Day 3—Boarding the Ship

Heroes' Square

The sun rose early today…which was slightly inconvenient as we had left the curtains open and it was streaming in from the sitting room/patio.  But we suffered through.  Eventually we got up and going (with Theresa doing a bit of work before breakfast).  We headed out to Hero Square, an open plaza with statues of many of their kings from 997 until the 1800s.  There were noticeable gaps in the reigning years, so clearly not all of the kings were “heroes”. 

Saints Steven (Istvan)(997-1038) and Laszlo (1077-1095)

Some random castle?

After meandering around and noting the changing garb over the eight centuries, we checked out a castle-looking place across the water.  We think it is called “Vajdahunyad vara”.  It looked cool, but not cool enough to pay.  So, just inside the gate, we looked around, took some pix, and headed out again to walk down Andrassi Utca (street), which was supposed to have a lot of stores for window shopping.  We found several Embassies, but few stores with windows.  We did pop into one or two, but returned with our wallets unopened!  We found a gelato store, and each got a “small treat”.  Back to the hotel for the bags and head to the ship!!

Well, the gate is open?

Ominous!

Guessing there is a walkway to that tower?

The Terror Museum/House.  Cool effect!

Partway through our health snack!

Our ship was the third one in.  For river cruises, they often stack boats side by side, so you walk down the gangway to the first ship, through it to the next ship, through it to our ship.  Check in was pretty easy, and off to our room!  It was a pretty nice room, having enough storage to get everything put away and the bags under the bed.

Welcome!!

A workable bathroom.

A university of technology, as seen from our room.

The view from the bed.

Welcome reception with sparkling wine.

There was a light lunch ending at 2:30 and it was almost 2:00 by then, so…priorities!  Beer and wine are included for meals (well, dinner and lunch, no “breakfast beer”, but they do offer sparkling wine at breakfast!).  Bill had a beer.  They said it was Lowenbrau, so thinking “here’s to good friends!  Tonight is kind of special!”, sure!!  I’m pretty sure it was NOT Lowenbrau, but it was good enough.

Conscripted help!

We headed back to the room, took a little nap, and hung out a little just relaxing.  At 6:00 we headed up to the bar to await the safety exercise, where one of the captains (they have three??) handed us live vests.  We proceeded to our designated spot, where the staff member said, “Oh good!  Here hold this!” 

After the exercise and an introduction to the leadership, it was time for dinner!  We had a nice sampling of different things on the menu (with four of us, it was easy to cover a lot of options).  Theresa had a nice Hungarian red wine (seemed fitting).  After dessert, we headed back up to the bar (playing 80s music mostly) as they have Happy Hour with half priced drinks.  There are at least two Scotches I want to try but hesitate to spend full price.  But half price??  I had a Talisker 10.  Very smoky, but not peaty at all.  I wrote the blog while Theresa worked (again).  She works hard to take me to these nice places, doesn’t she??

It's an early morning tomorrow, so hopefully an early evening.