Another Just Back From the Danube-Passion-8/24-9/5

So we’re off on our 1st River Cruise! Flight left Charlotte at 8:30 pm. A very relaxing day. I did the last bit of laundry mainly cause I had time. It sure didn’t make any difference with all the laundry when we got home! Drove to Hickory to leave the car for free and caught the 4:30 Hop to CLT. Dinner at Phillips Seafood which we’ve always loved, but boy has it gone downhill in quality! Great wine though! [/fonthttp://boards.cruisecritic.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=393924&stc=1&d=1473369877]http://boards.cruisecritic.com/images/attach/jpg.gif

Looking forward to hearing about your trip! :D :D

I deleted your second post at your request. If you want to experiment with posting, use the TEST FORUM (at top of CC home page):

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=225

So we’re off on our 1st River Cruise! Flight left Charlotte at 8:30 pm. A very relaxing day. I did the last bit of laundry mainly cause I had time. It sure didn’t make any difference with all the laundry when we got home! Drove to Hickory to leave the car for free and caught the 4:30 Hop to CLT. Dinner at Phillips Seafood which we’ve always loved, but boy has it gone downhill in quality! Great wine though!

Headed to the gate and we’re off and on time! So I had a plan this time for sleeping and it worked! Got settled in watched a movie and about an hr before I hoped to sleep I took 1/2 tsp of Robitussin with Codeine. I’ve never been able to sleep on a plane but sleep I did! Yay!! We changed planes in London with a 3 1/2hr layover. Hung out in a Priority Pass lounge and the time really went faster than I thought it would. On time flight to Budapest, Hungary! I was so excited when we approached and I could see the Danube Bend, all the bridges that I knew the names of, and Margaret Island! Our flight arrived in Hungary around 4:30pm. Got our ticket at the taxi stand and were in a taxi in no time. Our driver was great, had been to America many times and spoke English pretty well. As a matter of fact on our entire trip, in spite of what we had read beforehand, we encountered very few people who couldn’t speak English! He was so good and told us about all the sights we were passing on the way to the Intercontinental. They offered us a river front upgrade for very little and boy was it worth it! Buda Castle was right across the river! Our room could have used some new draperies and maybe a little refreshing but I was so comfortable there (and I’m pretty picky!).

Chris

So we headed out to get transportation tickets and walked along the Danube River on a beautiful evening to Dunacorso for dinner. We stopped at the statue of The Little Princess on the railing of the promenade en route.

Our waiter who looked just like Taylor’s Tom Hiddleston (he had no idea who Tom Hiddleston was) suggested a Cab Franc that was great. We had a lively trio playing while we ate outside by the Danube.

So after I think I've finally figured out how to post pictures, Shutterfly has a major melt down...try #3!

BTW-JP & Robin have posted such great pictures of this itinerary that I'm going to try not to duplicate (unless I just can't help myself!) and mostly do a written report.

So here are the photos I was trying to post above...

Hmmm. It looks like for some reason I can only post 1 photo in a post.

Wonder if there's a better program that I should be using than Shutterfly?

And the other...

Back to the drawing board. This could be a report with no photos! Ha ha.

The photos that you are posting are great, so keep at it! You should be able to post six photos per post. There is a bit of a learning curve but if you try (in the test forum), you should be able to figure our the idiosyncrasies of posting. They seem to be different, depending on which site is holding your photos.

If all else fails, you can just post a link to your shutterfly album. But I hope you can post the photos here.

After a delicious dinner we jumped on the #2 Tram right at the restaurant and headed to Parliament. We saw all the sights for the first time and then got out at Parliament. Explored and took pics and then started heading toward hotel. Spent some time at Shoes on the Danube Memorial.

Lots of people along the river as we walk back to our hotel. I’m looking at Gellert Hill, Buda Castle, Matthias Church and taking lots of pictures en route. Ready for bed!!

Supposed to be a really nice picture here!!

I give up for now!

Chris

Trying Photobucket...

The photos that you are posting are great, so keep at it! You should be able to post six photos per post. There is a bit of a learning curve but if you try (in the test forum), you should be able to figure our the idiosyncrasies of posting. They seem to be different, depending on which site is holding your photos.

 

If all else fails, you can just post a link to your shutterfly album. But I hope you can post the photos here.

Thanks as always JP...trying photo bucket now...I obviously need to figure out how to make their photos smaller...that wasn't the problem with Shutterfly! I just couldn't get theirs to post or post two in 1 post...

You will see you, Robin's, Gots, and lots of others advice apparent! You all helped us to have an easy, wonderful time!

Chris

I don't know if this explains your problem or not, but you can't get Shutterfly to post more than 1 photo at a time. You have to use the Cruise Critic "Manage Attachments – Upload File from a URL" function to add a link to each photo (up to 6 per post).

I was able to fix your second Shutterfly pic (post #5) -- somehow the link had two https in it.

So you're ahead of me now: I can't figure out how to get Shutterfly to generate the links from my photos. Can you walk us through that process?

Hi Jazz,

I'm obviously not very good at this, but here goes...

At your photo website copy the image address (not the image). Then in your CC post you click on the insert image icon (not the attachments). Paste your image url & then click ok and a huge address pops into your post wherever your cursor is. Then when you preview or submit the post your photo shows up (and not the address).

Now if I can just get it to do 2!!

Chris

First full day in Budapest Well I did amazingly well for me, slept til 4am! As per usual, I had arranged all my stuff for my early rising the night before, so I got dressed, grabbed my laptop and room key & headed to the lobby to let my husband sleep! He can sleep anytime anywhere and never has jet lag! I’m so jealous! So the routine is I plan the day while having coffee in the lobby and then take him some to wake him up and I shower while he enjoys his coffee. Today I’m not letting him sleep long and wake him at 6. Amazing included breakfast at hotel. They had the best fruit of the trip and great crossiants. Off & running on a gorgeous morning around 8:30 to St Stephens. My plan today is to do Pest and all the sights along Andrassy Ut. and then take the M1 back to the Intercontinental so I can see the M1 as well! All of these sights were within easy walking distance. So we arrive at St Stephen’s Cathedral and they’re not even open yet!! A lot going on in the square that morning. They were setting up for a 3 day wine festival. The structures they were building looked permanent, but they assured me they would all be demolished as soon as the event was over! Well, we’re the first ones in St Stephens that day. Wow! I loved the painting depicting St Stephen who died without an heir giving the care of the country and the crown to the Virgin Mary. For some reason we were able to get a bright photo of the Holy Right Hand, I promise without flash!

So all done checking out St Stephen’s and the tower doesn’t open for another 20 mins! Guess it’s not to be.

Not the best picture, but it was my fav in St Stephen's

Nice picture of the Holy Hand!

And you got it to do two pictures. If you repeat the process six times, you should be able to post six pictures.

Keep it coming!

Thanx for sharing, SP

Please speed it up. :)

We will board The Passion on Thursday in Bucharest.

Ira

Hi Jazz,

 

I'm obviously not very good at this, but here goes...

 

At your photo website copy the image address (not the image). Then in your CC post you click on the insert image icon (not the attachments). Paste your image url & then click ok and a huge address pops into your post wherever your cursor is. Then when you preview or submit the post your photo shows up (and not the address).

 

Now if I can just get it to do 2!!

 

Chris

Thanks Chris -- I got it to work. You click on the icon [that was my problem!] and paste the URL for photo #1. Then you hit the space bar and/or insert some new text, then you click the icon again and paste the URL for photo #2. It worked for me in the Test area using Shutterfly URLs [one of yours and one of my old ones].

Ok. At some point I'll try again with shutter fly. On photo bucket it's taking several extra steps...

Off to the Great Synagogue! The largest in the world behind NYC. We took a really good tour there. Saw the Tree of Life (so touching!), Raoul Wallenberg Memorial (listened to “The Envoy” about him before we left), & the organ (not permitted in an orthodox synagogue).

Now to Szimpla Kert to check out a really neat Ruin Bar! When the young people of Budapest needed a cheap place to drink they took to the abandoned buildings of the Jewish Quarter!

Hey JP & Jazz, Look I'm up to 3! Ha ha!

Well I could see already that we were making good time so as long as we were in the area, we headed back to St Stephen’s to go up the tower & we were so glad we did! It was such a beautiful day and the views are wonderful!

Now for one of the highlights of my day. The Book Cafe (was the Paris Department store but started as a casino) for coffee and cake! I love going to these famous and sometimes original coffee houses. The Hopetoun Tea Rooms in Melbourne, AU is a fav. It was beautiful and I had my first eszterhazy torte (Hungarian walnut cake) with their specialty coffee, almond syrup and chocolate sauce! It was a beautiful book store and cafe and as soon as we went to the Opera house, I knew it had to be done by the same painter and it was, Karl Lotz. He also did Parliament, Buda Castle and many other interiors in Budapest!

So yes, The Opera House was up next. We choose to do an inside visit here as I had read it was prettier than Vienna. There’s a story that the architect of the Vienna Opera House committed suicide because the Emperor thought it was ugly! Budapest’s was spectacular and the mini Opera at the end was such fun!

Now to the House of Terror which was really well done. All about the Arrow Cross (**** version of Gestapo in Hungary) and the Soviet Secret Police in Budapest and how they used the very building we were in, including the prison cellar with torture rooms and gallows.

After that it’s time for a glass of wine! Dinner at Zeller Bistro, a small, family run restaurant sourced mainly from their farm near a lake. We had a dear assistant waiter who looked like she was 12 years old. I was so afraid I offended her when I asked her how old she was as she disappeared for a long time. She finally came back and proudly said 24! She didn’t know what I was asking or how to answer! We had great fun practicing please, thank you, & you’re welcome with the staff. We figured out very early on this trip that if you knew those 3 phrases you could get very, very far. Most everyone got a kick out of us at least trying. I won’t go to another foreign country without knowing them!

Chris, I'm enjoying your trip report and look forward to more. Just because jp posted such good pictures from Budapest (and other places) doesn't mean you can't post photos of the same thing. I always like to see pictures even if they are similar.

I use Photobucket and think it's very easy. Once you upload your photos, you click on the picture you want to post, it will bring up four options on the upper right, you click on the last one, IMG, and that copies the photo. Go to your Cruise Critic reply and right click and the URL is inserted. I do keep two windows open to facilitate this and you can post six photos. Although if you're using a mobile device for your postings, then I'm lost. I don't resize my Photobucket pictures, so maybe everyone things they're too big.

Oh Thanks Mimmy!

If there's something I can't help but post, I will. But we did do some different things than others and although I do think I have photo bucket figured out, it's very time consuming!

I'm definitely not doing this on a mobile device...although I've read it's easier!!

I think I'm enjoying this more than anyone because I'm reliving my trip while it's all still very fresh in my memory!

Wish I could do it all over again...I can taste each one of those desserts I'm writing about!!

Chris

Part of our dinner conversation was how to get to Margaret Island. There was a shorter way to go but I wanted to see the Underground, the M1, and it was easy and close, so we took it to the hotel (Vorosmarty ter) and then jumped on Tram 2 to the end and walked over the Margaret Island bridge. There were lots of people joining us as we got there just before the 9pm light show at the fountain! What a blast. This really puts the Bellagio to shame. It was all synchronized with just water & colored lights at first and then the music started. Pretty Woman, Cecilia, some instrumentals, and the crowd went wild when they did “Budapest” by George Ezra! A great way to end our first full day in Budapest! The only bad part was that the locals all had chairs. We were there standing for about an hr and a half and after walking and touring all day, it was days before my legs were recovered!

We walked back over the Margaret Bridge to amazing views of all of Budapest at night!

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Buda Castle, the Chain Bridge, and Matthias Church, I couldn't get Parliament in the same photo, but it was so beautiful to look at all together!