OK, I gotta tell ya that the posts from the cruise are going to be pretty photo heavy so ya’ll can see all the cool stuff we saw. Todays post will cover our tour on the bus and walking around Vienna, the transit to Vienna, and the morning tour in Vienna…then next time we’ll do the Schönbrunn Palace that we toured in the afternoon and then the Mozart/Strauss concert we attended in the evening.
Around the home front…it’s still summer and thus still hot and humid so there’s that. Neil got his eyelids fixed…he had this condition named Ptosis which is basically drooping eyelids…it’s what gives him that Clint Eastwood brooding eyes appearance. He had visited the eye surgeon a couple years back and Dr. Max told him that he could fix it part way but not all the way because of how Neil’s skull is shaped…but to come back when it started bothering him for the fix. Fast forward a couple or three years and it was time since the right side he could start to see a little distortion if he looked up without rotating his head. It was a pretty simple procedure taking about a half hour under local anesthesia…he had it done on a Friday and then spent most of that evening, Saturday, and Sunday with a bag of frozen peas on his face to help with the swelling. After that he iced it 20 minutes or so twice a day, got the stitches out a week later and all is well now.
He’s also got a dermatology thing…they removed a small patch from his neck and it turned out to be basal cell carcinoma…fortunately that kind doesn’t really get worse so he’s got a second visit scheduled to remove a little more of the underlying skin tissue.
We got Connie’s car into the shop after the 20something ran a stop sign and hit her front end…pretty minor damage and Progressive (the kid’s insurer) paid for the repairs and rental car…went back to Crash Champions and doing this repair was much more efficient than the previous water leak one where they had to keep searching for the leak location.
OK, let’s get on to the cruise stuff.
On day 4 of our cruise or actually day 1 according to Viking…we got checked out of the hotel and then boarded buses to get to the ship. We could actually have walked to the ship faster but since the river floods there is both a lower embankment which floods every year or two and an upper embankment which rarely floods before you get to the street level in Budapest. There are few places to get onto and off of the embankments which when you add in 1 way streets it makes for a much longer bus ride than one would imagine. Fortunately…all luggage was left at the hotel for delivery to the ship and thence to our staterooms.
Once aboard…we had lunch then went off on what turned out to be the only crappy excursion of the entire trip. We walked to the Budapest Old Market with our tour guide…he looked a lot like Anthony Bourdain and exhibited a lot of the same personality deficiencies…he was clearly bored and didn’t want to be bothered to do his job. After 20 minutes of walking around he left the group to their own devices for a couple of hours…fortunately Connie wasn’t feeling well with her back so we left early and walked back to the ship where we had Happy Hour before dinner.
Neil got this shot of what Hungarians regard as their Statue of Liberty which is on top of Géllert Hill.
He also took a shot of the current as it passed the moored ship at sundown. Our cabin included a veranda with 2 chairs and a table for drinks along with a life ring as you can see.
Next morning…we had another scheduled excursion to the top of Géllert Hill where the Citadella is perched. On the way we learned a lot more about famous things in Hungary in general and Budapest in particular…for instance the biro or ballpoint pen was invented here in addition to the Rubiks Cube. The Hungarian language is difficult to learn because of the way the syntax works…it is a Uralic (what is now Russia east of the Ural mountains) language and things always go from larger to smaller…hence names are Last name First name and addresses are Country, State, City, Street, Number. Once we wandered around the city awhile we headed up the Hill which is named after the bishop who baptized King Stephen, Géllert was martyred by being rolled down the hill in a barrel. On top is the Citadella which is a fortress dating from the 1860s on the Buda side of the river. From there we re-boarded the bus, recrossed the river to the Pest side and went to the Inner City Parish Church that I had the picture of in the last post. This church dates from the 1100s and was built on top of the original Roman era fortification on the ‘barbarian’ side of the river as the Danube was the border of the Russian Empire. Over the years, the church has been a Roman Catholic church, a mosque, a Christian but not Catholic church, and then again a Roman Catholic one which is remains today.
The Roman fortification under the church.
Main nave.
Organ pipes.
Basement Chapel.
This is the place where Muslims knelt on their prayer rugs to face Mecca when it was a mosque. The direction is the quibla and the alcove is the mihrab…we never knew about this before.
Outside view, the Elizabeth bridge is just to the right of this shot.
The Statue of Liberty from the rear up at the Citadella.
Looking down at the river heading upstream, the Elizabeth Bridge is barely visible at the bottom and off to the right side is where Viking Egdir is moored.
Some flowers found on the way back to the bus atop the hill.
Celtic Druid holy stones. There was no sign for these so we only know because the tour guide (she was excellent as were all of them outside the Grand Market loser) told us.
We then returned to the ship for lunch and headed off to Vienna. We only got about 20 minutes upstream before discovering that 6 passengers had not boarded. Normally they’re left on their own to get to the next port but in this case it was a Viking paid excursion that didn’t get back on time so we turned around and went to pick them up.
Passing the Parliament Building after the brief stop back at the pier.
In the meantime here’s a shot of our cabin.
And then the really strong current in the river as you can see from the wake as it passes this buoy.
And then we got to the first of the 67 locks we would transit on the trip. Here we are entering the lock which is less than 2 feet wider than the 440 foot long ship.
And 20 minutes later and 45 feet higher we exited the lock.
A few shots of architecture as we progressed upstream after collecting our wayward passengers.
Our original schedule had us arriving in Vienna in early afternoon with a concert that evening but overnight the ship had a minor electrical malfunction which resulted in them anchoring for a couple of hours…turned out to be an instrument inconsistency issue. As a result we got to Vienna too late to actually have dinner and then make it to the scheduled concert so that got moved to the next evening (Saturday) instead.
That concert move made for a very long day on Saturday. First up was the bus/walking tour in the morning followed by the Schönbrunn Palace in the afternoon and then the Mozart/Strauss concert in the evening (the latter two will be in the next post.
The palace complex in Vienna was first up. And none of these places are as empty of people as they seem…there were massive crowds everyplace but fortunately through the magic of software Neil can make them disappear.
Inside the courtyard.
This is actually City Hall and not a church at all.
Huge statue of Emperor Francis I of Austria in the courtyard…there’s a bench at lower left for size comparison.
From there we walked in the general direction of St. Stephen’s Cathedral and past St. Peter’s Church on the way.
And past this strange sculpture/fountain in the Market Square (every town on the river has a Market Square it seemed).
And on the other side of Market Square the St. Stephen’s Cathedral…448 feet high on the South Tower to the right side.
That image has bad perspective since even with the super wide angle lens he had he still had to tilt it up to get the whole building in the frame so he did a second edit on the shot to straighten it up. Both of these had probably 100+ people in them originally.
It literally took 15 minutes just to walk around the building which is 230 by 351 feet in addition to the 448 foot height. It has a staff of 300+ masons, cleaners, painters, and construction people and is in a constant state of repair/refurbishment.
The main nave inside…again there were 200 people in this shot originally.
And the last shot of the day…we saw and heard the choir practicing for Mass on the next day (Sunday morning). It was only 15 or so people but with the solid stone church and the amazing acoustics they sounded wonderful and we actually stood there and listened to practice for probably 15 minutes…simply gorgeous.
From there it was off to catch the bus back to the ship for lunch and then getting ready for the Schönbrunn Palace visit…another fantastic place as you will see next time.
Cyas.
Travels with Gunther and Kara 