03

Budapest, Hungary
In Budapest, we joined our friends Dick and Bette Ramsey and Charles and Amanda Elliott for the main part of the cruise. Our bus tour of the city took us past this large thermal spa, the only one on the Pest side. Then we stopped to see Heroes Square, where Magyar heroes of Hungary line the collonades. Two art galleries flank the square, and the famous Gundel restaurant is close by--we splurged and ate there and even received a tour of the whole establishment.


Then up we went to the Fisherman's Bastion on the Buda side. It overlooks the city and the Parliament. St. Stephen's statue dominates a square, and the St. Matthias Church and other castle buildings anchor a host of hotels and restaurants.


We were taken on a tour of the beautiful gilded Opera, but pictures weren't supposed to be taken inside. The ceiling depicts Olympus. There was also a short concert of vocal and piano music in one of the small rehersal rooms for us. In the evening Brown and I went to a Hungarian State Folk Ensemble performance, taking the subway to and from the performance hall.


The following day Charles and Amanda and Brown and I hired a great driver, Peter, and took a private tour through some of the Danube Bend area as far as Estergom. On the outskirts of Prague are many Roman ruins.


In Visegrad we stopped to see the ruins of a royal palace where King Matthias once lived, and then drove up to the Citadel that once protected it. Here we four are high up overlooking the Danube.




	This absolutely enormous cathedral is at Estergom. Hungary's largest church, it seems almost as huge as St. Peter's Cathedral. It has beautiful alterpieces, and a large crypt where cardinals are buried. This is the birthplace of St. Stephen.

All six of us spent quite a while in the Ethnographical Museum near the Parliament, a most interesting place!


Then we went to have lunch with Janos Horvath and his wife, Linda. Janos is a member of Parliament and an acquaintance of Dick's and Bette's through their several visits to Budapest with the Sister Cities organization. He is a pixieish survivor of the Nazis and Communists, who proudly arranged for a private tour through the Parliament Building after our lunch. What a privilege this was for us all.

This is the St. Stephen's Crown, a treasured symbol for all Hungarians.	A view of one chamber of Parliament, where there are still bullet holes in the panelling. The whole building is ornate in the extreme, and ever so beautiful.	Our guide took this group picture.