Budapest

Entering Budapest

I'm a day late writing this because we had a very full day yesterday.  Our cruise director arranged with the captain for us to not sail into Budapest until after 8AM.  That allowed us to finish breakfast then go up on the sun deck to see the port for the first time while she gave a commentary.  Originally we had not planned to go off on the included city tour in the morning, but once I saw this magnificent city, I decided I would regret it if I didn't.  I caught Ray off guard and he wasn't ready to leave the ship by the 8:45AM bus departure time, so I went on my own. 

Heroes Square

The bus took us on a ride around the city, while the guide pointed out various buildings and monuments and told us a little about her city.  Most of the tour was on the bus, but after about an hour the bus brought us to some stairs leading to St Matthias Church up on the hill.  It was only one flight of stairs and then a gentle walk along a cobblestone path overlooking the city, with the Danube on our left. 

St Mathias Church

We couldn't go inside the church, but we got to take photos of the city from this great vantage point and browse in the shops around the square.  After taking my fill of photos and deciding which direction to go in, I spotted  special treat.  Two men came walking into the square in medieval attire and carrying 2 birds on their leather-gloved hands.  One was a falcon and the other was a hawk.  I followed them until they settled in a central spot on the square and watched the hawk put on a show of it's powerful wings.

Hawk near St Mathias Church

After the bus dropped us back at the ship I found Ray and we had a quick lunch with our friends.  He had taken a walk off the ship while I was gone to see if any of the buildings along the shore contained the hotel we are booked in after eaving the ship.   He didn't find it, but he did figure out where it was later.  It's not far.  Next we headed off on the afternoon tour with our Australian friends.  This was to an artists' community called "Szentendre." 

Inside Serbian Orthodox Church

We walked the length of the town as the guide explained some of the products being offered in the shops, then visited the museum of Margit Kovacs' ceramic art and a Serbian Orthodox church.  We couldn't take photos in the art museum, but I have included a link.

When we left the church the weather turned bad.  It was raining and a very strong wind was blowing through the streets.  We worked our way back towards the bus, along with a couple of friends, stopping for hot (I should say warm) chocolate and to browse in a few shops on the way back.  The wind got pretty vicious,  tearing loose a metal gate and downing several trees along the river.  We have been very lucky with the weather on this trip, so I guess this afternoon evened things out a little.


After dinner, we headed back out on the third and final tour - Budapest's Night Lights.  The buses took us to 3 vantage points around the city to see the lovely city lights.

Budapest Parliament At Night

Of course we were exhausted by the time we hit the bed and fell immediately to sleep.  This morning we had to disembark, but we arranged for the taxi to take us to our hotel at 9:30AM, giving us a little time for breakfast, goodbyes, and to finish packing.

I'll talk about that in the next installment.