We’re at 30,000 feet, on our way home, and I haven’t
even finished our two weeks on the river(s), never mind Switzerland and Paris.
It would seem I have more to write about than I thought.
In truth things are beginning to fade. My notes say "Bratislava", and the only specific things I can dredge
up are St. Martin's Church (which we saw) and St. Michael's Tower which we saw
from a distance. The only problem with that previous sentence is my notes say St. Stephan's church while my research about it being a "coronation church" says it was St. Martin's Cathedral. Well you will get some history and you may assign whichever name you prefer. I have cryptic notes about the Ottoman Empire and Habsburg kings and queens and this was the church that was used for coronations well in to the 19th century. Well, may not so much history as this is what I remember.
As with so many of these towns, there were cobbled streets aplenty, but here they were in
desperate need of maintenance. Wherever you looked there were stones missing, those that remained were cracked and crumbling and there was a
general air of decrepitude in the public spaces. There were
some fun pieces of public art scattered around the old town. The was one pleasant square, and one
dreadful square, which I expect came from the Soviet era. The main shopping street was mostly cafes and
bars and shops selling postcards.
The Brits have a lot to answer for
in Eastern Europe. Between
the low cost airlines making air travel cheap, and with value of the pound being so strong in many Eastern European countries there are plenty of paces that are still very affordable. You can spot the latest in spot for hen parties and stag weekends by observing how much they cater to the young British traveller. At first it was Amsterdam, where groups of partying young people
gained a reputation for getting drunk and falling in the canals. Then came Prague,
where we saw an assortment of young women (would be brides and their entourage) parading around in the most ridiculous get ups,
drunk at 11:00 in the morning. Take a
walk around Bratislava and you see their impact. There is an English pub and the Irish bar never mind the fish and chips shop and a bakery selling sausage rolls. I was told that the parties have
now moved on to Croatia and Yugoslavia. Guess if you want to party you need to be on the lookout for somewhere a little cheaper, with plenty of liquor, and a constabulary which will turn a blind eye on your shenanigans.
From Bratislava we were to sail down the Danube with an anticipated arrival in Budapest of 10:00 p.m. This was not to be. As you are now probably aware, the river, the other boats and barges, and docking space have an enormous impact on river cruising. So it was, our anticipated arrival slipped from ten, to eleven, to midnight. Why the fuss you ask. The city is
renowned for the illumination of its iconic buildings and bridges along the
waterfront and the cruise companies play off this with special drinks and whatnot as the boat pulls in to port. I am honor bound to report that, when the arrival time kept slipping, I
gave up and went to bed. As a consequence I have no pictures of the lights, but I am sure that Frank and Carol took more than enough to compensate for my lack of enthusiasm.
Although we
have arrived at our final destination we still have one last day of sightseeing
and a final night on board. First thing in the morning they schlep
us on to a bus for our final city tour.
Budapest is a big city and not especially conducive to a walking tour for the senior crowd. It was mostly a drive by experience, with a stop at Heroes Square and Castle Hill, but really, they just whet our appetites to see
things more in depth. Guess that statement could be true for all the stops on our cruise. It was a good way to get acquainted with lots of places. But there just isn't, nor should there be, adequate time to really get to know somewhere.
Lunch time arrives and we are back on board. We check in with some of the other folks on the cruise as to their plans for
the afternoon. The ultimate decision if to visit one of the public baths for which
Budapest is famous. The city sits on a
reservoir of thermally heated water which has been in use since roman times. (no, no they don't really recycle it, which is how that sentence reads to me, they just make use of the ongoing supply.) Throughout history, as in dating back to pre roman times the residents have
built baths for both therapeutic and bathing purposes. One of the reasons this practise continues, we were told, is that
medical care is extremely expensive in Hungary and therapeutic bathing by the
general public is the first line of defence in what ails you. I certainly would advocate for the benefits of a long leisurely soak in cleansing the mind and body.
There are six or seven public baths in the city and we
choose the Gellert Baths for their famous Art Nouveau architecture. Five of us pile in to a taxi which magically
pulls a fifth seat out of the trunk space.
Where it was and how we all actually got in there is a mystery to me,
but we did. This should not be confused
with the taxi we caught back which overcharged us and made four people sit in
the back seat. Ah, free enterprise and
tourists, they are not always a fair match.
These baths are housed in enormous building that reminded
me of a cross between a European train station and a gymnasium. A great, big, cavernous space with shops and
offices occupying the outside walls and the central area totally unoccupied. I want to say the ceiling was glass, filling
the place with plenty of natural light, with tile or ceramic floors. The only way to be sure though, is to go back, which
probably won’t happen anytime soon. You
go up to the ticket window, dark wood with brass fittings, purchase your ticket
and you are given something that looks like a plastic (s)watch with no
face. Then it is down in to the bowels
of the building along white tiled corridors, up and down staircases and around
corners until you are dumped, rather unceremoniously, into the ladies changing room. For an extra price you can have a private
cubicle for changing etc, but we opted for the public space. Pretty typical changing room, banks of
lockers on either wall, a bench running down the center and dozens of ladies,
in various stages of undress, speaking nearly as many different languages.
The first obstacle, how to work the lockers. Remember the watch with no face? It is a device for locking and unlocking the
lockers, as well as the exit door when you are ready to leave. You place it against a square metal plate on
the exterior of the closed locker and presto-chango, your belongings are secure. I immediately unlocked said locker in the same fashion, just to be sure it really worked, and it did. Next task, find the others in public
area. There are at least six pools, of
various sizes and temperatures filled with people soaking in the waters. Having decided to soak, not swim, I at least
still had my glasses on and did not have to wear a bathing cap. But keeping my hair from curling up in to and afro and my glasses from steaming up, was another
matter entirely.
The first thing I find is what appears to be an Olympic
size swimming pool with a water aerobics class under way. If this were Ashland it would be filled with
little old white haired ladies bobbing along to music from the 80’s. In Budapest, not so much. There are all sorts, young and old and more
unusually lots of men. The instructor,
on the edge of the pool is a man(!!) and not at all hard to look at, if only my
glasses wouldn’t steam up. I find my
friends in a moderately warm pool and we relax and admire the phenomenal
architecture and decoration.
Ultimately we go in search of hotter water and an
exploration of the facility. There are
pools ranging from 28 – 40 degrees centigrade (82 - 104). There are facilities for massage and sauna, inhalation therapy and tooth gum shower, therapeutic gymnastics and physiotherapy advertised. Some of the cubicles look like something out of a 1930's sanatorium, which I guess this is/was. All in all an experience.
Things I have learned that don’t seem to have a place in
what I have been writing:
- As in most places in this world Skin heads and Nazi sympathisers can be found in Germany. In Cologne when they attempted to have a demonstration in the Cathedral Square the church tuned off all the lights which normally illuminate the square and all the local businesses followed suit. No light no demonstration.
- In Miltenberg when faced with a similar event the priest started ringing the church bells and all the other churches also joined in. The demonstrators were unable to hear the speeches and gave up and went home.
- The Danube River runs from West to East, from the Black Forest to the Black Sea.
- RV parks . . . both the Danube and the Rhine are lined with RV parks. Most of them look like permanent installations of smallish caravans, no big buses or little tents. Picture a moderate sized trailer with a tent like structures attached to the front to create a screened in porch. In front of the tent, pots of flowers, a couple of deck chairs and a German gentleman in shorts reading his morning paper. You now have a picture of camping on the Danube.
- All the paintings and decorations in the churches were used as a way to tell the Bible stories to the illiterate. A prime example, we saw somewhere was Pontius Pilate portrayed as a Turkishman. The painting was done during the ottoman siege of what is now Austria. To show Pilate as Turkish was to demonstrate he was a bad person
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