This has been a long day on the bus. We left at 8:00 this morning and got to Budapest, Hungary a little after 4:00. We had three stops, the first for 30 minutes, the lunch stop was one hour and a potty stop for 15 minutes.
We started the day in Krakow Poland and had breakfast at the hotel before boarding the bus. We had lunch in Slovakia and had dinner in Hungary. We did a three country trifecta today!
There was a hard freeze last night and it was down right chilly when we boarded the bus. It was a good day to be inside most of the day.
Our first stop was at an old wooden church in Slovakia. The church is not heated but luckily the bathrooms were. The church had painted panels on the ceiling and walls that were beautiful. It was a simple church with not so much gold. They had just finished a mass when we got there.
We had lunch at some restaurant in Slovakia. I was impressed that they fed 40 people in under an hour and had a huge menu to choose from. I had a chicken thigh that was on a potato salad. I ate the chicken thigh but not the potato salad. The potato salad was whole, baby potatoes with all sorts of spices on them.
We got to the hotel in Budapest just after three big buses had unloaded. It was a bit of a wait to get checked in. Our room wasn’t ready and they asked us to come back in 10 minutes. Nicole went back after 10 minutes and it still wasn’t ready. They asked us to give them 10 more minutes.
This time I went up and the young man said the room still wasn’t ready. He asked if he could upgrade us to a suite with two bedrooms. I’ll take that deal any day!
Our room is big. The second bed is a pull out couch in the living room of the suite but that works. We are only here for one night.
We went down to the bar before our meeting was to start at 6:00. I ordered a hot chocolate. It took them about 15 minutes to make it and when I finally got it and tasted it I think they forgot to put in the chocolate. I took a couple sips of the whipped milk and called it good.
We went into our group tour meeting. So far I am not impressed with our tour guide. Tonight three or four separate groups all came together. The guide gave us our instructions for tomorrow. We have to have our luggage outside our door by 6:30. We are to be on our bus at 8:00 and will be taken on a tour of the city. We are to be done by 11:30 and then will be given some cash for lunch. The bus will pick us up at 1:00 and we will be driven to Vienna, Austria where we will get aboard our first river cruise ship. We will spend three nights on that ship and then be bused to another ship for three nights.
We had a buffet dinner after the guide finally shut up. The food was so so. I am not a big fan of buffets.
Not sure what the agenda on the boat will be. The boat will move once during the three day period but we will mainly be bused to our daily destinations.
The scenery today was beautiful. We went through some mountains – there highest point is a little over 8,000 ft. There was snow on the peaks but we didn’t get close to it. The trees were still showing their fall colors although the leaves are starting to thin out. The road was curvy in lots of places.
We had a great bus driver and he made driving and backing up the bus look easy and smooth.
We tipped the bus driver and our first tour guide when we arrived at the hotel in Budapest as we won’t be seeing them again.
The original plan was for us to board the cruise ship today and be on it for seven nights. They are continuing to experience a severe drought and the river is too low for the ships to cruise all the way. Gate 1 is trying to do their best to give us the experience without the cruise part. I am tired of buses but will have to get over that as I still have lots of bus trips ahead of me.
Had trouble sleeping last night and am a bit cranky tonight. Hoping a good night’s sleep will fix what ails me. My tummy was a bit upset today but I think it has finally calmed down.
Need to get my bath and get to bed. It will be an early morning tomorrow and another four hour bus ride.
Grateful for this chance to visit new to me countries, grateful how easy it is to go from one country to another, and grateful today’s long bus ride is over.