June 8 Budapest

Big sleep in until 6.30 am. Woohoo. Quick shower and then bags down to the lobby before breakfast. We were determined to make the most of our morning in Vienna. But that didn't last long when our receivers didn't work and along with several of the others in our group we couldn't hear the guide. We visited the Belvedere Palace and then went into the old city for a walk. Vienna has some lovely buildings although most of them are post-war and a lot have modern apartments on the rooves which spoils the look. We saw the home of the Spanish Riding School. The shops looks very expensive. After the group walk we decided to sit outside a café for a couple of hours, had a couple of beers and a couple of Pitas. A very pleasant time. By 12.30 it was over 30 degrees and time to make our way back to the bus for our 3 hour drive to Budapest.
On our arrival in Budapest we found our new boat tied up outside another Avalon boat on the Danube. Our cabin was on the outside and had a great view across the river for 10 minutes or so until another river boat tied up beside us and then it all went dark. Disappointed we went up to the lounge for happy hour and the briefing for tomorrow. While we were doing our best to get 3 drinks in during happy hour the engines started up and the boat on the outside began to move out into the river. We then moved forward accompanied by a large cheer from everyone on board who thought we might be going for a dinner cruise. However we remained pretty much stationary while the boat that had been on the outside moved into the numer 2 position. Once they were all tied up then we moved back into the outside position and our cabin got it's view back.
We had dinner with Tom and Chris from Wisconsin in the lounge rather than enduring the noise in the dinning room and then went upstairs to have a final drink and take in the view of the city. Finally we got what we had been expecting to do most nights.Read more