Bill and Lynne Grand Tour

Danube in Budapest

We came back to Budapest on our coach tour and spent a couple of days in this lovely city. The architecture is impressive and beautifully laid out as it was all rebuilt to celebrate their 1,000 year anniversary. We took a cruise on the Danube at sunset and watched the lights of the city come on. It was quite magical. The empress of the Austro-Hungarian empire built an enormous palace on one of the hills on the Buda side and we spent a happy couple of hours wandering around and enjoying the views from every corner. The local guide took us on a bus tour of all the major sights and gave us a thumb-nail sketch of the incredible history. We enjoyed Heroes' Square with its huge statues of legendary kings through the ages. Many were dressed as Asterisk and Obelisk, which gave us a kick.


Heroe's Square

The Leger Holidays coach tour was fun but it takes many days to drive from England across Europe to reach Hungary and Romania so we were pretty tired of sitting by the end of the fourteen days. Fortunately we had time on the way back through Germany to take a Rhine cruise at the lunch-break and it made a nice change to wander the deck watching the fairy-tale castles as we floated by. On the outward journey we stopped in Vienna and walked around the sights Bill and I had seen in our youth. Most of our fellow travelers had done many coach tours before, for one reason or another, and I am glad we did it but I think flying to a country and spending more time there rather than days looking at the trees on the autobahn is preferable.


Rhine Castle

LS