Visiting Budapest

We have had to place posting on a little hiatus as we had an emergency late, late Thursday night.  Bob's 90 year old Mother was rushed to ER and eventually admitted to the hospital, unable to breathe.  The resolution has not been a simple one and early Friday morning Bob caught a flight from Budapest to Indianapolis.  Thanks to wonderful friends and travel agents, Chuck and Janice Maida who were with us, he managed an exchanged ticket with decent connections. Fred Beehler ( brother of longtime friend Jerry Beehler ) picked him up in Indy and took him to the hospital.

Hopefully, they will resolve her breathing issues soon and she will return to the rehabilitation center.

Meanwhile, Pat, Lois, Joy and Joyce have continued to Prague.

Budapest seems almost a distant past and it was only 2 days ago.  Most of our photos are on Bob's SD card in his camer and in the midst of getting him out of Budapest, I failed to download them.

  

Our cruise director alerted us to be up on the top desk as 

we entered Budapest as the views were lovely.  Mary 

was all prepared for a fabulous day.

From the waterfront, the Parliament buildings were amazing.

This was a view atop Castle Hill in Budapest.

Bratislava.....Part II

   This is the old City Wall which is a double one- built

   to protect the city from the Mongols and the Ottoman

   Empire ( mostly in Turkey).

    Chuck is checking email on the old steps. 

   The American Embassy.  We drove past the

   Ambassadore's resident earlier in the day.

Visiting Bratislava on Wednesday

Today, we begin with a brief motor coach tour of the town, including a ride up to the Fortress on a hill high above the city.  Several of us had a misconception of the size of Bratislava.  This city of nearl 500,000 people is the Capitol city of the country of Slovakia.  This country was created from the earlier Czechoslovakia country which in the Velvet Revolution, dissolved the Czech country into to two separate countries; Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czechoslovakia country under Russian rule was home to peoples with different histories as well as different cultures and they were happy to separate.This occurred in 1989 as the Soviet Union was crumbling.  For over 1,000 years this area was under Hungarian rule until 1918, after WW I.  ( several of us have discussed how valuable it would have been if we had studied European history before we took this trip.  However,  on the other hand, most likely it wouldn't have made near as much sense as it does with a local guide and walking the ground with the history. )

  Rebuilding as well as restoration of this Fortress

  was just completed in 2011-- in time for a Summit meeting

  between President George Bush and Puttin. The Fortress

  has been victim of many fires through the centuries

  ( begun in 1430) and today looks much newer than 

  the oldest parts.  In the photo below, look carefully,

  and you can see one of the old Gothic windows left from an older building.

Photos below depict the Cathedral of St. Martin, 

for centuries, the coronation church of the Kings

of Hungary.  Interior is mostly Gothic with a few baroque 

additives.

  Considering this was a coronation church, it is

  surprisingly lacking in much of the gothic 

  ornamentation we have seen all over Europe.

Spanish Riding School

On our walking tour, we walked right by the entrance to the Spanish Tiding School, home to the famous Lippizanner horses.  We saw one walking from the stable to the performing ring, but no one caught the photo.  The performances are quite pricey at 130€, with training sessions much less.

We learned that the horse we saw was a very young one as they are black/gray at birth and only turn white at a more mature age.  

This is where we saw the horse walking across.

    Performance ring for the Lippizanner horses.

Vienna Music Capital of Europe

Those of you you have visited Vienna or read a lot about the city know that many of our classical composers have roots in Vienna.  One of the earliest was Joseph Hayden ( 1732- 1809. ), followed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ( 1756-1791), Ludwig Von Beethoven ( 1770-1827), Frantz Schubert. ( 1797-1828, Johann Strauss Jr. ( 1825-1899), and Johannes Brahms ( 1833-1897).

If you care about more information, start exploring on the Internet about who knew who and how they influenced each other.  

We are treated this evening, complements of All Seasons Travel and Ensemble Tours, to a wonderful concert. The 12 of us in our party have a private van shuttle to the /Heersgeschichtliches-Museum-war-museum/ where the concert was held, along with a champagne reception.  Everyone else on the ship who paid for their excursion concert was bussed to the event venue.  What a treat to meet all the musicians before their performance.  Since they tour all over the world, their English is impeccable.

  One of the violin players, flute player and narrator, Eva, 

  Lois, one of the  operetta singers, and Bob

  All of the chamber orchestra members with our crew.

 

  Eva, flute player and narrator, Chuck, Pat

  Kristina, our host at the concert, and Lois 

 In addition to the Chamber players, we had  two operetta

 singers and two ballet dancers performing.  We heard songs from

Johann Strauss Jr., Eduard Strauss,  Mozart, and Schubert

Rafting in Vienna

Would imagine you could read the title of the blog and wonder what we were talking about.  Vienna is a very, very busy cruise ship tour destination.....with not enough docking space for all the ships.  We have moved around several times as other ships come to tie off with us.  We have three ships right now, all " rafted " together.  If we depart our ship, we walk through the other two to exit out on the dock.  On the surface, this sounds like a lot of fun ( not ) as you now envision another ship side- by- side and another cabin nose- to- nose with yours.  Your view is totally obscured.  Our cruise director warned that this was a big possibility and here we are.  

Tuesday in Vienna

Today is a beautiful summer day with temperatures nearing 80 degrees.  Personally, I liked the much cooler weather, but our Cruise Director says to expect near 90s before the week is over. Early this AM, we take an escorted bur tour of the city much like we did with Lydia and Jerry Beehler in 2008. Only then, we made up our own tour and took the tram- around and around the Ringstrasse.  Today, we departd the bus and continued a walking tour on our way to St. Stephen's Cathedral. The lovely church is still under restoration, so several photos are from the Internet. 

          

      Bob was able to take these two photos.

We did not see the Cathedral at night, but this photo

captures the essence of Vienna at night.

  The very busy Stephanplatz Square

  was a mixture of old and new with the 1950s 

  modern building on the left and the 800 year old

  cathedral on the right.  The Cathedral roof was severely 

  damaged in the war and citizens from all over 

  Austria bought tiles to replace the roof.