The Ken’s were challenged with seeking out a good breakfast spot in the area for all to go to this morning. We walked the streets of old Budapest around the hotel. Interesting to see the people of the area doing their morning taks as we walked. The streets are all old cobblestone block about 8 inches square. This makes for a rough surface for walking for some of the older residents of the area.  We observed one very elderly lady very slowly moving across the cobblestone with her little shopping cart behind her as she had picked up her groceries for the day.

We settled on a coffee shop/café on the second floor of the grocery store. We went back to the hotel to meet the girls and then all headed for the café. We all had the ham and egg special (photo below). This consisted of 3 eggs over hard (no choice given to us), with the eggs sitting on top of thinly sliced ham and accompanied by lettuce, tomato, sliced cucumber and slice green pepper. Actually it was a very delicious meal.

After breakfast, we walked around the Castle Square of Budapest. It is an area under renovation which is badly needed. We did not go through the castle as it was terribly crowded and we figure we will see many castles in the next few weeks. We continued our walk around the area, did a little shopping and went back to the hotel at about noon to pack up.

Our first morning on the cruise ship. We split up this morning with Ken and Julie Ann heading out on a city tour bus. Ken and Kay walked with Fran and Mary Lou to a nearby Catholic Church for their Sunday service. They understood the Amen but not much more. They also liked the music a lot.

The morning tour took in many of the highlights of Budapest, many of which we had already seen. The Opera House, the Hero’s Park with was a collection of statues of many of the past leaders. We also went back up to the Castle Area and wandered around some more.

We returned to the ship and met up with all of the team and we then walked into the St. Stephens Cathedral area in a hope to get internet. No such luck. But we had coffee, a nice walk around Budapest and then back to the ship for the evening. Everyone was pretty tired so we just relaxed on the boat for a while.

We woke up early and headed to breakfast and then to the top deck to watch as we sailed out of Budapest. We began our journey at 8 am from the dock. We sailed through Hungary most of the morning. The land was flat for the most part. It was interesting to watch the shore line as we sailed. Every now and then would be a fisherman, but instead of a pickup sitting along side of him, there was generally a bicycle. Also absent along the Danube was the presence of Leisure Craft boats. There was only a rare spotting of a speed boat or even a small horsepower fishing boat. Most probably a sign of the economy. Also there was rarely a sign of a home along the water other than in a village as we sailed by.

We forgot to mention earlier that the “Blue Danube” in Budapest is far from blue. It is much closer to the Muddy Missouri in tone.

As we sailed along, we occasionally would pass a beach and would see some folks sunbathing along the shore. Just like back home, someone would occasionally stop and wave at the ship going by. At one of the small villages there was a group of children, probably in a class, gathered in a circle near a building not far from shore. The children were laughing and yelling like children do all over the world.

After breakfast we boarded the bus for the center of Vienna. We traveled the Ring Road around the city center. We saw most of the historical buildings of old Vienna.

We drove past the home of Johann Strauss and past memorial statues to both Strauss and Mozart. The Parliament Building was probably the most spectactular building that we saw in Vienna. Vienna is 1.6 million people and they say that 80% of the population live in rented apartments.

We toured MozartHaus where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his family lived. It is the only remaining Mozart residence left in Vienna. Trivia we learned was that Mozart was 5 foot 2 inches tall, had 2 sons and a daughter and he died at the age of 35 of heart disease. However he accomplished much in his short life with some brilliant works.

After this we walked the streets of Vienna, paid a visit to St. Stephens Cathedral which was an incredible piece of work and architecture in baroque style. It was in the process of being cleaned after 100 years of soot build up.