Finally we're at the end of our river journey (I hate, loathe and detest this expression but of course for once it's actually the correct use of the word!) having arrived in Budapest.
It's been a goal of mine for decades, ever since my dear friend's sister married an Hungarian, to visit Budapest, I know so many stories - of the family, the uprising, the city, the cuisine, the wine - and my expectation is fairly high.
Starting with the best weather of the holiday could be considered an omen, and the day would not disappoint. Firstly, we are parked somewhat beyond the normal berth (according to Vladimir) because Budapest is a teeny weeny bit busy today - international swimming gala, Israeli Prime Minister visiting and various festivals have caused a tourist bottleneck.
The busses made it irrelevant and we're soon up on Gellert Hill, admiring the amazing views up and down the Danube, and the huge Liberty Statue, our guide is excellent and has age on his side - he has many stories to tell from before, during and after the occupations. We moved on, crossing the Danube and into the Pest side to drive around several important districts, walked into the huge Hero's Square - all this is extremely helpful orientation for the next few days when we're on our own.
Finally we head back over the Danube to Buda and ascend the UNESCO Heritsge area Castle Hill to visit the relatively modern C19 part, albeit built on C15 foundations, where parliament and other buildings nestle alongside the ancient St Matthias Church, a mixture of Catholic and Islamic styles, and the incredible steps up to said church, oddly called the Fishermen's Bastion.
We return for a late lunch and decided, since we're here for a few days yet, to be lazy - enjoying a G&T or two, sunshine and the pool, and taking the galley tour. Whilst this tour doesn't exonerate the catering department it does at least put things in context. They simply don't have the facilities to do quality catering. Not that this is an excuse - it the fault of the company that they have chosen how much space to dedicate to catering - no enough in my opinion. Four less cabins, and 5% more on the fare would surely improve the galley performance significantly? Anyway we're stuck with what we have.
For our last dinner we couldn't decide on our starter so we had both - the local style pancake was nice but the chicken filled roll looked like it was straight off M&S's sandwich bar. I'm not going to say anything else about the food!
The final event of the evening happened around 21:00 as dusk approached. The engines gently roared and we left our moorings, turned round and we headed back upstream beyond the city. By now it was darkening and the buildings light up. The return journey to our moorings was simply stunning - the most beautiful river scene imaginable. A fabulous way to end our river cruise!
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