Time to cruise on

Note to our loyal followers: I am very behind on posting comments and photos because we have been on constant tours (when we are not eating, of course), and because the ship's Internet is intermittent and painfully slow. But I'll try hard to catch up and share pictures of the gorgeous towns and countryside in Austria and neighboring countries.

It was a wonderful to get to know Budapest with the help of our guides. But we were also anxious to board our Viking Cruise ship, the Legend. We cast off at sundown and had a wonderful cruise and the opportunity to see Budapest at night from the Danube.

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Crazy Hungarian Cowbows

Our optional tour on Monday afternoon was a Hungarian horse show at Lazar Equestrian Park about a half hour outside of Budapest. We were greated by a traditionally dressed cowboy who offered us a scone (as a "soft pillow" for our stomachs) and a shot of polinka (very strong fruit brandy).

The farm was meticulously maintained and the show was incredible.

 

 

 

After the horse show, we had a carriage ride, followed by a tour of the barn and visited the farm animals including the most adorable puli dogs.

 

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Marzipan Miracles

Have you ever been to a marzipan museum? You may need to travel to this small village outside of Budapest to have this experience that was highly recommended my our guide, Tita. After paying our 400 f each and tasting a sample piece of marizipan, we entered the charming museum. We had the opportunity to watch two women creating little marzipan figures.

We walked upstairs and entered into the museum, with a life size marzipan Lady Diana, Michael Jackson, Disney scenes, and the Budapest Parliament building.

Goulash Soup

The cafes and restaurants offer goulash soup, probably to keep the tourists happy. But as part of Sunday morning's tour, we visited a living ethnographic museum on the Buda side of Budapest to learn more about the culture and people of Hungary.

Our first assignment was to prepare goulash soup. Always excited about food, we jumped right in.

After a our cooking lesson, we were invited to a traditional Hungarian restaurant for a lunch of goulash soup and dessert.

And spent the following hour touring the museum that included traditional homes, folk musicians, a windmill, and a farm with typical farm animals.

Rapid fire touring.....

Wow...it is really hard to keep up with so many tours and activities - this is almost like having a full-time job. And our Opera experience was so enthralling, some of us had difficulty sleeping on Saturday night (remind us to tell you about the "hand man." We believe he is Johnny Depp's cousin and had to have the most expressive hands of any opera star I've ever seen!). Stan and I missed our wake up call, and Margy and Tori slept in as well. Shirley and Mom, the pensioners extraordinaire, apparently had no difficulty rising at 6 AM. Unfortunately, our tardiness prevented another 5 course breakfast experience (which was probably a good thing) as we needed to place our luggage outside our hotel room meet our tour guide for the Budapest city tour. We visited an historic "artist colony" about 40 minutes outside of Budapest.