Danube River Cruise~ Budapest

In April 2018, we were blessed to enjoy a Viking Cruise of the Danube River and visited Budapest, Vienna, Passau, Regensburg, and Nuremburg.

When Covid first began in 2020, I started this post and never finished it!!! 

Fast forward to 2021. We began making plans for a 50th anniversary trip so I started thinking about finishing this post which is only a tiny part of the Danube Cruise. I highly recommend  Viking Cruises. Viking takes great care of you and the travel is very pleasant because you can travel a long distance and not have to change hotels. Your floating hotel allows you to sightsee during the day and travel while you sleep. It is fun meeting people from all over the world and the food is wonderful. 

 We arrived in Budapest late afternoon and boarded our ship. After getting settled and given our itinerary it was time to enjoy our first dinner aboard the Viking Cruise longship. Then after dinner, we cruised the River Danube and saw the beautiful city of Budapest all lit up at night. It was a gorgeous full moon which always makes me happy!

This is the Szechenyi Chain Bridge that spans the River Danube between Buda and Pest, the western and eastern sides of Budapest.

This is the capital building. Budapest is the capital city and largest city in Hungary.

The capitol building is huge and sits high up on the hill. Quite impressive on a night cruise.

The bridges are all so pretty.

The Parliament Building is one of the most recognized buildings in Budapest as seen in the iconic Viking Cruise commercials.  

This Art Nouveau design bridge is called Liberty Bridge and was the first bridge to be rebuilt after all the damage from World War 11. 

This is another Viking longship we passed as we cruised the river in Budapest. Keep in mind the ship is moving while I photographed the sites. It was also hard to see the buttons on my camera. But it was a very exciting experience seeing these huge and beautiful buildings as we cruised by.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I still haven't finished this post on Budapest. The draft is dated May 21, 2021. It is now February 2022! I know but life gets very busy.  As you can see I am very behind on blogging about our wonderful travels.  

Matthias Church was built in the 13th century. But in the  1883-1896 restoration the Matthias Church received a colorful tile roof. It is decorated in Hungarian Zsolnay tiles of bright orange, brown, green, red, and white.

 Fisherman's Bastion is one of the top Budapest attractions. The seven turrets represent the 7 Hungarian tribes who founded the present-day country in 895. The views from Fisherman's Bastion are extraordinary.

This is the statue of St. Stephen the first Hungarian king, in 1906. 

I always enjoy seeing a model of the area. It gives you a good perspective. Matthias Church is enormous. It is one of the city's oldest buildings and is located on Buda Hill in front of the Fishermen's Bastion. It is a Roman Catholic church with Gothic Revival architecture.

Side streets with restaurants

I really wanted to walk across this bridge and look out on both sides of the river but time did not allow and I snapped this photo from our bus. 

The first time I saw this type of roof was Hotel Dieu in Beaune, France. You can view that post here.

These large WW11 photos made a lasting impression on me. Budapest was an interesting city viewed at night as well as during the day. I am glad we were able to see both.
We did take a fabulous anniversary trip to Italy and France in late August and early September. I blogged about the Tuscany portion here. I don't believe I will ever totally catch up blogging about our trips but I have hundreds of photos.