Budapest - arrival and first day

After all the excitement and buzz of Vienna (yes - it is still up there with the to do again list!) we travelled down the delightful Danube until we hit Budapest. (Hungary for you plebians!) First sight in the sunshine was - oh so much bigger that I thought! (nearly 2 million people) and then you get to pick out these buidlings with the wow! factor and the buzz kicks in again. we went on a city tour with the boat (it stayed docked overnight right by the main Chain Bridge between the Buda and Pest sides) just to mention a few main sights on the quick tour

this is the House of Parliament! (gothic style!) puts our Beehive to shame! was damaged in WW2 but put it back together - sits at Danubes water edge) and the castle on of the hill on opp bank (Buda side)

this is the Castle on the Buda side and the Chain Bridge which links the two sides. there are 4 bridges and the nasty Germans blew then up on the day the Russians took over the town to stop them coming over! rebuilt of course here are some random photos of the city. Old buidlings and statues (lots of Atilla the Hun - do you know that the Hun in Hungary comes from this nasty piece of goods when he was in charge of this city many moons ago - thought I saw some suspiciously scary types that must've been his ancestors!) the sad part about this place was that Hungary allied with Germany during the war (I didnt know that!) so when the Russians ran them out the russians werent very nice to the locals or their buildings. so after the war they became Eastern Bloc country (think cold war) with nasty Stalinist ideas and brutality. (I felt for the poor Jews, one minute they had to cope with German lets kill you all policies, then oh what a relief! along comes the Russians who under Stalin had just as bad 'lets get rid of the Jews out of our country' ideas.) Anyway it was still a communist country until 1990's and you can tell from the upkeep of the buildings and infrastructure (very little done under communist rule). slowly they are restoring their heritage sites, and hopefully will move onto the others (go off the main roads around the main city area and you see damaged decaying brick work etc) even the white lines and pedestrian crossings on the roads are worn off! our guide told us they were a very poor country now (even tho they joined the European Union 2007 I think) with average wage about 20,000 NZ a year. the prices however are comparable to ours (whats our average wage in NZ people?) so the locals are struggling. You can see the rich areas (lovely old houses on the elite part of Buda hills) and the run down eastern bloc type apartments built in 1960's with nothing done to them since (rusty windows etc) anyway here are some photos of the city - pick out the building with bullet holes in it left over from the hungarian uprising in 1956/7? which the Russians quelled rather brutality.

Leaving Vienna

just thought I'd share this with you. In the afternoon we left Vienna and were treated to a cocktail called ... the Blue Danube! had to have one! yes after one I did manage to waltz around the deck a tad! we were up on the top deck to watch the scenery and there were some low bridges to go under - check it out.

Vienna - wait there's more!

Ok - you are thinking ....... what could be more? well ...... we ended up changing todays tour we were going to a beautiful castle to ..... watching the horses go through a rehersal at the Spanish Riding School. as you know I got rather gooey about the horses so pleaded (or turned on the ol' Brenda charm) with our tour director and he managed to squeeze us into the horsey tour! we were warned it wasnt just a practise session - but hey it was free for us so who cares. we started by going upstairs at their spectacular palacey type building and got a talk about the history of the horses, the school, the building , how they train them etc. the main thrust was that these horses jump and kick naturally so they just refine the natural abilities. in saying that there are 6 stud lines all carefully computerised, and only one 4 year old from each line each year gets chosen to go to Vienna for training. this is after 4 years racing round paddocks in the alps lots of freedom, grass , fresh air etc and then if you are the right colour, height, nose, lip, mane etc you have won the lottery and get stabled for 90% of your day, fed on oats, (only stallions are chosen by the way - not castrated or anythingso mares not allowed to upset the hormones of the boys!) and learn how to prance, dance, kick etc properly until you are 25 years old then back to the farm for retirement! then they tell you that they have a 'holiday' each year and go back to the stud for stud duties for a few months. oh yay! anyway we got to sit in the prime seats down the front (there are two tiers looking down on the oval full of people) which meant that the horses were about 3 metres away when they came past us. I was in heaven! no photos were allowed (tho Dave nearly had an all out fisty cuff with this obnoxious guy off our bus (sad to say Australian) who just kept on taking photos after being asked not to by the loud speaker three times!) so these photos are all we got before we knew about the photo ban. Enjoy!

forgot to mention they only did a practise - with training the horses how to do their tricky moves. an older horse was ridden along side a young horse (young rider alongside an older rider etc) so the young horse gets to see what it is supposed to do and also the correct music for that move is played so the horses can tell when to change to what by the music as well as the dressage movements of the rider. clever eh?

Vienna! oh wow!

We arrived in Vienna late at night and opened up the windows (not literally!) and the first thing i saw was this beaufiful old church that everyone tells me is modern??? what? cant figure it out - anyway it was right on the Danube. I would like to say - I LOVE VIENNA! right up there with Berlin. everywhere you look beautiful old houses, churches, opera house, museums etc and many momuments in the middle of roads and parks. We had a morning tour around the old sights in the bus with commentry (lots of ohhh -- ahhh ---wow!) from moi. then we walked around the old part within the ring road (no cars allowed only horse carriages).

amazing history and then suddenly .... white Lippizaner horses clip clopping through this courtyard we were walking through. Everyone races over, takes lots of snaps and then gone! where were we? app. right at the side of the Spanish Riding School, and they were on their way to a practice! I was over the top with excitement.

The rest of the tour was a blur - (more old stuff) and we ended up at the ancient St Stephens church in the heart of the old part. We spent the afternoon - guess where???? no not a bar - wrong! - an art gallery (Albertino) to peruse Monet and Picasso exibition. Dave too - looked suitably serious and contemplating as we went around. then onto the Klimt exhibition (google ' The Kiss' you non arty people!) sketches mainly. Felt like I was really doing what you should do in Vienna!

After that we went up the Church bell tower of St Stephens - mainly for the view of the city - (100 metres - a guess) went up by this terribly unsafe jiggling lift with leather lined walls. Well of course you walk out onto wire netting - I took one look below, freaked! and clung onto the inside railing all the way around and up! I decided I am not good at looking down from a height between my feet. Dave's saying, look over there you can see .... and I'm going no.o.o.oh! Needless to say after 5 minutes I was down outa there. so those of you who had a bet of when I would freak out properly first - this was it! In the evening all of the boat (and it's sister Ship) went to this Viennese Classical Evening - this involved dressing up to the nines (not me - didnt have anything for that) and go to this lovely palace, up carpeted stairs with marble arches, frescoes on ceiling, carriage (see photo) in the lobby and into this magestic, elegant ball room! check the photos out! I sat through the hour plus concert just pinching myself that I was really in Vienna, in this kind of room and listening to Mozart, Strauss,(brilliant 10 piece orchestra) opera (soprano and tenor) with the highlight being a ballet with two people to the music of the 'Blue Danube'. who ever choreographed it was extremeley clever, cause it was a little stage, well-known and loved music, and amazing (standing ovation at end of concert!) went back to ship feeling very cultured and satisfied. this is what Vienna should be like.

Melik Abby

Still in Austria, chugging down the Danube - and today we got all spiritual and visited the Melik Abby. it sits high on a hill (surprise!) above Melik town - a benidictine monastry since the 1200's and founded by monks who followed dear old ST Benedict. this abby is absolutely gorgeous! it has been continously going since that time, as a working monastry and school. it has 900 pupils (mixed) going to it as day pupils - high school, as well as 30 monks living there. In the 1990's it had 20 million Euro restoration work done on it - and all I can say is wow! i wish i couldve gone to school there! they rely on lots of tourists to visit to help pay for the upkeep and it is a world heritage site. one arm of the abby is a museum of their artifacts, see slide show then a library established around 1300 with manuscripts and books that are still being used for research by religiousy types , but app. hold many early scientifc books as well. you couldnt take photos in there for obvious reasons. the church is covered in gold leaf, and literally shimmers as you walk into it. (all in baroque style - see Im getting good at these big arty farty words!) mUst be very uplifting for the congregation! anyway just beautiful.

Salzburg

this was the day I was finally waiting for! a visit to the place of Sound of Music! I wanted to see all the spots and locations of the movie and visit all the magestic sights you get to see during the songs etc. so the day dawned - rainy, freezing, windy, and down right bloody cold! I nearly cried! for a start - these were those awe-inspiring Austrian Alps in the movie!

see what I mean! ok - in saying that we did visit some of the important locations (im sorry but i'm a great sound of music fan - so you have to bear with me! dave did) the rotunda where they danced around (going on sixteen! song)Its been relocated to a summer palace's gardens. can you see what is happening behind the rotunda while I practise my leaps from seat to seat? (use your imagination!)it is the rest of our bus singing the song! i kid you not. we had the soundtrack played to us on the bus and the words to the song given out and were asked to sing it at the rotunda! and they all did! (except me and dave of course - we were being silly taking photos round the back! naughty children that we were)

then we went to the gardens where they all danced around singing do re me! as you can tell it was freezing and I wasnt dancing (recognise any parts?)

believe it or not this was where Maria danced and swished in the fountain during 'Confidence in me' i swished too! however the fountain was rather high up.

Do you remember that graveyard the von Trapps hid in to get away from the Nazis and nearly got caught? well we found the one that was used (well they remade it in the studio, but still ..)

Lastly this was the abby! you cant get in it (full of nuns that dont communicate with outside world!)

So I guess you could say I was sort of happy! one of the main tourist things about the city was that Mozart was born there and lived there until he got married and moved to Vienna. we toured the old town in the rain - quite gorgeous the ball in the photo on the side of the old town hall on the clock tower and tells the phase of the moon at that time! neat eh! every town hall should have one

We went up a cable car to the imposing castle up on the hill right in the middle of Salzburg - the city is built around in in a circle below. Spectacular views, even in the rain - and it even hailed on us coming down!

Just to prove how cold it was this was the temp. outside the bus on the way back to the boat (2hr bus ride - took that long to thaw out! )

so disappointing but the positives were I got to see what I wanted to see! through the rain of course! wouldnt have minded the alps in all their glory but i guess it wasnt to be!