16 to 21 September, 2024
After finishing the Camino, we caught the bus back to Porto where we had a free day. Unfortunately smoke from local bushfires made it quite unpleasant there so we had a quiet day. Tuesday we were catching an early flight to Amsterdam, where we had a 4 hour stopover before the next flight to Budapest. After arising at 0445, we were very tired when we finally got off the plane in Budapest late in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, my bag didn’t make the trip with me! After logging details with KLM, we caught a bus to our hotel (free for over 65s) with hopes that my bag would appear later that night.
The next morning we were up early and went for a walk to check the level of the Danube. While we had been having glorious weather in Portugal and Spain, Germany and Austria had torrential rain from a low pressure system that caused serious flooding of the Danube and other rivers.
The waters were over the lower roadways and no river boats could fit under the bridges or handle the current.
The ship we were due to board today, Avalon Imagery II, was safely docked near Linz, 400 kms away. Avalon had contacted us several days ago to explain our cruise had to be modified. They were going to put us up for 2 nights in Budapest and 2 nights in Vienna where we would do our tours as planned.
We walked to our new hotel, resisting the urge to visit the Cats Museum, and settled in (still no sign of my bag btw so a quick trip to the shops to buy a couple of tops).
That night we were briefed by Tour Director Ingrid of their plans until we joined our ship on Sunday. On Thursday, we boarded a bus to visit the Buda side of the Danube. Luckily my bag had arrived late the night before.
The Fisherman’s Bastion overlooks the Danube here. Rich people lived on the hill so the fisherman bought their catch here to sell.
Our tour finished at the Budapest botanical gardens where we sampled a favourite Hungarian street food – chimney cake.
Unfortunately by the afternoon I was very unwell with a gastric bug so skipped dinner to try to sleep it off. I was a bit better in the morning luckily as we boarded the bus to Bratislava.
We had a guided walk of the old town which was pretty but I still wasn’t 100% so sat in a square in the sun until it was time to go back to the bus.
We arrived in Vienna late on Friday and settled into the Hilton. Getting on and off buses was not what we had planned but Avalon made the best of a bad situation. Saturday morning we skipped the city tour to watch the preliminary final. Another come from behind win for the Lions over Geelong to put us into the Grand Final!
Warren had a cold so didn’t join me for a walk around town in the afternoon listening to a Rick Steves Audio Tour.
After dinner I joined others on board to see a concert while Warren decided on an early night. It was an entertaining mix of classical music, dance and comedy.
We were excited to hear we would be joining our boat on Sunday at Krems.