Sailing from Vienna

The Mozart sailed West, through even more impressive locks, some of which accomodated 2 ships simultaneously. As unfriendly as the Germans and Austrians were, they were fine engineers...

We arrived in Estergom, Hungary, and went to a local cafe. We watched some monks walk by, and I sang the 60s song "Hey Hey We're the Monks." The girls chuckled. The village had broken, dusty streets. Estergom earned a collective yawn.

We sailed to Budapest, and arrived in the afternoon. It was gorgeous, and we found a wonderful shopping street, where D1 spent some Florins. We ended up at a cafe, as an almost tropical rain came. We watched the Hungarians and tourists run for shelter, as we ate sandwiches, and watched the locals watching a soccer match.

At dinner, on the ship, Old Jack told us about a curious display: 60 pairs of shoes, metallized, and left on a bank of the Danube, just meters from our ship. He learned they were in memory of a group of Jews who were marched there in the winter, told to step out of their shoes, and then shot into the river. We saw the display the next morning. It was moving and chilling.

The next morning we went to tour the parliament house, but learned the next opening conflicted with an afternoon tour we had booked, so we strolled across the street to the Hungarian Ethographic Museum. They had a typical display of peasant clothing, and tools from ancient Hungary. We enjoyed watching a group of bored school children being led through the rooms. Ds 1 and 2 relived THEIR boring field trips.

There was also a display of "Lost Peoples of Europe," a group of photos compiled by 2 Austrian journalists of obscure peoples like Assyrians still living in the continent. Some of these were Eastern European Jews. Hmm...from integral parts of a society ro a museum curiosity in 2 generations...

In the afternoon we boarded a bus (our only guided tour) to see the Jewish quarter. We saw Europe's largest synagogue, a huge Moorish building that rivalled many grand churches, but was ordered to be built shorter than the shortest Catholic church.

We walked through the streets, and saw memorials to Raul Wallenberg, and some kosher bakeries.

We also realized that, for some strange reason, Budapest has many very tall women!

Back to the Mozart, and dinner with JAck, Hans and Eva.

After dinner, a group of Germans were watching their soccer team play Croatia. Croatia won, in a huge Euro Tournament upset. I was rather cheered.

Up on deck, my Irish friend Gordon shared in my schadenfreude. Bratislava beckoned...