We leave Norfolk at 1600 hours and arrive in Amsterdam at 0730 Sunday morning local time. We spend the day walking along the canals of Amsterdam and visiting museums, then have dinner on board our river cruise ship Amadagio. After dinner, we leave the ship with newly made friends from Australia and Indiana and visit the Red Light district of Amsterdam looking at the window displays under the night lights.

We have a good night sleep and then have a sightseeing bus and canal boat tour of the city center and historical district. Amsterdam has 750,000 residents and 600,000 bicycles which you can buy used at the flea market for 35 euros. You then buy a 100 Euro lock, park the bicycle at work or school where it can get stolen. You then go back to the flea market and buy the same bicycle back for another 35 Euro -- the Dutch way of recycling.

As we motor through the city we observe that the cyclists have the right of way, they don't stop for pedestrians, red lights, or traffic. We see young mothers drive three wheeled tricycles with a 3' x 3' box in front in which they carry babies and preschool children. Many women work 4 days a week and on the fifth day they stay home and take care of preschool children of 4 other moms on a rotating basis, their cost effective way of day care.

There are six main canals that ring the old city of Amsterdam along with the Amstel River. There are 600 bridges over the canals, and locks between the canals and the river, which are opened 4-5 times a week to flush out the canals. About once every two years, the canals are drained one at a time to clean out the bicycles, Frigidaires etc. which have been dropped in or lost. There are about 2500 licensed houseboats docked along the canals, and these houseboats are connected to the city water, power, and sewer system. When you can find one, the houseboats cost about 200,000 euros, and the waiting time for dock space is up to 10 years.

Leaving Amsterdam at noon on Sunday, we enter the Amstel-Rhine River canal and sail to the Rhine River through a series of locks. We enter the Rhine and sail south towards the German border and will pass Dusseldorf about 0400, arriving at Cologne in the morning. Evening entertainment the first night was a local Dutch folk dancing group with two accordions playing music, and on our second night a very irreverent history of the Rhine Danube history which kept all of us laughing as we saw pictures of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria as a 17 year old lass and after she had 17 children. By the way, she was the one who invited German people to emigrate to Romania and Serbia, which is why Judy's German ancestors were actually from Romania.

That is all for tonight, we wake up in the morning in Cologne, Germany.

Rhine-Danube Adventure Day 4 - Cologne to Koblenz

The word "Cologne" comes from the Latin "Colone" meaning colony. It was founded by the Roman empress Agropina who assumed that title after she poisoned her husband. Here mushrooms are still eaten freely to this day, but you must pay before you eat.

The Romans had their colonial center here for five centuries, occupying the west side of the Rhine while the Germanic tribes occupied the east bank. As these tribes did not know how to build with stone, the stone foundations are all from the Roman times, many were excavated after WW-II during reconstruction.

Cologne people are more Italian than German due to the more than 500 years of Roman influence. They appreciated JFK visiting here as well as Berlin, where he declared "Ich bien ein Berliner." When President Clinton visited Cologne during his presidency, he stood up in front of the admiring crowd and declared "Ich bien ein Kolshe" which means "I am a beer!"

We walked to the cathedral in Cologne, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Build between 1150 and 1850, it could not be completed until technology caught up with vision. It was the tallest building in Europe until the Eifel Tower was constructed in 1895. It is where the relics of the three wise men are interred, hence the official name of the church is the Cathedral of Burial of the Three Wise Men.

As was Westminster Cathedral in London, this cathedral was not bombed by the Allies during WW-II, although the stained glass windows were removed before the war and stored safely underground until that conflict was over.

Leaving Cologne at 1300 hours, we entered the Rhine Gorge after passing Bonn, the formal capitol. Continuing south, we passed the ruins of the Remagen Bridge, made famous during the second war as "The Bridge too Far."

After dinner we made port at Koblenz, at the confluence of the Mosel and Rhine Rivers, and walked around the old town at night, before being treated to a classical trio for an hour before retiring. Tomorrow we leave Koblenz at 0600 hours as we spend Wednesday passing the castles on either side of the Rhine.

Rhine-Danube Adventure Day 5 - Castles on the Rhine

We began our day early with a scenic cruise through the Rhine Valley, passing by over 20 castles, many restored and some not, and we passed by the Lorelei Rock, where the lovely siren lured mariners to dash themselves on the rocks under her spell.

At about 1400 hours, we docked at Mainz, the crossroads of the Rhine, where the Main river joins the Rhine. The Rhine is not the longest but it is the busiest river in the world, with an average of over 300 commercial ships a day passing by Mainz, on their way between Basel Switzerland and Amsterdam and the sea. Fifty miles upstream of Mainz is the town of Worms, where Martin Luther published his famous manifesto and initiated the Reformation. Eight miles from Mainz is the US Air Force base and military hospital at Wiesbaden, and Frankfurt International Airport is only 10 miles away, so Mainz is where pilots and flight attendants stay between flights.

Going ashore, we visited the Gutenberg Museum, and BJ participated in the printing of a page from the bible, using the same design of equipment as Gutenberg used. We learned that Gutenberg had three separate inventions that made modern printing possible. First, movable type which was cast from an alloy of tin-bismuth-antimony-lead, and had a low melting point of 300 degrees C and was also soft enough that the typeface would not tear the printed page.

The second invention was the setting board for movable type, and the third was the printing ink made from soot and oil which transferred the image to the printed page.

Gutenberg found that the best medium for printed pages was parchment made from the skins of unborn animals, so required the killing of unborn calves to make the parchment. The reason for using this skin was that it has no pores, as pores are formed only after birth. Poreless parchment could be printed on both sides without the ink bleeding through. The first 50 copies of the Gutenberg Bible, including the copy in the US Library of Congress, were printed on parchment made from unborn calf skin. After this, Gutenberg used paper made from linen rags, and this made his books less costly and affordable to more people.

The Gutenberg bibles were printed using black ink on white paper, all illustrations and colored type was added by illustrators by hand onto the printed page. For this reason, no two copies are identical. Of 187 total copies printed, only 46 survive, and are worth up to 50 million euros each.

We visited the Romanesque St. Martin's Cathedral of Mainz, which was destroyed by bombing in WW-II but has been totally restored.

Passing through the old city with its half-wood construction, (we call it Tudor style) we toured St. Stephens church with its nine stained glass windows by the Jewish artist Marc Chagall which he created from 1978 as a sign of Jewish-Christian solidarity. These windows are beautiful and BJ tried to capture them with his camera.

Returning to our ship, we left the Rhine and turned into the Main River and passed by Frankfurt Am Main around 2200 hours.

At our evening presentation by our cruise director, he read suggestions made by our fellow passengers as to how to make our cruise more pleasurable. The best suggestion was to serve the gentlemen hot chocolate and Viagra before bedtime, the hot chocolate to aid in sleeping, and the Viagra to help them from falling out of the bed.

We will be continuing up the Main River Thursday.

Rhine-Danube Adventure days 6-7 - Up the Main River

On Thursday and Friday we cruised up the Main River, smaller and cozier than the Rhine, and with much less waterway traffic as well. Along its banks lie quaint villages and picturesque homes, as well as riverside trailer parks filled with caravans (camper trailers in the USA) where mostly retired couples sit on lawn chairs and watch the river traffic.

On our first day on the Main River, we stopped at two of the regions most picturesque villages, Miltenberg and Wertheim. In Miltenberg, the town stood still after the 30 Years War between the Catholics and Protestants in the 1600s, and still today the town is made up of half timbered houses and town wells and old churches.

Continuing upstream on the Main, we stopped at Wertheim, which is the glass blowing capitol of Germany. We walked to the Marktplatz (Market Square) and visited shops and a cafe where we had coffee and watched the locals go about their daily shopping and baby carriage strolling.

We passed by a pharmacy with its symbol of a unicorn standing up on its hind legs, and were told that a unicorn standing means purity while a unicorn lying on its back is the symbol for a brothel. Of course we stopped at a glass blower's shop and acquired a couple of unique glass pieces.

As we proceed up the Main River we passed through 34 locks until we reached the Main-Danube canal. We traveled about 380 km on the Main, rising to about 1000 feet above sea level.

On Friday, we stopped at Wurzburg, which has 44 churches and over 400 beer halls. We visited the Residenz of the Prince-Bishop's, a grand palace of the bishops of the Catholic church who were also the political princes of the Wurzburg district. The palace we visited had 340 rooms, the largest being 60 x 100 feet with no internal support. Though bombed by the British in 1944, the roof did not collapse and the 7000 sq ft frescoed ceiling, the largest in the world, remained intact.

Wurzburg is the home of Julius Maximilians University where Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered the X-ray, and was awarded the first Nobel prize in physics. Five other Nobel prize winners have graced the staff of this university since this time. Today 23,000 students and 3000 scientists work at the three institutes of higher learning in Wurzburg,

Friday afternoon, we took a motor coach to the medieval town of Rothenberg ob der Tauber (above the Tauber) built from 1100 to 1400 a.d.. with city walls and turrets still intact to this day. During the 30 Years War, the Catholic Churches, which had been converted to Lutheran churches at the decree of the city fathers, were seized by the Catholic armies and the town changed back to Catholic. All the townsmen were rounded up by the conquering army and were ordered to be killed. The doomed men asked for one glass of wine before their execution, and they drank with their captors.

One thing led to another until a wager was made that if one doomed man could drink a gallon of wine without stopping, the execution would be spared. He accomplished this task, and a commemorative monument was erected in the town square honoring this hero.

Rothenberg stands today exactly as it did in the middle ages, with towers and fortified gates, 2 1/2 miles of battlements, magnificent homes and churches, and a view of the Tauber River. Rothenberg is home to the most famous Christmas store in the world, where Judy acquired two new ornaments for our Christmas tree.

Returning to the Amadagio, we had an enjoyable late dinner and enjoyed a classical concert by two local artists, playing a harp, flutes, and classical guitar.

Saturday we enter the Main Danube Canal and reach an elevation of 1332 feet above sea level as we cross the Swabian Alps. After we reach the high point of our cruise, it is all down hill to the Danube river.

Rhine-Danube Adventure - Days 8-9: We reach the high point of our cruise

We began our morning leisurely cruising our last stretch of the Main River until we reached the Main Danube Canal. We docked at Bamburg, a town of 70,000 inhabitants with a university of 9000 students and also 9 breweries in town and 81 others in the surrounding countryside which make over 200 varieties of beer.

We then steamed up the Main-Danube canal which connects Bamburg on the Main with Kelheim on the Danube River, permitting traffic to flow from the North Sea to the Black Sea. The idea for this canal dates back to 793 when Charlemagne excavated a canal between small tributaries of the Main and Danube. Heavy rains caused the channel to collapse and the project was abandoned. In 1837 a replacement canal was constructed along the present route of the canal, but it was never able to compete with the railroads which had just been constructed because of the 101 locks which caused extensive delays in transit.

The current canal was constructed between 1960 and 1992, with only 16 locks, and of a size large enough to handle bulk freight carriers. With the opening of Eastern Europe, the passage of bulk materials from eastern Europe and finished goods from the western countries to the east ensured success of this canal from its opening. With the advent of tourism and river cruising along the rivers of Europe, over 40 percent of traffic is now cruise ships, with this dominated by Uniworld, Grand Circle and one other.

We stopped in Nuremberg, with 200,000 residents the second largest city in Bavaria next to Munich. Hitler chose this city for the Nazi rallies between 1933 and 1938. We visited the infamous parade grounds which had over 250,000 people in attendance for these Nazi rallies. At the end of WW-II, the Allies chose Nuremberg for the Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders. Of the 24 tried, 12 were executed, 9 were given long term sentences or committed suicide, and three were acquitted. The actual courtroom is now a working courtroom, and is only open to tourists on weekends.

It is not lost that the residents of Nuremberg considered the war trials to be a political show, and they denied any knowledge of the Nazi atrocities and crimes against humanity. Some members of the younger generation even deny that these crimes occurred.

Leaving Nuremberg, we crossed the continental divide at 1332 feet above sea level, and reached the high point of our cruise. As everything from this point was all down hill, we locked down to the level of the Danube, and prepared to stop on Monday in Regensburg on the Danube.

Rhine-Danube Adventure Day 10 - Regensburg

The Danube is the second longest river in Europe (I don't know what is the longest) and the northernmost point of the river is Regensburg in Bavaria, where a stone bridge was constructed over the Danube in 1135 linking the trade routes from Northern Europe and Venice. Regensburg was established in 179 a.d. as a Roman fort, and the town grew to over 20,000 during Roman occupation . In 530 it became the capitol of Bavaria, and became the capitol of the Second Reich (recalling Hitler established the Third Reich), a designation it maintained until Napoleon overran it in 1803 and gave it to his ally Germany.

Regensburg suffered little damage from air raids in WW-II, and has an almost intact medieval city centre. In the town center are two cathedrals, one of which the present Pope Benedict XVI was archbishop of before he was elevated to his current status, As he was Archbishop Ratzinger before his elevation, he is now lovingly referred to as "Papa Ratzi" by the local press.

Our tour of the city included the Roman sites, medieval homes and castles, and, of course the Brathaus where we enjoyed brats, sauerkraut, and sweet German mustard for lunch.

We entered the beautiful blue Danube at this point. They say the Danube is only blue if you are drunk or in love, to the rest of us it is a muddy brown color.

While we sleep tonight, we will sail to Passau, and then take a coach to Salzburg, and then pick up our ship in Linz to continue to Vienna.

Rhine-Danube Adventure Day 11 - Salzburg in the Rain

We began our day by docking in Passau, Germany, where the Danube joins with the River INN and the River ILZ. We immediately board our bus for a two hour drive to Salzburg, the magical town of Mozart and "The Sound of Music."

We arrive to the sound of rain and hail dancing on our bus, and "enjoy" a walking tour of this city with over one hundred churches, castles, and palaces which bear witness to the power of the ruling Salzburg archbishops.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born here in 1758, and he became famous throughout the world both because of his genius and because of the sponsorship and financial support of the ruling archbishop.

The city itself became famous when the Salzburg Festival was founded here in 1920, and when the film "The Sound of Music" was made in Salzburg in 1964 even more tourists came flocking to this city to see the film locations as well as the music festivals.

Like most tourists, we had coffee and purchased our Mozart balls at the Cafe Furst, and tasted a goulash, sausage and strudel lunch in one of the local restaurants. We returned to our ship in Linz, and enjoyed an operatic concert with Mozart music after a late dinner on board.

We continue our passage down the Danube as it winds slowly down its navigable 1,500 mile path from the Black Forest in Germany to the Black Sea, passing through ten countries and diverse cultures, peoples and religions.

Rhine-Danube Adventure Day 12 - Melk and Durnstein

Along the Danube River in our way to Vienna, we stopped at Melk, the location of Melk Abbey, the third most visited attraction in Austria, after the Schoenbroen palace in Vienna and the fortress in Salzburg.

This Benedictine Abbey which is still a working abbey, with its school, after over 900 years since its foundation in 1089 a.d. defies superlatives in its accolades, as it truly shows the best of glory and dignity of the baroque.

Rooms, libraries and the church are decorated with sculptures, frescoes, and golden sculptures that are beyond description.

The world famous library with hand copied manuscripts and books inspired Umberto Eco to write his book - The Name of the Rose - which was later made into a movie starring Sean Connery.

We returned to our ship and then cruised on the Danube through the Wachau Valley with its castles and then stopped at the little village of Durnstein where a visit into town by Judy (BJ stayed on board for a postprandial nap) resulted in the tasting of some of the best of Austrian chocolates.

The castle fortress above Durnstein was the place where Richard the Lion-Hearted was imprisoned by the Babenberg duke Leopold V in 1193 until England paid a large ransom for his release. The castle fortress is now in ruins, with just a wall and some ramparts still in place.

We continue to the wine producing town of Weissenkirchen and dock for the night before our departure for Vienna in the morning.

Rhine-Danube Adventure Day 13 - Vienna

Ahhh Vienna! It is impossible to put words to describe the elegance of this city, with every building looking like it came out of a museum, and its narrow cobblestone streets adding even more to the excitement and splendor. We have decided that we will be coming back as soon as we can to spend a week here to immerse ourselves in this wonderful city.

We began our day with a view of St. Stephan's Cathedral, with its 135 meter spire and colorful roof composed of over 350,000 glazed tiles.

Walking in the inner city, we spent time on Vienna's main pedestrian street called the "Kaertnerstrasse," passing by the Opera House and the famous Sacher Hotel and Cafe, as well as the fine shops which display goods which only the truly rich and well endowed can afford.

We entered the National Library with its rooms of over two million books including manuscript, chart, music, globe and portrait collections. We could have spent days just studying each room of this treasure built by the Habsburg emperors.

Leaving the Library, we walked past the Hofburg Palace complex and the Spanish Riding School, the City Hall ("Rathous") and the university of Vienna, the oldest in Europe, founded in 1325 and now having 85,000 students. Eight million people live in Austria, with 1.8 million living in the city. The city has acquired over 250,000 apartments in the city, and the waiting list for these rent controlled domiciles is over 10 years long.

Next to Warsaw, Vienna had the largest Jewish population in Europe, with 200,000 living there before the Nazis expelled half of them and exterminated the other half in concentration camps. Now the Jewish population in Vienna is about 10,000, with most of them engaged in banking and merchandising of fine art and jewelry.

Over half of the city is green space, with many parks and, surprisingly vineyards. Much of Austria's finest wine is produced right here in the city.

Our visit to Vienna included a mandatory stop at the Mozart Cafe where we had coffee and Sacher Torte (at half the cost of the Sacher Cafe but identical in quality.)

We then took a ride on horse coaches known as "Flakers" through old cobblestone streets and small lanes, visiting places not possible on city tours. We finished our day with a ride on the original Ferris wheel in the Prater park.

As we have now spent 12 days on board our river boat, there are a few people who have become out of sorts. Here in Vienna, a physician service known as "Doc around the Clock" visits tour boats and examines and prescribes to passengers, at a mere cost of 165 euros for a 10 minute consultation.

This is our third day of rain, and one of our fellow travelers is a Christian minister. We asked him to put in a word with the Lord to stop the rain. His reply was "I'm in sales, not in management!" As the Danube River is now rising we are in danger of overflowing the locks and banks. For this reason we left Vienna early and made our way to Bratislava in Slovakia a little early, and we spent the night there rather than in Vienna.

Rhine-Danube Adventure Day 14 - Sloshing through Slovakia

It is still raining, the Danube River is now over 10 feet above normal levels, the temperature is down to 10 degrees C (45 degrees F) and the natives are worried about global warming! We arrived here in Bratislava, Slovakia last night, and because we are worried about the Danube rising above flood stage, we will be leaving this afternoon to make our final passage to Budapest, Hungary.

Although we Americans know little about Bratislava, formerly called Presburg, it was the capitol of Hungary for over 1000 years when this territory was under Hungarian rule.

Nineteen Hungarian rulers were crowned in Presburg, as Budapest was under Turkish rule during this period. Slovakia and the Czech territory were taken away from Austria-Hungary in 1919, and formed into the country of Czechlovakia, which remained independent until annexed by the Nazis in 1939. It was liberated by the Russians in 1945 on their way to Berlin, and the Slovaks have always thought of the Russians as liberators, not invaders. Russia only maintained a token force here during the cold war, as the Czechs were treated as partners in the Eastern Bloc.

Bratislava is located on both sides of the Danube, just three miles from the Austrian border and 12 miles from the Hungarian border. After WW-I, the victorious allies did not know whether the city of Bratislava belonged to Austria or Hungary, and was at first called Wilson City, after US president Wilson.

We walked in the rain through the old city of Bratislava, passing the embassies of many countries, as well as the Opera House, university, town hall, and private residences where Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and Rubenstein once lived or stayed while they were in town.

After WW-II Russian style apartment buildings made of stark grey concrete were built on the south side of the river. This area is now known as "Lego Land."

Our tour guide, a woman about 40, said that this generation enjoys the freedom and ability to choose that have resulted from the fall of Communism, but the old people long for the security that the communist government provided with guaranteed jobs and income.

She was quite western in her speech, but when we crossed an intersection, she said "Ready, steady, go" instead of "Ready, set, go" as we would state.

After two hours of walking in the rain we returned through passport control to our ship, and are now tucked in and are drying out.

Rhine-Danube Adventure Days 15-18 - Four Days in Budapest

Day 1 

We arrived in Budapest during the night, and docked on the Buda side of the Danube, under the shadow of the Castle Hill and the Royal Palace.  Over 2 million of the 10 million citizens of Hungary live in Budapest.  Originally two cities of Buda and Pest, the cities were combined in 1873 to form a single city, with the industry and commerce mainly on the flat Pest side, and the better homes and castles and palaces on the hilly Buda side.  Hungary, and specifically the area around Budapest, was invaded by the Mongols under Genghis Khan in the 13th Century, and the Tartar influence still is prominent in this city. 

In the middle of the Danube River, there is a city park island named Margaret Island, which was given to the people of Budapest by King Bela IV in 1869.  He named the park after his daughter Margaret, who lived in a convent her entire life until she died at the age of 29,  Margaret is said to have never washed during her entire life!  She must have really smelled so bad, how could she have ever dreamed that she would capture a husband.  During these times, people of Hungary never took baths, they thought it was unhealthy.

Over the past 10 years since the fall of communism, over 500 thousand people have left Budapest to live in the country.  There is a decline in population in Hungary, and as an incentive to have more children, the Communist government provided an incentive of a 20 percent down payment to any family who would promise to have one or two babies within two years of buying a home.  With this incentive, almost every pair of newlyweds had two children within the first two years of marriage, and once they got their home purchase down payment confirmed, had no more children.   After an early breakfast, we took a water taxi to the Pest side of the Danube, and walked to Vaci Street, which has been blocked off and pedestrianized and is lined on both sides with little shops which sell handmade folk items, decorated boxes, embroidered dresses, and of course, tablecloths which have been hand embroidered by women who live in the countryside. 

We continued to the end of Vaci Street to the Central Market, which looks a lot like an old Victorian building, with cast iron support beams and two floors around the walls with a center open space. 

We found stalls selling fresh fish, meat, vegetables and spices.  On the second floor there were Hungarian fast food cafes and stalls selling folk items and more hand embroidered items.

We went back to our cruise ship for lunch, and then went on a bus tour of Budapest, including Hero's Square and Andrassy Boulevard lined with ornate buildings which were the homes of the rich and famous in the 1890's.  These buildings were taken over by the Communists and were subdivided into as many as sixteen apartments during that era. 

When the apartments were sold to the renters, they were responsible for building maintenance on a joint basis, but with no money to do so, many of these are now in a state of disrepair. 

We motored by the public baths and parks, as well as the Parliament and Opera House.  Returning to the Buda side, we drove up to the Castle district, and stopped near Matyas church; and walked out on the Fisherman's Bastion for an overall look at the entire city and the Danube River.

We stopped to look across the Danube to view the Parliament building and take mandatory photographs of both Judy and BJ on the Fisherman's Bastion, as well as a photo of our Amadagio Aussie friends.

Returning to our cruise ship Amadagio for the last time, we enjoyed our Farewell Dinner with our new Aussie friends and were treated to Hungarian folk entertainment before returning to our stateroom to pack our luggage for disembarkation in the morning.

Day 2 

We shared a Final breakfast with our new friends before taking a Taxi to the Budapest Hilton which is located in the Castle District overlooking the Danube River.  We checked in, then went to Sunday Mass at Matyas Church and had a light snack before meeting with our personal tour guide Gabriella. 

We walked through Castle District, stopped to see a bombed out church and the Plague Statue, then got into Gabriella's car driven by her 18 year old son and drove by the castle area, the Gellart Hotel and Spa. 

We then drove down Castle Hill to the Danube riverbank, and went to the famous Cave Church where we stopped and went inside to see the chapels and main worship hall located in the underground caverns.

We drove up to Liberation Monument on the top of Gellart Hill in Buda.  This monument was set up to commemorate the liberation of Hungary by the Russian Army in 1945.  The central figure is a woman holding a palm leaf. 

The Russians came as liberators, but during the cold war communist oppression just replaced Nazi terrorism, and when the communist regime collapsed, all references to Russian liberation, including Russian text, were removed from the monument in 1992. 

The view of both sides of the Danube is spectacular from this location.

We then went into Pest and stopped at the Szechenyi Public Baths and Varosliget Park with its assortment of carnival rides. 

We drank mineral water from the spa, and stopped for lunch at Szechenyi baths and had some Goulash Soup. 

During lunch, Judy brought out military papers of Judy’s grandfather and Gabriella and her son translated the text written in old Hungarian script during the period of his enlistment as a Hussar from 1902 to 1904.  He had volunteered for a 12 year enlistment as a mounted horseman, but after a year, his performance appraisal stated that he was a better tailor than a horseman, and he worked to support the mounted Hussars from that point forward.  In 1904 he requested and was granted a leave to visit relatives in Cincinnati, Ohio in the USA, and he went across the Atlantic Ocean, never to return to Hungary.  Dunning letters were sent to him from the Hungarian Army in 1905, but it appears that he ignored them as he initiated his career as a tailor in Cincinnati. 

After lunch, we walked through Vajdahunyad Castle, which is a complex of buildings representing a variety of architectural styles, and visited the statue of "anonymous" in the park.

We drove back to the central city down Andrassy Blvd, looking at the splendor of old homes where the rich and famous lived during the height of Hungarian prosperity in the 1990s.  We walked around and then inside one grand hotel that has the main lobby and dining room mad of marble with gold covered fixtures and decorations.

When the communists took over the country in 1945, these magnificent homes were converted into apartments for as many as 10 or more families.  Later, these state owned apartments were sold to the residents as condominiums, with the new owners responsible for maintenance and restoration.  Restoration has been slow in coming, but many are now restored.  We stopped at one home which has been converted to a Postal museum, but it gave us a good look at what the old homes looked like despite the fact that the main rooms have been converted to the Postal museum.

We stopped at the Budapest Opera house, and looked in the lobby to see the ornateness of the inside. 

The Terror Museum was our next stop, where we saw the documentation of both the Nazi and Communist oppression of the citizens, including the torture and forced confessions that were done there. 

We stopped at the original subway station, with decorated frescoes in the ceilings of the stations.  Gabriella taught us how to use the public transportation system which is comprised of trams, subways, and busses, all readily accessible to visitors for a single inexpensive daily pass.  There are no tills or toll booths, everything is on the honor system, with periodic spot checks made by a few officers.  It really works well, and there is little or no cheating, as the fines for being without a pass are quite severe.  We finished our day with Gabriella with a drive by Parliament and St. Stephan's Cathedral, vowing to come back on our own during the next two days. 

In front of St. Stephans Cathedral is a building built by the communist government during the Cold War.  The Architecture is stark grey, in contrast to the ornate architecture of the romantic period of Budapest.

Returning to the Castle District, we had dinner at a local restaurant before returning to the Hilton Hotel.

Day 3 

We walked to St Stephens Basilica, toured the inside.  The church is built in neoclassic style.

Statues on the exterior shows the twelve Apostles, the four Evangelists etc. The interior is decorated with work of arts made by 19th century Hungarian artists.

This church is said to be second in size only to St. Peter's in Rome and can allegedly hold 7,000 people. It was completed in 1905 and underwent cleaning and restoration work for eight years. This work was completed in 2002.   The cathedral has a height of 96 meters - exactly the same as the Parliament building.

It took over 50 years to build the Basilica, which was completed in 1905. Three leading architects, two of whom died before work was finished, presided over its construction. The delay was due in large part to the collapse of the dome in 1868, requiring complete rebuilding from the ground up.

After its completion, St. Stephen's was considered so sturdy that important documents and artworks were stored in it during the World War II bombings.

We took an elevator tour to the inside of the dome and walked out on the balcony and had a magnificent view of the city as well as the Buda side with its hills and castle and monuments. 

In the entrance foyer of St. Stephens Cathedral is a statue of Joseph, Cardinal Mindszenty, Archbishop of Budapest and Primate of Hungary, who was a fanatical "creature" of Pope Pius XII, who used him to further his religious and political schemes in Central Europe. 

With the connivance of Pius and of nationalistic Catholic elements, Mindszenty, immediately after World War II, became the centre of a plot to overthrow the Government and to restore a Catholic Monarchy in Hungary, with himself as Regent.  The plot failed. Mindszenty was jailed (1946).  Ten years later Mindszenty became once more the focus of the Revolution. He returned to Budapest...the Capital, escorted by three Hungarian tanks...(October 1956) to head a new Hungarian Government, as the only public figure to command wide popular support.  The uprising, however, proved another failure. It was crushed by a ruthless Russian military intervention.  Mindszenty took refuge in the USA Legation of Budapest, where he was a "guest" for more than twelve long years (1956-1968), notwithstanding USA and Vatican pressure to dislodge him.