• Travel with the Wicks
  • Travel with the Wicks

Wicks go to Budapest & beyond

A 20-day adventure by Travel with the Wicks Read more
  • Trip start
    March 11, 2024

    Departing Calgary (hopefully)

    March 11, 2024 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 3 °C

    We picked this day to travel because there was lots of open seats to London on the Air Canada flight. We are travelling standby, so lots of open seats gives you more confidence that we’ll be going. Dianne learned from a friend at the gym today that Westjet had a cancellation to London yesterday and they protected some of their passengers on the Air Canada flight today. Now there are maybe two open seats on Air Canada. Makes me not so confident that we will be going today. We have a backup plan that involves staying at the airport tonight and going tomorrow.

    We just got boarding passes to London. That saves us from cancelling our hotel in London and we don’t have to book one here at the Calgary airport. Now the next drama is “ will our standby luggage arrive in London with us?”

    We arrived and our luggage arrived, so all has worked to our favour. It was a nice flight and I knew some of the crew. Getting to our hotel was easy enough and Dianne and I got a bit of sleep before we ventured out again.
    Read more

  • We crossed the pond

    March 12, 2024 in England ⋅ 🌧 11 °C

    The trip over couldn’t have better. We arrived at Heathrow a few minutes early, cleared customs, picked up our bags then the trek to the hotel.
    Our plan is to sleep a couple hours and head into London.
    We arrived at Covent Gardens and began our search for show tickets. The “Play that goes wrong” was sold out so we decided to see “The Book of Mormon”! It is quite a show. Not too many sing along songs as they are all filled with dirty words, but entertaining.
    Read more

  • On to Budapest

    March 13, 2024 in England ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    Again an hours delay. This time to fix the toilet door! There seemed to be a lot of planning on what to do with a bathroom door that would just stay in the locked position; a no go item! The brains put their heads together and hatched a plan, so we left ! Arrived in Budapest, sun was already set so the drive in was not too exciting,

    Look at the place we got! Pretty charming right! Except the bed is up about 7 narrow stairs (which you don’t want descend to the bathroom late at night)

    We took a quick walk to get some water and were treated to this beautiful Basilica. St Stephen’s Basilica. It is in a square where there seems to be some action every night. Lots of music and people!
    Read more

  • HELLO BUDAPEST

    March 14, 2024 in Hungary ⋅ ☀️ 4 °C

    We did a little research the night we arrived and talked about going to one of Budapest’s famous thermal spas. The Szèchenyi spa was the most popular and seemed easy to get to via subway. The price of tickets was pretty high from my perspective. All in it would be about 50 bucks Canadian each to go swimming. Dianne basically old me to not be so cheap! We got tickets online and got up early to go. It was an expensive swim, but we stayed a couple of hours and I discovered through more research that the water we were enjoying is the same source of water they use to fill up the pools for the hippos at the zoo. Seems like a bargain now.Read more

  • Explorimg Budapest

    March 14, 2024 in Austria ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    Our afternoon consisted of dragging our butts along the Danube River and taking pictures. We are both still jet lagged but we hung on long enough to say we earned our supper.

    The photos I included of the Shoes on the Danube Promenade are a memorial and monument (2005) to the Hungarian Jews who in the winter of 1944-45 were shot on the banks of the river by members of the Arrow Cross party who formed the government during that time. Not a pleasant memory for Hungarians.Read more

  • Finding a taxi!

    March 15, 2024 in Hungary ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    There is no Uber in Budapest. My preferred way of arranging transportation is useless here. We left our accommodation with an address for the boat we are about to board and have a location displayed on the phone. A taxi we find on our street says today is a a busy day due to the National holiday. Go to the corner and wait he says, five or ten minutes. We do, but nothing happens. After about 15 minutes we walk to the next corner where a boutique hotel is located. The man at the front desk has a cab for us before I can get back outside. We give the address and the location from our phone. The driver explains that we will have to walk a ways due to road closures on the National holiday.

    Off we go on a route that parallels the river, but has no view of the river. In what seems far too short of a ride he declares “ we are here.” I disagree, showing him our location in reference to a bridge I can see, but he assures me I am mistaken and we are really closer than I think we are. We pay him, get out, and off he goes. Once we get in view of the river there is no boat, no band, no welcoming committee, nothing. We schlep our rolling circus another half mile down river until we find the boat. Still no band, but there is someone to take our luggage and guide on board.
    Read more

  • Panoramic BUS tour!

    March 16, 2024 in Austria ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    Our first experience of a Viking provided bus tour. I would call it a slow moving geriatric crowd. The bus is slow, which must piss off the drivers who get stuck behind us!

    Our 35 year old female Hungarian guide is quite entertaining. She is the one who told us of the many failed revolutions that Hungary has come to grips with.Read more

  • Buda Castle

    March 16, 2024 in Hungary ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    In the afternoon we walked from the boat crossed the chain bridge and arrived at the Budavári Sikló. That is the Castle Hill Funicular. This is the Buda side of Budapest.

  • Fishermans Bastion

    March 16, 2024 in Hungary ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    Fishermans Bastion is not about fishermen, but more about celebrating the millennial anniversary of the arrival of the 7 tribal chieftains who led their people to settle in present day Hungary. The year was 895. I find it interesting that one of the tribes was of Asian descent, from Mongolia. It was rebuilt between 1895 and 1902 during one of the more peaceful times of Hungarian history.Read more

  • Bridges

    March 16, 2024 in Austria ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    There are a few bridges that join the Buda side to the Pest side of Budapest. To us the most remarkable is the Chain bridge; suspension bridge opened in 1849. It was the first bridge to join the two cities.
    Going south there is the Margaret Bridge, CHAIN BRIDGE, Elizabeth Bridge, and Liberty Bridge.
    Read more

  • Evening walk-a-bout

    March 17, 2024 in Austria ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    The boat arrived in Venice at 7pm. Everyone had an early supper, so we were free to walk around. The church is much nicer from the back than the front. The front was hardly lit up at all and didn’t inspire us. The back makes you think you should go camping in their yard.
    This was on the way to the closest subway station. We want to be conversant with how to buy tickets and which direction to go tomorrow.
    Read more

  • On our own!

    March 18, 2024 in Austria ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    Dianne found an expensive place to have coffee. It is the pinkest place I’ve ever seen, and I took some time to adjust my attitude about Aida, the pink coffee house. We had Apple Strudel with vanilla sauce to compliment our coffee.
    Close to Aida is St Steven, a Catholic Church. It is the centre of Vienna.
    Read more

  • Schőnbrunn Palace

    March 18, 2024 in Austria ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

    It took us about 2 hours to explore the palace. Along with the ticket for entry, you get an audio guide to give context to what you see. Reminds us of Versailles but smaller. There is so much history in this building; it is brain overload. It dates back to 1569 when Maximillian II owned it and used it as a hunting lodge. A mere couple hundred years later various Habsburg rulers lived there; including Marie Antoinette who they married off to Louis XVI.

    The furnishings and decor have been restored beautifully.
    Read more

  • Palace Gardens

    March 18, 2024 in Austria ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    The palace gardens are incredible. We are here a little early in the season as the trees are just budding and flowers just being planted. The gardens are lined with 32 life sized Greek and Roman statues, there is a maze, the oldest operating zoo, a Neptune fountain, and numerous greenhouses.

    In front of the of the palace there was opportunity to shop at a craft fair and grab a bite to eat.
    Read more

  • Inside the Abbey

    March 19, 2024 in Austria ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C

    Melk Abbey is a Benedictine order abbey that opened in 1089. You can imagine they have collected lots of church related stuff over 1000 years but the place is surprisingly uncluttered. What they do display are things they are proud of. A fancy hat called a Mitre, some heavy robes the Bishop wears on special occasions, and other gifts from royalty that has visited over the years. We were most impressed by a ceiling fresco that changed dimensions as you moved through the room. We were not supposed to take pictures inside the Abbey, but we snapped a few anyway.Read more