Feeling blah—easiest way to tour is a HoHo bus

by | Jun 4, 2024 | Food Experiences, Photography

Yup, I still have the cold. A little better than yesterday. We had planned to do the HoHo bus (Hop On/Hop Off) bus yesterday anyway but it was the perfect way to do an easy day and still see a lot of Glasgow. The weather wasn’t as beautiful as the day before, but there was a little blue sky every so often and no significant rain.

We had breakfast at the hotel and then took a brief ten-minute walk to catch the HoHo. Two people, two lines, one day, 50£. Not a bad investment. We started downstairs in the warmer parts of the bus, but then I had to go upstairs to take photos without them being shot through glass. I got a lot of things I am very happy with. I just kicked the shutter speed up and took the shot. And lots of copies of every photo. Sorry about the lack of captions. The wonderful lady who was doing the tour narration was a very fast speaker with a very deep Scottish accent. Suffice it to say, if we were watching her on TV, we would have had the subtitles on. You can tell me what you think about the photos after you see them. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

That was pretty much our day. We came back to the room and tried to make up for the missing hours of sleep that I coughed through and then went to dinner at The Ivy restaurant. The Ivy is a chain of pretty cool places throughout England and Scotland. We have reservations at the original Ivy in London’s West End in about a week.  Here’s some pics from dinner.

It was a really great meal. When we go to London, the menu is slightly different, plus my brother Steve and my sister-in-law Jamie will be with us, so it will be more fun. The dinner was so good that I could eat the same thing again.

Today should be “fun.” As soon as we finish breakfast, we will check out of Grasshoppers and pick up our rental car to head to the Islands and the Highlands. It’s been 20+ years since I have driven on the other side of the road and the other side of the car. Like I said…”fun.”

Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.   —Oprah Winfrey

Been awhile…but it’s almost time to go again

by | Apr 27, 2024 | Air travel, Photography

Greetings, loyal (I hope) readers. It’s been a while—like since New Year’s Eve. I just wanted to give you a heads-up about some upcoming posts coming your way in late May and pretty much all of June.

Yes, it’s time to travel again. And what a trip we have planned. A full month in Europe will first take us to see two of our oldest and dearest friends, Paul & Gail, in Leeds, England. But before that, we get to try an entirely new airline that will take us from Seattle to Heathrow—Virgin Atlantic. We have never flown with them before, and to make it even more special, we have never (after more than 230 flights) flown on a 787 Dreamliner, but we will on this flight.

When we get to London, we will transfer to Kings Cross station for our train ride to Leeds. That should be fun. We are with Paul and Gail for a long weekend and then we are off on another train to the west coast of Scotland. Both Kathleen and I love everything about Scotland, and since we have spent a lot of time on the eastern coast  (Edinburgh, Inverness, Stirling, etc.), we thought we needed to do the west side, including Glasgow, Oban and the Isle of Skye. Here’s what our route looks like.

Once we finish our Scotland journey, we grab a train back to London (actually Greenwich) for a couple of days. While we are there, we are going to do two things I am really looking forward to. First, we are traveling to Richmond to take a one-of-a-kind Ted Lasso tour. This tour goes to all of the places where they filmed my absolute favorite television show of all time. That night, we are back in the West End to see a new musical (that was nominated for an Olivier Award), Kathy and Stella Solve A Murder!

The next morning, we start the BIG second half of our journey, a Viking Ocean cruise down the Thames River to the North Sea to sail to Edinburgh, the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands, Scotland as well as Honningsvåg, Tromsø, Bodø, Geiranger and Bergen, Norway.

After the cruise and a day in Bergen, we fly back to London (via Copenhagen), where we will spend the night at an airport hotel before another ride on Virgin Atlantic’s 787 back to Seattle.

All this means lots of photography and, hopefully, my usual daily updates for the full month of June. So stand by. We leave on May 30th. I will check in again before we go.

Adventure is just bad planning.  —Roald Amundsen

My Top Ten Photos of 2023

by | Dec 31, 2023 | Photography

You didn’t expect me back so soon, did you?. I have to admit that I have never had such a busy December on this blog. We never (in the past) go anyplace in December…at least, we don’t usually go anywhere that I want to take photos of or write about.

But it is New Year’s Eve, so that means I need to post my annual “Top Ten Photos I Took in 2023.” So, without further ado, here they are. You have seen all of them before except one. I will let you try and figure out which one that is.

Honorable Mentions

It is really hard to decide on the Top Ten, so I give myself permission to have a bunch of honorable mentions. I will caption directly on these photos and show them to you in a gallery. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

WAIT! One other thing. If you are looking at these on a tablet or computer monitor, please turn your brightness up all the way. 

Number 10—The Parliament Building in Budapest

This was one of the more than 300 photos I took of this building earlier this month. Even harder than choosing my Top Ten was choosing which one of these shots to post here. The building just pulls you in. Night and day. If you see it and you have a camera in your hand, you want to take a photo of it. And at night, the attraction is worse!

Number 9—Cape Breton Church

I think what makes this photo (more than anything else) is the sky. We were VERY LUCKY to be visiting Cape Breton’s Highland Village on a glorious sunny day. This is another building that kept calling me to take its photo. And unlike the Budapest Parliament, I could walk around this church and catch it from every angle. This one was the best. The clouds makes it work.

Number 8—Lipizzan Stallion in Vienna

We were in Vienna earlier this month when we visited the Spanish Riding School, home of the incredible Lipizzan Stallions. We weren’t allowed to take photos in the actual stables but we were allowed to take them in an outer courtyard where there were windows into a few of the stables. This guy (enticed by our guide) stuck his head out. I chose this one because I love the technical quality. I was close enough and shooting with a low enough ISO that you can see individual hairs. And yes, that L-shaped mark is actually on him. I keep trying to wipe it off. I took it off in Photoshop but decided it was better to leave it. Still not sure if I should have.

Number 7—Tram #28

Probably the most famous of the tram lines in Lisboa, Portugal, is #28. It has the most turns and the most ups and downs of any of the tram lines. I have to say that I walked most of the line one day or another during our stay earlier this month. Of all the photos I took of the car itself, I like this one the best.

Number 6—The Cemetery in Vienna’s Jewish Ghetto

If you look back at my photography over the last ten years you will see less than ten photos in black and white. And six of those come from this month. Of all of them, this shot I took in Vienna earlier this month was my best. I liked it because of the cold, the snow, the grey skies, the dark trees—they all pushed me to make the photo black and white. BTW: for the non-photo folks out there, this is taken in color but converted to black and white when I process the photo.

Number 5—Cape Breton Farm

I took this photo within about 15 minutes of taking the church photo, which is number nine above. I think this one is better because it is like I went back in time to take it. That’s because the Cape Breton Highland Village is a Living Museum. That means that the docents working there dress up as they would have been in the time frame in their part of the Village. These folks are portraying turn-of-the-century farmers. Again, the sky really helps this photo, but not as much as it does the church. I only think this one is better because it is unusual. I should also add that I have already had this one printed on canvas, and it is hanging over our couch.

Number 4—Lighthouse outside Portland, Maine

When we did our cruise on Oceania’s Vista from Montreal to Miami, I was really looking for a photo that screamed NEW ENGLAND! I think I found it with this one. As we were sailing out, I stood on the upper deck and shot photos of the lighthouse as we went by. This is another one where I think I took upwards of 40 photos of the lighthouse, and this was the ONLY one where you could see the light shining directly at the camera. To me, that makes this photo special.

Number 3—Woman in Lisboa

On our first night in Lisboa, Portugal, I stepped outside the restaurant and saw some amazing holiday decorations I really wanted to photograph. So I walked down the street about half a block and took the photos. As I was turning to leave, I noticed this woman leaning on the wall of the restaurant where we had eaten. I love the look on her face. It is a combination of resignation that her husband is again taking photographs…that she just saw him take a photo of her…and that she still loves him anyway. I can see it in her “almost smile.” That’s what it’s all about, folks. Everything in my life comes together in one photo. I should add that she thinks I should not be using this picture. But this is MY Top Ten, and this one, for me, deserves to be in the Top Three. I mean, really—she is my number one…forever.

Number 2—Portland, Maine Street Scene

There is nothing I value more in photography than light. Great light trumps everything else. But this photo is all about the color, not the light. It is a very unusual photo for me. I don’t usually look for this kind of photo. In fact, when I took it, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. But then, when I saw it on my MacBook screen, I fell in love. I will admit to cropping it a little, but that’s about all I did to it. It is such a great study in yellow (one of my least favorite colors) because everything works.

Number 1—A Boat Caught in the Light

Remember what I just said in the previous paragraph about light. Well, this photo proves that I am right. When trying to decide between the two as to which was number one, the light in this photo won me over. That afternoon, as we sailed out of New York City’s harbor, the light was about as perfect as you could get—a great mix of sun, blue sky and intermittent dark clouds. When the sun hit the Tower and then dropped to the water, and then the boat moved right through the sun’s reflection, it was photographic magic.

That about does it for 2023. It has been a great year of travel, of taking travel photos and of getting to share our experiences with everyone who reads this. We will be back in June with a month-long trip to England, Scotland and Norway, and then again in October when we visit Madrid and do a Douro River cruise. And of course, there will be a few posts in between.

Lastly, I welcome your comments about which ones you like. Feel free to tell me what your number one or two are (if they are different than mine) in the comment section below.

Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution.   —Ansel Adams

Let me sum up…

by | Dec 28, 2023 | Photography

I am so sorry this has taken me so long. I am back with my final summation of our entire European trip this month. As usual, I will break it down into some categories so it doesn’t look like you have a massive block of text to read all at one time. I welcome any comments about my views, but please realize that they are based on my experience.

We loved Lisbon!

If you read my Lisbon reports, you know that we loved it. It was like the early days of travel for us—just the two of us having a great time in a great city. If there was one thing we didn’t like, it was living out of a suitcase. We loved our tours, the food, the hotel (especially the hotel) and pretty much everything else. It is also a very inexpensive place to visit. Oh, we didn’t have a very good time at our Fado dinner. There must be better places. But that was just a minor annoyance.

Our flights and airport experiences

Again, I have detailed these pretty well in this post in my huge rant about Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris. All the rest of our flight experiences were excellent. We really liked our flights with Delta much more than we did a year ago when we flew with them home from Barcelona.

Prague—ice and cold

Bathed in snowy white.

After we flew to Prague from Lisbon, we became Viking’s problems as this was part of our pre-cruise extension. Read and see all about it by clicking here. It was an OK extension but we could have done without the ice and snow. I know that Viking can’t do anything about ice and snow, but they can figure out a way for people who are not great walkers when it is dry and warm to see some of the city’s sights. Viking offers an “included excursion” for every day of an extension and for every port on a cruise. But to only have an excursion that on a dry and warm day would be “challenging” leaves out a huge part of their clientele and those that shouldn’t attempt it but do hold back those that can handle it.

But other than my complaint about shore excursions, we loved Prague. It was a great hotel with a great breakfast; we found a super place for dinner, thanks to a friend here in Redmond, and the tours we were able to take were pretty darn good.

Nuremberg—worst hotel, best tour of the entire trip

Nuremberg’s lousy hotel

Viking should immediately stop using Le Méridien Grand Hotel. Yes, it is very well situated, but it is so old and out of date, they need to find something better. Our room was tiny and felt like a cell, not a room. There was one elevator to serve more than 200 rooms. The restaurant was never open to guests for lunch or dinner, so we ended up eating in the bar (where the menu was as small as our room). Their breakfast was good, but that can’t make up for the rooms and the fact that there was no place to eat. If you do any pre-extension with Viking, make sure to pre-book your restaurant reservations for dinner yourself. If you get there and find you can’t get into any place, check with your tour manager (who works for Viking) and see if they can find you somewhere. That worked for us in Budapest.

But in Nuremberg, I went on the best tour of the entire trip. If you go, do the WWII Nuremberg tour. If you can get Werner as your guide, you will have hit the jackpot. His knowledge and understanding of the topic are encyclopedic, and he was great with the delivery—a born storyteller.

The Cruise—from Regensburg to Budapest on Viking Gulveig

Now that’s a long ship. Maybe that’s why Viking calls it a longship.

This was our first river cruise, and I have to say we truly enjoyed it. It is quite different from an ocean cruise, and we are looking forward to our next one on the Douro River in Portugal next October. It will be a really different experience than the ice and frigid cold we experienced on this one.

The cruise (as you may recall) was billed as Christmas on the Danube—Europe’s Christmas Markets. I don’t know what I thought the Christmas Market thing would be, but it wasn’t that. My expectations were that once we were in Europe, we would be Christmased to death. We weren’t. If anything, it was almost the opposite. As much as I loved the ship, it just wasn’t very festive. We saw a lot of other riverboats/ships, and 90% were better decorated for Christmas than ours was. And there was little to no Christmas music on board. The piano player would drop one or two holiday tunes into his nightly repertoire, but that was it.

And the Christmas Markets were pretty much all alike. The ones we saw in Lisbon were our favorites, followed by the ones in Budapest, but otherwise, they were all about the same. The same merchandise, the same foods, the same crowds, the same drinks. It truly was a case of if you have seen one, you have seen them all. And Viking felt we wanted to see them all for three or four hours. I don’t know what I was supposed to do at a Christmas Market for that amount of time.

Getting back to the ship, our stateroom was excellent. We had a typical verandah, which is tiny by ocean ship standards (205 square feet with the verandah), but it was so well-designed that we barely noticed. The bed was much more comfortable than the bed we had on our Viking Ocean cruise in October 2022. We had plenty of storage, and by the time we got to our stateroom (after being in three hotels in the last ten days.

Things we loved about the cruise and the ship

  • Embarkation was amazing and easy. We arrived from Nuremberg, got off our “luxury motor coach,” and went right onto the ship. We (about 40 of us coming from the extension) gave them our credit card info and got our room keys in less than 10 minutes. Then, every person was escorted directly to their stateroom by a crew member. We got Natalia from Poland. She later turned out to be one of our servers in the dining room. She was so great, showing us how everything in our stateroom worked and telling us how to get help if we needed it. She stayed and talked for about 15 minutes, asking about us and seeing if there was anything else she could do for us. What a treat! Best embarkation ever.
  • The main dining room was surprisingly spacious. But unlike ocean cruises, you better like to meet people because there are NO tables for two. There aren’t even tables for four. There are tables for six, eight or ten people. That’s it. But that worked for us. We were thrilled to have meals with new friends, especially our new friend from New Hampshire, Carol.
  • We never had to wait for an elevator. Because we really didn’t have to. There are only three levels on a Viking longship. And the only reason to go below level two is if you have a stateroom on deck one. We were on deck two (stateroom 213), so we never went down to one. The main dining room is on deck two as well, so we could have eaten all our meals and never even gone upstairs if we didn’t want to. But the top deck had the only lounge and a small buffet. We went up for drinks most nights and to hear what Debra, our Program Director, told us what was on tap for the next day.
  • Dinner times were interesting. By that, I mean that they were later…or earlier. They changed every day. They were usually close to 7:00 pm but, one night (because of an after-dinner concert in Vienna that many attended), dinner was at 5:30. Other nights, if there was a late shore excursion coming back to the ship, it might be as late as 7:30 (which is really late for us).

Things we would love to see changed

These things are going to be really picky. Why? Because Kathleen and I could only think of some minor annoyances that we didn’t like.

  • The pianist in the lounge was too loud! Why do cruise lines, restaurants, and pretty much every public lounge or bar think we want to hear loud music every single second of the day? We met some great people on this cruise—people we would have loved to have traded travel stories with. But most of the time, when we were in the only lounge on the ship, we couldn’t hear people sitting directly across from us talk. The pianist thought that louder was better, and he played one of those electronic pianos that made him the entire band, and he liked to show it off. Not to mention the fact that he barely played any Christmas music. TURN HIM DOWN PLEASE!  During the rest of the day there is excellent recorded music playing in the lounge. At a low volume. Low enough that you can have a conversation. We would have loved to have that in the evenings. If you read my review of our ocean cruise on Oceania’s Vista in October, you know I complained about that on that ship as well. On Viking Ocean ships, there are many places to go and. have a nice, quiet drink with conversation. But river ships only have one lounge, and if Mr. Loud is playing the piano, you are screwed.
  • Laundry service was highway robbery. By the time we boarded the ship, we had been on the road for ten days. We needed to send some things out to get clean. We knew there was a chargeable laundry service on the ship, but not one that charged $4 to wash a pair of socks, $7 to wash a pair of jeans or $6 to wash a tee-shirt. We ended up sending out six items, and the bill was $42. That’s HORRIBLE!
  • Rafting was fine, except once when it was UNSAFE! If you aren’t familiar with rafting (as it pertains to river ships), it is when two, three, or four of these very long ships tie up to each other. Then, if your ship is the second, third or fourth ship out from the dock, you cross through the lobby area of each of the inside ships to get to yours. It’s not a big deal, and you can look at the other ships a little. But this kind of rafting only happened with other Viking ships. The one time we were rafted with a non-Viking ship, we had returned from Munich, it was very dark and we were not allowed to cross through the other ship’s lobby. We had to climb to the top (observation/sun) deck, cross over and climb down into our ship. This meant climbing some slippery stairs, crossing over an icy deck, then onto a very narrow gangplank between the ships (three stories off the water) across our ship’s icy deck and then back down some more slippery steps. This should not happen.
  •  The lunch on embarkation day was just wrong. We left Nuremberg at 11:00 am (too early for lunch). We arrived at the ship at 2:00 pm and were told that there was a buffet lunch in the lounge on deck three. That lunch was really sparse. And really poor. They need to improve this situation. Better scheduling (leaving Nuremberg earlier or later) would help.

As you can see, we are nitpicking here. It was a great cruise with four tiny blips. All of them are easily fixable.

Viking Shore Excursions

I have already mentioned that our pre-cruise tours were outstanding. And our post cruise tours were even better when we got to Budapest. But I want to run through the ports really quickly. You can always go back for a more in-depth look in previous posts.

  • All the tours on this cruise were better than any of the tours we took on our Viking Ocean cruise in the Mediterranean back in 2022.
  • The worst guide was the guy we had in Regensburg. His job was to show us around the city in about 45 minutes. What he did was get us off the ship on back streets, told misogynistic jokes as we walked, took us to see nothing really interesting and then left us in the middle of town saying, “The river is over that way. Just get there and turn right.” WTF? He should never be used again.
  • The second worst was the guide who took us to Munich. He was just okay as a guide, but what he or Viking did to us was not. This was the day that we enjoyed going to the BMW headquarters and then downtown Munich and then a very nice lunch. But after that, we were just told we had three hours of free time and no place to go to get out of the cold. That was WRONG! No one needs to shop for three hours, especially on a Sunday when all the shops in the old town core were closed. The only real option for shopping was the Christmas Market but how many ornaments can you buy or how much mulled wine could you drink (and still find your way back to the bus). This needs to change.
  • Some of the excursions were just “fine.” They were nothing to write home about. The tours on the extensions were much better than those on the cruise, except for maybe the “Panoramic Budapest” tour that we took with the hilarious Barbie. The rest were either bad (like the first two above) or just “fine.”
  • It would be VERY hard to do private tours. On an ocean ship, we would just have done private tours, but I am just not sure if you could do that on a river cruise. The reason you would have a hard time doing that is that you never know where the ship is going to be. For instance, we went to bed in Regensburg with the knowledge that the next morning, we would still be in the same place. If we had been doing a private tour, we would have told our guide to meet us there and then found out where we could rejoin the ship. But when we got up, we were miles down the river because the ship had to move quickly to get under some low bridges just outside Regensburg. This was NOT Viking’s fault. The river levels cannot be controlled. When we got up that morning, we were going to Munich. The ship just pulled over, tied up in the middle of nowhere, and we got off and met our “luxury motor coach” on a very rural road.
  • I make jokes about “luxury motor coaches,” but that really didn’t apply to the buses we rode on during this cruise. They truly were luxury motor coaches: great seats, lots of legroom, places to put anything you carried. We had been dreading the long bus rides from Prague to Nuremberg and from there to Regensburg, but they were very nice. And they planned restroom breaks when needed. I would have no problem taking them again. Much better than on our Viking Ocean cruise in October 22.

The Food

Our last ocean cruise on Oceania’s Vista in October 2023 was all about the food. The rest of the cruise was nice, but I wrote a lot about the food, as I do on many of our cruises. On this cruise, we had very little to complain about food-wise. Our servers were outstanding. Breakfast in the dining room was a buffet, but you can also order from a really nice menu.

We had only one complaint about the food in the entire cruise. Jamie and I ordered fish and chips one day, and we sent it back. The fish had sat too long and had turned to rubber instead of being crisp. That may have been more of a service thing than a cooking thing. We do wish that the chef had some heartier soups. When you come in from a cold excursion and go to have lunch and all the soups are just broth, you kind of wish for a nice clam, corn or potato chowder.

Other than that, the food was great. Lots of variety, lots of interesting dishes. My brother said it passed the “Steve Test.”

Beautiful Budapest

If you have been following along for the last three weeks, then you know we LOVED Budapest: great tours, a very nice hotel with an amazing view, and a super tour coordinator. Only one guide was truly horrid, and we have already forgotten the horrible Lazlo. If you missed my detailed reports on Budapest, they start here.

The Final Word

And that does it. I hope you have enjoyed coming along on this trip. We had a great time; it only felt like we had hit a wall a few times and would do it again (but NOT a Christmas Market cruise). We are going back to do another river cruise in October. But for my faithful readers, stick with us. We are off to England, Scotland and Norway in June for almost a full month. And, of course, a few posts before that.

Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.  —Louis E. Boone.

Nazis, Heroes, Communists, Food and more…

by | Dec 21, 2023 | Food Experiences, Photography

Yes, we had all those things in our last full day in Budapest; we got up late (after our late-night, worthless tour), and while Kathleen showered and changed and before we had our hotel buffet breakfast (included in our Viking post-cruise extension) I went out for a short pre-dawn photo walk. I hadn’t gotten many of those in on this trip. Really not a single one since we had left Lisbon. It’s not like I hadn’t planned for them. I had maps of the things I wanted to take photos of in that wonderful early morning light. And I had brought clothing to wear along with my boots—I had even planned on the ice and snow we encountered in Prague. What I hadn’t expected was how late the sun would come up. Most of the time, we had someplace we had to be (usually a tour) at 8:30. And when the sun doesn’t come up until 7:30 or later, it’s hard to find time to be there when it does.

This day was different as our only tour didn’t start until 10:00 am, so I was able to go out and take photos of the last two major sites I hadn’t seen yet. First up were some close-ups of the incredible Parliament Building I had been taking so many long-distance photos of, and then, while walking back to the hotel, I could visit the Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial. We had driven by the Shoes memorial a few times, and I had the chance in on two previous afternoons, but I wanted to be there alone, and usually, it was jammed with people.  If you have not heard of the Shoes on the Danube Bank before, it is a monument to thousands of Jews who were taken from the Jewish Ghetto in Budapest in 1944-45 and killed. The fascist Hungarian Arrow Cross party took them to the edge of the Danube, made them undress and take off their shoes (which could later be sold) and then shot them so they fell into the river and were swept away. The memorial is a beautiful tribute to those people. You can read about it by clicking here.

In the meantime, here are the photos I took early that morning. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

For the balance of the day, we had a private tour planned with Melinda from Tours by Locals. If you have been reading my posts, you know that this is a company I have grown to love. Between myself and Jamie and Steve on their London/Paris land trip we have used them on at least 15 tours. I chose Melinda’s tour because in the description of her tour she said, “This private tour is perfect for those who have already seen the highlights and want to explore the city further.” This meant that we could do the tours with Viking, and then I could let her know what we still wanted to see, and she would set us up to go there.

Even though this was a private tour in a van (not a “luxury motor coach”), Kathleen was worried that getting in and out of the van and doing what walking we would be doing might make her knee worse. And she was VERY worried (as was I) about the next day when we knew we would make a long tramp through Charles DeGaulle airport, not to mention wading through security and check-in here in Budapest. Plus, she was still wiped out after our worthless tour the night before when we didn’t get back until almost 11:00. So she decided to let the other four of us go (our new friend Carol was joining us as well).

Right on time, Melinda walked into the hotel lobby to collect us. We jumped into a Mercedes van with a driver, and we were off on our four-hour adventure. Our first stop was Heroes Square. On our first-day overview tour with Barbie, we had driven past it, but we wanted to walk around as well as see the castle and seasonal ice skating rink behind it. Heroes Square is packed with amazing statues and monuments to (I think) every person who ever had a hand in creating Hungary and keeping it alive during the years in between. I wish I could tell you who all the statues represented, and I did get a few of them. You can read about them below, in the captions of the photos I took in the square. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Just across the street from Heroes Square were two other places we wanted to see: the seasonal ice skating rink and the Vajdahunyad Castle that sat right behind it. We had seen both while driving with Barbie, and I got an idea for some artsy photography I wanted to try at the rink. Here are the photos we took (without the artsy black-and-white stuff). Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

One other thing during our stop near Heroes Square was another Christmas Market. Not a huge one, but certainly as big as many we had seen. But they had some of the best looking food I had seen and since it was early in the day, there wasn’t a huge crowd waiting to buy it so I could get some great photos…that I hope will make your mouth water. Enjoy.

After our walk, we were off to our longest drive of the day to Memento Park. Our good friend Marjorie had visited the park when she was in Budapest and had told us about it. As I always do, I thought it sounded interesting but more importantly, a chance for some great photography. This was the only place I had told Melinda we wanted to go before we got to Budapest because I knew it was too far out in the countryside for Viking to take us there. Besides, it was one of those hidden gems you always hear about.

Memento Park is where old statues go to die. Seriously. In the early 1990s, when the Communist dictatorship ended, the people of Hungary were ticked! So they took down all the symbols of Communism from around the city of Budapest and moved samples of it to Mememto Park as a constant reminder to never let that happen again. So you can go and visit these statues and celebrate how incredibly naïve Soviet-era communism was. Check out the photos to get an idea of what I am talking about. Their symbolism is truly wrong, but they are interesting historical artifacts. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

After this quick look at the Soviet occupation, we were off to see two more things. One was a viewpoint where Melinda said we could get a wonderful and complete overall view of Budapest, and the other was the Opera House, where we could get photos of the lobby but would need to take a tour to see the inside, and we didn’t have time to do that with her. Here are the photos from those spots. You know the drill.

After that, we went back to the hotel so we could pack for our flight the next morning. Anita (our Viking Extension concierge) had wrangled us some reservations at a great restaurant because we all wanted one more night of Hungarian food. The place was called Rezkakas, and their goulash was about as close to a perfect meal as we had eaten on this trip. If you go to Budapest, eat there! I wish I had taken a photo of it but when it got to the table, it looked so good, I ate it without thinking about it. The whole evening was a great experience…especially since Carol joined us for a farewell dinner, and Steve and Jamie picked up the entire check as a birthday present (the next day) for me.

Dictators fall when they’re overconfident; they stay in power when they’re paranoid.  —Masha Gessen

Markets, Hotels and a Worthless Tour

by | Dec 20, 2023 | Food Experiences, Photography

The morning of our second day in Budapest, we had to do something we hated. We had to get off of Viking Gulveig. That sucked. We truly loved being on board and made many new friends among the crew and the other passengers. Our stateroom was wonderful, the ship beautiful, and except for one horrible lunch dish, the food was excellent (more about that later this week).

After getting tossed off the ship, Viking was nice enough to give us a ride to our hotel. We were doing the Budapest Extension with Viking, and they were putting us up at the Intercontinental Hotel. From the ship, the “luxury motor coach” ride to the hotel took just about exactly…3 minutes. Seriously, we could see the hotel from the ship. It took us longer to get on and off the bus than it would have taken me to walk directly there. It was just on the other side of the Chain Bridge.

Sadly, the rest of that day was wasted to some extent. The hotel didn’t have rooms ready for us, and having our carry-ons with us, as well as Kathleen really being tired and having (as she said) “hit a wall,” just needed some rest. So when we got to the hotel, our new tour coordinator, Anita, offered the entire group a short walking tour to get oriented to where we were; Kathleen decided to stay in the lobby on a nice couch and read while I went and heard what Anita had to say. Anita walked us about ten blocks from the hotel and showed us how to get around. I have to say that both our pre-cruise tour coordinator in Prague (Vicki) and post-tour coordinator in Budapest (Anita) were amazing to work with. Just took care of everything we needed. Anita even acted as our Concierge by finding us reservations for dinner on the last night we were in Budapest.

After Anita finished her tour, I realized that I needed to get back to Kathleen to give her a break from the bags and discuss what to do next. She was OK with me going off to take photos and then come back, and we could have lunch. So off I went to find the local public market. This was NOT a Christmas Market. This was a huge building that housed just about everything you could want to buy, from soup to nuts (not to mention meat, spices, dishes, clothing, etc.) This was where the locals shopped, and we visitors took pictures (although I did buy some paprika here for myself and Kathleen’s daughter Michelle). Let me drop in the photos I took on that walk right here so you can see what I am talking about. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

After this little foray into a part of the city we had not seen before, I went back and found Kathleen talking to our new friend Carol. The three of us decided to get some lunch in the very nice lounge right there at the hotel. The food was good, especially the goulash soup that Kathleen and I shared.

After lunch, we were finally able to get into our room, where we saw this…

Yes, boy and girls, this was the view out our ninth-floor hotel room window. I took this photo the next night, but suffice it to say that we NEVER closed the curtains (except when we wanted to nap and keep the light out), and this view became our companion all the time, even serving as a night light. After a normal room in Prague and a horrible room in Nuremberg, we had finally won the room lottery with this view.

Other than the view, the hotel was just “fine.” It is much more modern in the public areas and older (more in need of an update) in the rooms. Our room was a good size, had that view and could really use an update. It also had a bathtub instead of a shower, which Kathleen hates. She is the short person in our family, and that means that getting into and out of a VERY high tub is a pain. This one was VERY high. How high? It was sooooo high that I kept bumping my foot when I got in, and getting out was like climbing down a ladder. Except for the location and the view, we would probably not have stayed there. But that view was so amazing, that we probably would go back.

We had dinner that night in the hotel with Jamie, Steve and Carol. In the evening, the restaurant that serves a buffet breakfast converts to a sit-down establishment with Lebanese food. You can either order Lebanese or from the lounge menu we tried at lunch. Everyone at the table went Lebanese, and we weren’t sorry. The food was OUTSTANDING…and very inexpensive. I would have to say that unless you were lunching at the Four Seasons (as Steve and Jamie did since they were staying there to burn more of that Future Cruise Credit), this was the most affordable city we had visited since Lisbon.

After dinner, we had booked our last tour with Viking, “Budapest by Night.” We were still burning Future Cruise Credit, but to be honest, if I had to do this tour again, we would (and SHOULD) have skipped it. We met our tour guide, Lazlo, and boarded a bus that took us around some of the same stuff we had seen the day before while on the ship’s tour with Barbie, but in the dark. Then we headed to the Buda side of the river so everyone could get off the “luxury motor coach” and take pictures of the Parliament (that I had taken the photos of that I showed you yesterday). That did get Kathleen and I in one of my pics (above), but that’s about it.

Then they drove us up the hill toward Fisherman’s Bastion (we got off the bus about fifty feet from where we had the day before) and Lazlo walked us through a construction area (that surprised him by being there—it was like he hadn’t walked this tour in years), down a bunch of steps and two elevators (he kept saying “he hoped were open” and if they hadn’t been he needed to carry us down the steps), past a couple of sculptures and did just enough damage to Kathleen’s knees that she could barely walk the next day…for us to see nothing really that interesting. Just to kill time.

Then we got back on the “luxury motor coach” and killed some more by driving about a mile (we could see our hotel room across the river), having us disembark at a restaurant that looked like it was staying open just for us, grab a half-full glass of sparkling wine, sit in a tiny booth and drink it. Then back on the bus and back to the hotel. WHAT A WASTE OF TIME. And Lazlo was a horrible guide. Told worse jokes than I have ever told (I know, hard to believe) and just dragged us around. He was nice enough to help a woman who was by herself go down the stairs, but my point is, we should NEVER have been on those stairs anyway.

Even though we had gone less than three miles from hotel to hotel, we ate up almost two and a half hours. What a terrible way to end a pretty good day. I did take a few decent photos on the tour, so here they are. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

And that was Day 2. We didn’t get to bed until 11:00, and Kathleen’s knee hurt all night, which did not make for a really great Day 3 when we had some great plans. See you there soon.

Great cooking is about being inspired by the simple things around you – fresh markets and various spices. It doesn’t necessarily have to look fancy.   —G. Garvin