Travel: Danube Dispatches

June 21:

We arrived in Budapest Saturday afternoon and spent Sunday morning seeing the city. In the afternoon we rode about an hour outside the city to a farm where we saw a riding exibition by Hungarian cowboys. They ride bareback and control the horse with a whip. They do not beat the horse, but he is trained to maneuver according to the swinging and snapping of the whip. They are very impressive riders with very impressive horses.

This is the Chain Bridge across the Danube in Budapest. It is a suspension bridge built in 1849. It was knocked into the river in 1945, but the piers were undamaged, so it was rebuilt.

We left Budapest this morning and headed upriver to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia.

Food and other features aboard the Viking Sky have been very good. We have been able to get some sleep and get tuned to the European time zone - six hours different than EDT.

June 23:

Last night we left Vienna after a very busy day. We had a city tour in the morning, a visit to the Schönbrun Palace in the afternoon, and a Mozart and Strauss Concert by a Viennese orchestra in the city in the evening.

This morning we stopped in Dürnstein, a charming little village full of shops for the tourist — but quite nice.

After the walk through Dünstein we attended an Austrian Frühschoppen on the sun deck. Probably the best translation of the word is brunch. It is a small meal consisting of sausages (like large hotdogs) and salted rolls washed down with a light beer. It was not a whole lot to eat and drink, but we were less hungry at lunch time.

We then sailed through the Wachau valley on the way to Melk. We have just returned from visiting the Benedictine Monastery in Melk. It was founded in 1089 and monks have lived and worked there continually for 900+ years. The current buildings are built in the Baroque style and date from the 18th century.

Tomorrow we will see Saltzburg where The Sound of Music was filmed.

June 24:

In Bratislava they have some whimsical art in the streets of the shopping district. Here is one. The restaurant is called paparazzi.

More art on the steets of Bratislava. On the left is a bronze of a man in a manhole; the man on the right is a live "living statue."