Lugosi's dead

Other sites in the park include the Museum of Ethnography, or folk art; the changing rooms for the Széchenyi Medicinal Baths and Swimming Pool; the museum of music; and the artificial lake, which is liquid in summer but freezes over in winter to become an ice rink.

 We could have spent a lot longer there, but we were shepherded back onto the bus for what turned out to be an interminable ride to the next destination, Esztergom. We arrived there at about 1:45, and stopped to take some pictures of the catholic church there, the largest in Hungary. Unfortunately our guide wasn’t clear on how long we were getting out here, and although we made it back to the bus, one couple seemed to have got the wrong idea and couldn’t be found. See “the dangers of wandering off” for further details. Eventually the guide decided to abandon them to their fate, and we made the short journey down to the quay and reboarded the ship for a late, and very welcome, lunch.

The rest of the day involves scenic cruising along the Danube. Tonight there’s more drinks and live music from onboard musician Titi, and a toast from captain  Jaroslav.

Tomorrow, Vienna. This means nothing to me.

 

Budapest

You take your life in your hands when you travel on Ryanair. When we arrived at Bordeaux airport, the flight was already listed as delayed. We got through security, and were waiting patiently for the flight to be called. Of course there was no-one to ask – the staff hide until the last minute to avoid having to talk to their customers – but eventually they opened up the gate for “priority boarding”. Ryanair use a boarding method which is similar to corralling cattle: they get everyone checked through the gate before they actually start boarding the plane, and you're put into a holding pen during the meanwhile. Priority boarding simply seems to mean you’ll find a seat in the holding pen whilst you’re waiting. We saw our plane land, people get off, then we were finally able to board. As we’d paid for additional luggage and legroom we were in the exit row again, and were briefed on what to do in the event of an emergency.

The flight is 2½ hours, so it was midnight by the time we landed. As Hungary is a Schengen state there was no passport control and we went through to collect our bags, and get a taxi to the hotel, arriving a little before 1am. The Airport Hotel Budapest has seen better days, and the décor was a bit dated, but it was functional, had a good shower, and breakfast was included. They called a taxi for us when we were ready and we headed into central Budapest to find our ship. The taxi driver didn’t know exactly where to find it – it was somewhere near Erzsébet híd (Elisabeth Bridge for you non-magyars), and I spotted a Viking logo so we stopped immediately. There was a woman with a Viking clipboard standing by a bus so we quickly asked her the way and she directed us down onto the quay. There are in fact three Viking ships parked side-by-side, so we had to go through one to the middle ship. Our stateroom wasn’t ready so we left our luggage and sat in the lounge. Around midday we were shown to our room, then we headed back upstairs to get some lunch – tuna tataki salad.

After lunch we decided which optional tours we’d be taking over the next week in each stop. A Walking tour of the city is included in the price, but additional tours are extra. We decided to take the afternoon walking tour to the farmer’s market, because it closes at 3pm and this would be the only opportunity to see it as it doesn’t open on Sundays. Our guide left us there, and we wandered the shopping streets for a bit and admired the buildings and general architecture as we made a leisurely way back to our ship.

Inside the farmer's market

Outside the farmer's market

Architecture

 

Later tonight there’s cheese and wine, drinks in the lounge with lounge music, then dinner. We’d met the piano player earlier and asked if he had any Duran Duran. He laughed, but if we don’t start asking for DD now, they’ll never know that that’s what we* want to hear!

 

* OK, I.