Budapest - June 5th

Today we went on the Budapest city tour.  A bus tour around both Buda (on the hills one side of the Danube) and Pest (pronounced Pesht) on the other side of the Danube.  It's actually a surprisingly beautiful city with many lovely historical buildings and plenty of character.  I must admit, that this being my first visit to an ex-eastern block country I was kind of expecting a city full of 60s style concrete apartment blocks, but it was nothing like that at all.

Many of the buildings have colourful roofs made from ceramic tiles.  Budapest is famous for its embroidery and lacework.  Becky and I had a number of Forints (the Hungarian currency) to get rid of, so after our tour of the city we went shopping and bought various lace/embroidered products.

As it was the Pentecost holiday lots of the local children were dressed in their national costumes.

In the afternoon we were treated to a Hungarian concert pianist performing works be Liszt in the Salon on deck 3.

We left Budapest at around 5pm and sailed by this iconic building that I'm sure many of you recognize from the Viking cruises adverts.....