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.