Danube Bend Tour from Budapest

I was picked up early from my hotel to go on a Danube Bend tour. The Danube Bend is close to the Slovakia border, north of Budapest. This tour was given by Eurotours.

Our Tour Guide

We had a full small bus even though, or because of, it was Easter Sunday. Our very enthusiastic tour guide is in the middle of the photo. The tour was to be given in English and at least one other language dependent upon what countries the people on the bus were from. Our guide determined that there was a large Italian contingent, so the tour was also given in Italian. But she wanted to practice her Spanish as well and she did by conversing in Spanish with two young men from Barcelona, one of whom was my seatmate. Our guide could speak numerous languages. Incidentally, tours are not  given in English only because there are a majority of native English speakers on a tour but because it is quickly becoming the second language of Europe, therefore understandable by people from many countries.

Leaving Budapest

The Royal Palace on the Buda side of Budapest.

Crossing from Pest to Buda

On the Chain Bridge crossing from the Pest side to the Buda side.

Buda

Past the tourist areas of Buda there is a very nice residential area.

Railroad Crossing

I included this photo of us waiting at a railroad crossing as it was a bit of a strange experience. The crossing gate was down, but this didn’t mean that a train would be coming through in a minute or two. Rather, it meant that a train will be coming through “sometime in a near future”––perhaps in 10 minutes time, which is how long we waited for the train at this crossing. It probably wouldn’t have made such an impression, except that this was the system twice more on my trip in this part of the world.

Railroad Crossing

The train that finally crossed in front of us.

Small Hungarian Villages

We drove through many small Hungarian villages. Most of the houses were right on the roadway. The major occupation of the villagers most likely is farming.

Bridge Between Hungary and Slovakia

We stopped to walk on this bridge, with one side of it in Hungary and the other side in Slovakia, with the middle of the bridge the border between the two countries. We weren’t given time to walk to Slovakia unless you walked very fast, which I would have done if I hadn’t been once before in Slovakia, as it would be one way to add a country to a personal list of countries visited.

Bridge Between Hungary and Slovakia

We also had a good view of the Esztergom Basilica from the bridge. This basilica is Hungary’s largest church, completed in 1856.

Outside the Esztergom Basilica

My tour mates. We were waiting for the rest of the tour to come up to the top of the hill, via elevator, where the basilica was located. The young man on the right was my seatmate who was traveling with the one in the middle. They were both from Barcelona. What was interesting to me was that both had traveled much in the United States. The one in the middle even has driven the whole of the old Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica. From talking to Europeans on my tours, the U.S. seems now to be a major destination for them to visit and I am pleased to take all their compliments of how great are the sights in the U.S.

Inside the Esztergom Basilica

The altar piece of the Esztergom Basilica is the world’s largest painting on a single piece of canvas. It is of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Esztergom Basilica–Movie

An Easter service was being performed while we were there. I took a movie of part of the service and of the church.

Easter Market

Below the basilica, near the parking lot, was an Easter market with food and other things for sale.

Easter Market Music–Movie

There was also music at the Easter Market, of which I took a short movie.

Visegrad Castle

We ate lunch at a restaurant overlooking the ruined castle of Visegrad, built in 1320 as the official residence of the kings of Hungary. My lunch mates were a woman from Ireland and one from Germany. The woman from Germany was telling us about her spur of the moment adventure in Panama in which she went on a night jungle tour by herself armed only with a flashlight. She survived it.

Road Signs

I kept seeing road signs with a slash through the name of the town. This method of telling a driver that he is leaving a town or city is used throughout this area of Europe. At first I had thought it was telling a driver, “Hey, you are going in the wrong direction. Turn around.”

The Danube Bend

The Danube Bend is where the river turns sharply south toward Budapest.

Szentendre

Our last stop before taking a boat back to Budapest was the artist town of Szentendre. Not only artists here but also numerous stores selling tourist items.

I have put my photos of the Danube Bend tour on a slide show. Go to:

http://www.peggysphotos.com/danube–bend/

(Slide Shows, Central Europe, Hungary, “Danube Bend”).

It rained during our boat trip back to Budapest and also in Budapest. This tour didn’t take us back to our hotels but the drop–off point was right next to the Intercontinental Hotel from where I could get a hotel taxi, which I did. My hotel had a special Easter dinner but which didn’t look like something I would want to eat. Anyway, very tired and a cup of coffee and some cake was enough for me in the lounge.