BUDA OR PEST?

 Our guide says the only good thing about Buda is you can get a great view of beautiful Pest from it. I wonder which side he lives on?

More stunning weather, lots of state buildings, cathedrals & museums. Go for a Trabby tour if you want.

Market hall was a nice place to wander around, lots to see & buy - food & souvenirs.

Guide was intent on being provocative, telling us why everything was better in Hungary than England & going on at length about England's 6-3 & 7-1 defeats at the hands of Puskas.

It's a fine balance working with the locals, at least Mum only cut off half the bottle & not my head! Dancing with the locals was exhausting - all that stamping & clapping.

Nice night time cruise to see the city lit up, very pretty.

17 degC yesterday, 3 this morning.

BRATISLAVA

Moved just down the river to Bratislava, capital of Slovakia. Weather's has been brilliant, over 30 degC yesterday in Vienna.

 Matej, our guide was brilliant today. Had loads of little stories & quips for us, many featuring his mother-in-law. He said the man at work was typically communist, doesn't move all day, but still takes home the same pay as you. You can see lots of people touch his head for luck - Matej says it's bad luck, as hundreds of dogs piss on his head every day.

Kofola is the communist version of coca cola. It got so popular that people still bought it when the real thing arrived.

Nice town with squares & boulevards in the historic centre, surrounded by drab communist suburbs.

This old derelict house is being converted to flats, it's on the internet with pricing around €1 million. The country has booked with the motor industry moving here making 1 million cars pa with Volvo moving in to make an extra 400k. With a country population of 9 million, it's some industry. They are very anxious about what Trump is doing - bust on the horizon?

Narrowest house in Europe.

Rather grand Post Office, more working counters than in Enfield Town.

This is Matej, he said if you want to get a woman out of your life, buy a mouth organ. Then proceeded to get one out & play us some traditional tunes. He's wearing a shepherds hat with sea shells around it. Apparently, shepherd's took their goods down river to trade at the mouth of the Danube & sewed on a shell after every successful trip. You could then tell if you were hiring a good river navigator judging by the shells.

This was a guy who was jilted on the altar in the early 1900's who never changed out of his wedding suit until he died in the '60s.

The story behind this is that 2 men were building adjacent houses & wanted to marry the same woman. Whoever builds the nicest house gets my hand. This house won & the guy put in this effigy blowing a raspberry & with a big set of family jewels, so the loser had to face it every time he left his house!

MELK, THEN VIENNA

 Ah Vienna....... A beautiful city, very clean wonderful buildings, wide boulevards, palaces the lot.

Spent an evening at the opera in the Lobkowitz Palace, stunning place where Beethoven had conducted. The singers were so expressive.

The ship's lounge.

Wandered around the palaces, saw the Lipitzaner horses, only stallions because the presence of mares causes disruption & fights.

Sat in the park and admired the statuary, especially the golden Strauss only disfigured by posing Koreans???

We waited around for the coach back to the park but we would have been better walking back and taking a trip on the Wine Ferris wheel. Can you hum the Harry Lime theme?

Melk abbey underlines the money that the Catholic Church has. I think Henry VIII may have had a point. The walk up to the abbey was very demanding, a lot of steep steps Linda did well - red, exhausted, but well.

DUMPLINED OUT

Underway now, started at Passau, a pleasant town 45mins away from Munich. Did a walk round the town to see the usual cathedrals, rathaus and landmarks. There have been some substantial floods here in the past. What do you global warming - weather catsrophe proponents make of the dates?

Had a nice visit to a a local small farming family who invited us in for afternoon tea & cakes. Interesting people who had that morning  just taken delivery of calf twins.

Moved into Czech Republic to a world heritage site - Cesky Krumlov. It has a long heritage since the 12th century and boasts a lot of no historic sites in a quiet, traffic free cobbled setting. The castle has a moat with no water, but how to keep invaders out, I hear you ask. They went for bears 

There is a local sculptor based here who is obsessed with feet & hands.

Interesting bridge building techniques in use. The church in view is St Vitus, anyone for a dance.

 Like their food here, plenty of handmade sweets & gingerbread. We went to lunch & had the guides recommendation of dumplings stuffed with plums & marzipan liberally coated in sugar. Huge serving. To add to that we had an even more massive fluffy pancakes with whipped cream, cherries & topped with even more sugar all washed down with a large glass of port. The 10000+ steps we achieved didn't even touch the calories needed to balance it out.