Bratislava

We woke up to some sunshine so after a slow start to the day (it was after all the morning after New Years Eve) we wandered up to the back deck away from the wind and watched the boat cruise up the Danube to Bratislava. There wasn’t a lot to see really – the river is wide, the banks full of industry on one side and apartments - and then we arrived in the capital of Slovakia and the old town.

I must admit that our trip to Bratislava has reinforced my desire to travel more in the Eastern European countries – so far we have only been to Poland, Hungary and now Slovakia. There is a cultural awakening in the area and it appears to me a real desire to keep their own identity without the shadow of communism or the need to be totally influenced by the Western World (indications of this include the small number of advertising signs, how many Mcdonalds and Burger Kings we can see – and Irish pubs for that matter - and how many shops and restaurants are open either on a public holiday or Sunday). Our six hours in Bratislava just wasn't enough. Travelling outside the city is a must next time.  Our boat moored just across the road from the old town and the castle so we spent the morning climbing up a not very steep hill and wandering around the castle, or was it a chateau or palace - it is just a bit difficult to tell.  It is a bit of a mixture built in the 11th and 12th centuries, remodelled later in the Baroque style, had a few Gothic bits added to it and now it is being restored - "open at a later date" was the message we got.  I liked it - because of its uniqueness and because of it's setting and because of the little statue of Elizabeth in the grounds.  Elizabeth was the daughter of King Andrew II and Queen Gertrude and was around in the early 13th century when she spent most of her childhood at the castle.  She married Ludwig but he died quite young and as a result Elizabeth devoted herself to looking after the poor and the sick. The statue captured a beauty that is not often seen in a static art form.

We then wandered back to the boat where we had a salad and fish (missed two courses cos we didn't need them but the apple strudel was very tempting) before taking a look at the 'old town'.  There is a number of statues around the streets - one of a soldier of Napoleon's leaning on a seat, another a worker poking his head out of a manhole, a newspaper photographer trying to catch the perfect photo around a corner, a actor and a sentry.  We quite enjoyed finding them in the square and around the place, sometimes stumbling across them unexpectantly other times looking for them because the guide book said they were close at hand.

There is a number of of ‘run down’ and derelict buildings. Some of these had quite good graffiti on them, while others looked as though a bomb had hit it and the owner had no desire to fix it!! And the colour – there were buildings with lots of colour, lots of cobbled stones and little bridges with wrought iron railings.  So here is a few things we saw:

• Old Town Hall - built around the 15th century - but not from scratch - it sort of joined a number of houses together.  It too was an eclectic mix of architecture being remodelled in both the 17th and 18th century - a bit of Renaissance here, a bit of Baroque there and a bit of Gothic there...There is a cannon-ball embedded in the wall just to the left of a Gothic window - a reminder of the siege of Bratislava by Napoleon's army in 1809. 
• Primate's Palace which was built in the late 1700's and its pink and gold which makes it stand out quite well.   In front of the palace there were beds of pansies protected from the cold by pine needles.  Now I had always thought pine needles poisoned the soil and that is why nothing grew under all the plantations at home.  Harry thought that the pine was a key ingredient in turpentine - so back to Google when we returned to Bristol. And just as it should be we were both kinda right.  Turpentine can be got from tapping the gum of living pine trees (a bit like maple syrup is made I guess), it can also be made from other by-products of the pine trees. And the needles are poisonous - I found a warning to people when putting up their Christmas trees.  If you have a bird don't let it peck at the pointsetta or the Christmas tree. So keep that budgie in its cage during the festive season was the message!! So, I guess those pansies just might have a bit of trouble growing - the frost will get them or the needles!
• Michael's Gate which is the only gate left from the 18th century wall and has a statue of Archangel Michael on the top.
• A few churches like the Jesuit Church, Franciscan Church and St Martin's Cathedral.  But they paled in to insignificance after seeing Poor Clares Church.  It was built from the stones from the wall when it was dismantled in the 18th century.  We were quite stunned with the paintings, the nativity scene and simply decorated christmas trees.
• House of the Good Shepherd (I managed to find this house in a little shop so have bought it home for the collection).  Its Rococo design - and it is one of only a few original houses still standing in the streets below the castle.  Apparently, it is believed to be the narrowest building in Europe as there is only one room on each floor.  But I am pretty sure we have seen narrower buildings than this one.  
• Grassalkovich Palace where the President  lives.
• Hlavne namestie which is one of the squares in the city - but outside the city wall.  I could imagine this in summer with buskers and food stalls and markets as it is reasonably compact and would provide a central place for people to congregate and sit and watch celebrations llike the royal coronations.  It was also the place were activists gathered just before the fall of Communism.  This was one of those special places (we've seen a few) where the atmosphere created could almost take us back to the times of political unrest.

And to my delight we saw lots of nativity scenes in churches, shop windows and town hall doorways. Some of them made from wood, others plaster or stone, and some I have no idea what the creator used. They were lovely, tastefully simple, and most had pine branches around them.

We walked back to the boat having done a few more miles to a well deserved game of 500, another dinner and drink, before sailing back to Vienna in the evening.  The end of a memorable cruise.

Vienna

The boat didn't move the first night we arrived as we were scheduled to see Vienna the next day. We were awakened with a very loud intercom message in French - we think it said "Good Morning, Time for Breakfast, and the tour is about to leave soon". We figured out pretty quick how to turn that off so we could wake up a bit more peacefully next morning. After a hearty breakfast which catered for all nationalities (pastries, croissants, bread for the French; muesli, fruit, yoghurt, toast and marmalade for the English; cheese and meats for the Spanish and Italians - kiwis like them all) we started our walk towards the underground. It was snowing slightly, little flakes wafting down and gently landing on our heads but not enough to stop us getting anywhere. We arrived at St Stephen - the centre of the tourist part of Vienna. But before I take this 'trip down memory lane' (I was in Vienna a few years ago after I had visited Sharon in Klaus. I then took the train to Salzburg and Vienna and spent a few days exploring on my own while Harry went to watch cars race around the Nurberg Ring) I thought I would write a bit about the architectural styles that we will see on this holiday. In every city there were examples of Byzantine, Roccoco, Gothic etc etc and I came away with the ability to recognise most of them but not understanding the history. So here goes...

• Byzantine architecture - around 330AD when Constantine the Roman Emperor decided to move the capital from Rome to Byzantium. The capital was later renamed Constantinople aka Istanbul - a place we are trying to get to in the near future. From my inexpert observations there are lots of frescoes in gold and bright colours and the roofs are dome shaped.
• Romanesque was around at the beginning of the 12th century and has lots of semi-circular arches. It is known for its quality and has thick walls, round arches, towers and gives the impression of simplicity. Lots of castles and abbeys were built in this style, and we have seen many a 'thick' wall in English castles built for protection.
• Gothic architecture came soon after originating in France around the 12th century and continuing for about 400 years with a bit of resurgence in the 18-20th centuries. There's lots of churches, abbeys, cathedrals, castles, palaces, universities etc in both England and Europe in this style and I always think of the pointed arches, spires and ornate stone decorations inside and outside the buildings. 
• Renaissance architecture was around the early 15th and early 17th centuries in Italy. I haven't quite worked out which buildings were designed in the Renaissance style but I have read there is a focus on symmetry, proportion, geometry - sounds a bit more of a 'right angled, regular and squarish' look than some of the other architecture types. There's also lots of columns, arches, domes as well apparently.
• Baroque architecture started in the early 17th century in Italy. This is the one I really like and we have seen some magnificent examples on our travels. It is hard to describe so I'll leave it up to a quote I found "...rhetorical, theatrical, sculptural fashion, expressing the triumph of absolutist church and state" - any the wiser? I think what that means is there are lots of colour (often pastel shades), a great use of light, more paintings, less ornate statues and engraved decorations. 
• Georgian architecture is the architecture around the the period that the George's ruled ie the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain,George III of the United Kingdom, and George IV of the United Kingdom—who reigned  continuously from 1714 to 1830.
• Rococo is 18th century French. We haven't seen many buildings in this style yet, but it is typified by lots of elegant and ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing architecture, reliefs, and wall paintings. The word Rococo comes from a French work meaning stone and another one meaning shell (shell-like curves are a feature of Rococo).
• Neoclassical architecture came soon after in the middle of the 18th century and it seems to have its origins in Classical Greece and Italy - not yet seen enough examples to recognise this one yet.
• The Regency style of architecture - a great example is all the houses on the shore in Brighton and those in Cheltenham. It's a wonderful era on building and design when George IV was Prince Regent - you can probably tell I like it. Many buildings of the Regency style have a white painted stucco facade, one main front door (usually coloured black) which is framed by two columns, balconies and bow windows. Houses are usually in terraces or crescents. Indoors there is often vertically striped wallpaper and lots of ornate furniture. 

After that little architectural history lesson - I'll continue our Vienna visit.  St. Stephen's Cathedral. It's still being cleaned (it was being cleaned when I was in Vienna before) but the cleaning has moved around the building and I imagine the size and the complexity of the engravings would make it an ever ending task. It is quite a magnificent church, standing proudly in the square and overlooking the activities of those walking past it. We then wandered through the shopping centre (I had thought it was the main shopping centre but on our last day Lilli and Manuel took us through the main shopping centre - ie where the locals go - much bigger and similar to any other shopping street in a capital).  We saw the Christmas decorations being taken down and the New Year Eve ones going up and lots of brightly lit statues and windows.

And then on to Schonbrunn (beautiful spring). The land where the palace now sits was originally a huge gaming park for Roman Emperor Maximilian II in the mid 1500's. During the next century the area continued to be used as a hunting and recreation park and when Eleonore Gonzaga was given the area by her husband (Ferdinand II) when he died.  A new palace was designed by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and construction began in 1696. Maria Theresa of Austria decided to make it her imperial summer residence, after she was crowned. She ordered her architect-of-the-court Nicolò Pacassi to reshape the palace and garden in a way of the style of Rococo. Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria was born at the palace and died there in  1916. It remained a summer residence for the royal family until Charles I of Austria abdicated in 1918. We wandered around a dozen or so beautifully decorated rooms (not too ornate and not over furnished) before heading into the tea room next door for a toasted sandwich (for the girls) or sausage in bread with lots of grated horse radish (for the boys) before trekking up the hill to the Gloriate. It is up this path that we got some of the best views of the palace, the gardens and Vienna. It was cold and the sculptured gardens, fountains, lakes and ponds all had that 'frozen' look about them. I spent some time watching a duck standing on ice in one of the fountain ponds, standing on one foot he tucked the other under his wing, he then put the warm one down, lifted the other and shook it and put in inside his warm feathers. If I could speak duck language  I would have asked him "Why stand on the ice when there are warmer places - it is so cold that grapes are freezing on their vines?" but I guess he wanted to be with his friends. The Gloriette stands about 60 metres above the palace and it was commissioned by Maria Theresa. It was made from recycled stone from other local buildings. There is a cafe inside the Gloriette now and we were very tempted to have another tea stop before heading back out into the cold but didn't as we still had lots to see.

We weren't that tired after our rather long ramble through the garden and since I had been enthusiastically talked about Hundertwasse long before we even left Gatwick the others decided that they would come with me to this wonderful little village. After getting slightly lost and taking a bit longer than the 10 minutes promised by the local, there were varying degrees of rapture at what I thought was great. "Very interesting" (that's what you say about a painting when there is nothing else to say), "not impressed" and "would have been better in the daylight" were just a few of the comments from my friends. I just couldn't understand what I could only describe as a less than enthusiastic attitude. I encouraged the men to spend 60 cents and go and visit the loo even if they didn't need to use it but again not much excitement there - but a few photos did get taken - which indicates something. We told our friends about Hundertwasse's link with down under and the loo he designed in Northland - I've never seen it but Harry has. Anyway, a bit more history just cos I think his work is great. Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser was born in Austria in 1928 and died in 2000. He had a pretty hard childhood with his Dad dying just after he turned one and during the second world war his Jewish Mum and he posed as Catholics (his Dad had been one). He even joined the Hitler Youth to keep the facade up. After the war, he spent three months at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and then travelled with a set of paints to draw anything he wanted during his travels. His first exhibition was in 1952. He chose his names (I can't remember his names given to him at birth) that he was known by Friedensreich ( "Peaceland" or "peaceful", Regentag (Rainy Day) and Dunkelbunt (Darkly multicoloured). In the 1950's he did lots of things like architecture, creating flags, stamps, coins and posters. From New Zealand's point of view besides the toilet Hundertwasser made one more major contribution he designed the Koru Flag (New Zealand's second flag). Some say that the current flag of New Zealand with the union jack in the corner is a reminder of British colonialism and does not truly represent the kiwi culture - while others say it represents the history as part of the British Empire and location in the southern hemisphere. On that debate there is probably no wrong answer.  Hundertwasser considered New Zealand as his official home and no matter where he went in the world, his watch was always set to New Zealand time (that may not be as confusing as it sounds as it probably wasn't a digital 24 hour clock and without daylight saving, or British Summer time, New Zealand is exactly 12 hours in front of England). The Hundertwasserhaus apartment block which we couldn't go into as it is privately owned has undulating floors ("an uneven floor is a melody to the feet"), a roof covered with earth and grass and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows. He took no payment for the design of Hundertwasserhaus, declaring that the investment was worth it to "prevent something ugly from going up in its place".  I wonder how many would agree.

(montages courtesy of Mike).

Back on the boat we all crowded around Mike's pedometer - how many steps had he done in one day (cos we would have done them too - my little legs perhaps a few more).  According to Mike we walked 20751 steps today - that is pretty close to 9.171 miles, which is near enough to 15 kilometres for us kiwi folk, and we wore off 448.7 kilocalories which is no where near how much we have eaten in one day on the ship. Never mind the first 2 stats looked pretty good. After dinner, we walked a bit further from the dining room to the cabin and then to the lounge. We continued teaching Mike and Barbara how to play ‘up the river down the river’ and it just shows how good our teaching is as we continued to win and they continued to trail behind (Harry was scoring after all). The game was interrupted by a game of Bingo organised by the ships crew which did take quite a while for the winners to complete a line, then two lines, then a full house, because each number had to be read in French with the callers caption with it eg 'all the 6's, 66', and then the same in Spanish, Italian and English for the few of us who didn't speak French. Anyway, during the game when my numbers were not being called I began to wonder who invented such a frustrating game.  It started in Italy and France but soon moved to America when a Catholic priest realised its ability to raise funds for his church (previous to that it had been used for educational purposes to teach students English, Maths and Geography).  We soon tired of listening to bingo in 4 languages and besides that we were rapidly losing the chance to win, but continued to play as the caller was happily using his voice for our benefit and impressing us with his linguistic skills.  We then proceeded to teach Barbara and Mike 500.  The boat left its moorings at 11.55pm – 5 minutes early but we didn't mind as it was good to be on the move – it is after all a cruise.

On the last day of the cruise we returned to Vienna and spent a wonderful day with Manuel and his Mum Lilli. They invited us to lunch which Seb cooked and Manuel's two little brothers Noah and Jan. It was a lovely day catching up again with Manuel and meeting his family for the first time. Manuel and Lilli were wonderful tour guides and we had a bit of a walking tour around Vienna (from St Stephens to the car), the Palace (where we saw the horses with their ear warmers), Manuel and Jan's school (known as a gymnasium), Manuels flat (where there is a map of the history and design of the building over centuries) and up the mountains (where we saw our first snow in Europe!!). It was lovely up in the mountains overlooking Vienna - we didn't realise that a 30 minute drive would take us so far away from the urban area.  Lilli and Manuel drove us through little suburbs (where the bars are only allowed to sell the wine they make from the grapes grown in the region) and where we had a coffee and cake in a traditional Austrian bar.  We had a wander around a district consisting of 6 or so narrow, cobbled streets and where some of the houses have now been restored. Manuel showed us the students area where students congregate in summer for a coffee and chat.  We were also taken to The Karlskirche (St. Charles Borromeo Church) - it is one of my favourites.  There is a lift to take you to the top to see the frescoes at the top and views of Vienna (but when I was there last the lift wasn't working so I climbed the stairs) and this time there was a service so it also wasn't working.   It is just lovely. The church was designed by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, after winning an architectural competition to a build a church in memory of the plague of 1712. Some of the engravings depict the pain that the people suffered because of the illness. We also drove through the famous shopping street in Vienna - not the one frequented by tourists - it is the longest retail street in the city. Before saying goodbye we had another coffee and cake - and learnt all about 'maroni'.  Harry chose what he thought was a chocolate cake (is that a surprise), but found out it was maroni - never heard of it. After reading the description on the web and looking at photos I now think it is one of those things that we've seen in lots of markets and said 'What's that?'  Anyway it comes from an evergreen tree and is also known as Noni.  The Australians call it Cheese Fruit.  It has been around for thousands of years and has medicinal qualities as well as used in cream and cakes. After giving Manuel and Lilli a big hug we met up with Mike and Barbara to listen to the Imperial Orchestra play a variety of Mozart, Strauss, Schubert and Beethoven.  Together with ballet dancers and singers to help entertain us we haven't known 2 hours to fly past so quickly for a long time.  A walk back to the hotel looking for a late night snack wasn't very fruitful and so we ended up in our last night in Vienna snacking on half a packet peanuts (left over from the flight over), chocolate bar (Mike had in his pocket) and apple - not that we needed much after the nice lunch and cake. Talking about food - what does Manuel miss most about NZ - the big packets of pies you can buy.

And we got home I was looking at the back of our map of Vienna.  I couldn't believe that all the time we had been walking around Vienna with the picture of a famous Kiwi.  Under a very young Kiri was the wording:

OPERNSOPRANISTIN

KIRI TE KANAWA 1ST EINE FRAU

MIT VIELEN GESICHTERN.

ABER IMMER BELEIBT SIE

SO UNVERWECHSELBAR

WIE IHRE ROLEX

Budapest

The Danube is the second longest river in Europe and I remember standing in Budapest a couple of years ago thinking it would be so nice to cruise up and down the river and now that is what we are doing. Though we didn’t start in the Black Forest where the waters first become the river and we are not going as far as the Black Sea where the river ceases to be a river and we are only travelling to three cities rather than all the other countries the Danube flows through (eg Germany, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Slovenia, Bulgaria Romania and Ukraine) the cruise is giving us a taster for this wide and long piece of water that provides a water and transportation source to so many villages and cities.  Along the way the waters are diverted for crop growing, farming, drinking water, power and have even been redirected to reduce flooding (lots of reclaimed land in Vienna). There has been a bit of debate about who owns the waters and controls the delta which isn't surprising really – water is as valuable as oil if you don’t have it. Over time it has been controlled through various treaties such as the Treaty of Paris (1856) and Versailles (1919). After the Second World War the new Danube Commission was set up to control the waters which now has representatives from the 11 countries.  So, this is the river that has taken us to Budapest - a far more relaxing way to travel than on an aeroplane from Bristol. I, like many others, thought that the Danube would be blue - we can blame Johann Strauss who wrote the famous waltz for giving this impression. Its quite muddy and even my camera who can sharpen the blue of the sea and the rivers can’t easily convert the muddy browny grey to a  blue. However, I did read that "You may call the Danube blue if you consider blue to be the colour of romance and if romance means having a long and eventful history which the Danube certainly has" - is that stretching it a bit far - I haven't heard of blue roses, blue chocolates or blue dinners, but maybe I am being too traditionalist.  We came to Budapest on a very misty day and the mist didn't really lift until we were leaving (though it did a little bit the next day).  It made for some eerie photos looking up into the hills. However, regardless of the weather we will still had fun...The boat was still moving as we crawled out of bed to another scrumptious breakfast and then not to be beaten by the weather we donned our hats, coats, gloves and with our cameras we ventured on to the deck to the amusement of many of the other passengers. We rearranged the deckchairs and posed for a number of photos (everyone wanted my pink jacket by the way). By lunch time (or a bit before that really) we had given up taking photos and were content to play a game called Rummycup that Mike and Barbara had bought along. Similar to the skills of our teaching they won hands down but there is always tomorrow and Harry and I will be practising all night to prove kiwi supremacy (yeah right!!).

Lunch time we had a game of who knows who’s national anthem. We knew Australia and called out first so  won a cocktail to share tonight. Mike then told us that England is one of the few countries that does not have a national anthem – "God Save the Queen" is the United Kingdom’s anthem and when England play us or Aussie or anyone else really at a game of rugby, or netball, or soccer etc they play the UK anthem. However, if they play Scotland or Wales "Land of Hope and Glory" is always played. After another rather large but yummy lunch and after another game of Rummycup which we again lost we got off the boat and walked around Budapest. The last time we had been to this lovely city the sun had shone brilliantly and we walked to the top of the Fisherman’s Bastion and the gardens and have some wonderful photos which we did not get this time. Our boat was moored near the Elizabeth Bridge which when completed in 1903 was the longest suspension bridge in the world – probably not today though.  After the Second World War it had to be completely rebuilt and wasn’t open until I was well into my primary school years as there was a huge debate about the fate of the Inner City Parish Church - would it be destroyed for the bridge or would changes be made.  The church won. We had a look around the museum - well laid out to give the visitor a trip through the ages and then went to the markets (a quick walk past butchers, fishmongers etc by me but a slower look at the fruit, vegetables, chillies, paprika and mushrooms - dig the photo of the kiwifruit), before wandering back through a cute cobbled street with lots of other market stalls. It was here I went to buy a hat - it was hanging on a stand outside and the label said 1500 florintz.  When I took it inside the shop and when the shop assistant finally got off her cell phone she said "Bad price", not a good sales technique I thought. So I said "No o.k. good price" as I had seen them down the road for 2000 florintz.  She said "Should be 3500 florintz" and wouldn’t sell it to me for cheaper. I didn't buy it and as I left I thought that this was a sales technique to get you into shop but rather a dishonest one.  As we walked past the boat we decided we needed to pull the cabin curtains when we got back – there lying in one of the middle deck cabins was a man decked out in only his underwear oblivious that anyone walking past (perhaps he thought the mist was hiding him or he just didn’t care) could see his black and white underwear. Some insensitive males in our group suggested that I should take a photo – and I rather regret I didn’t. It was dinner time again and we’re playing musical chairs at our table (without the music). We always try and sit somewhere different but at the same table since that is where we've been told to sit during out stay but we’ve noticed that lots of people sit in exactly the same chair in the dining room every time.  (Does that woman with orange hair have to sit right under the painting of a bowl of oranges?  Do you think that is the son-in-law in that group? Wonder why that man didn't turn up for lunch we saw him leave the boat earlier in a suit? - so we all had a turn at observing the whole room). So at 19:33 we had walked 10553 steps, 4.664 miles about 7.5 kms. To get the stats up a bit higher we encouraged Mike to walk to his cabin for our drink card and then back to his cabin for a book on Budapest but he wasn't willing to run up and down the hallway for a good cause.  In the evening we played more 500 which us girls are winning (though none of us are particularly competitive) so we didn't rub it in too much.  During the game the crew did a show for us and though quite amateurish it was good to see them having fun and helping everyone else to have some fun. We danced the night away to songs that had a familiar tune, but the words were in French.

Friday, and its New Years Eve. After breakfast Mike and Barbara went for a little walk over some bridges (Mike had quite a cold and I did feel a tad guilty about making him do all that extra exercise last night) and Harry and I took off for Margitsziget Island. We negotiated a number of bridges and steps before coming to the Parliament Buildings – one of the most impressive buildings in Budapest. And we spent some time thinking of all the people that were lost during the political turmoil this country has suffered - those that were never found - and the wonderful memorial of the shoes sitting on the banks of the Danube. The island has quite a few things going for it - well probably in summer.  It was fairly wet and cold, and most things were closed except for the bicycle hire. I was keen to hire separate bikes but Harry opted for the one where we could sit together (bicycle for two) - is that romantic or what? It soon became obvious that he'd chosen the more difficult option.  Feet on short legs couldn’t reach the pedals, and difficult to pedal when the steering wheel is rubbing against the tum.  The only option, Harry pedalled and I took control.  I found a few bumps and pot holes (oops), a mud track to cycle up and a few puddles to go through - rather fun I thought. I also had the time to create a song to the tune of Rod Stewarts ‘Sailing’ ...imagine me in the control, creative, imaginative and slightly mischievous mood singing
We are cycling
We are cycling
Across the island
Through the bush
I am steering
Harry is pedalling
Near the Danube
In Budapest...
And while I was in full voice and saying ‘Danke’, ‘Gracis’ and ‘Merci’ to pedestrians who thought it would be safe to get out of the way Harry just kept on pedalling.  Anyway the Island was named after Princess Margaret, daughter of King Bela IV. She spent most of her life on the convent on the island during the 1200’s – I read somewhere that the King wanted to put a stop to the Mongols invading the country again after they destroyed the city in 1241. He was so desparate that he dedicated Margaret to God in the hope that the Mongols would never return. They never have. We did read somewhere (probably in that pesky guide book)  that the entrance to the island left a bit to be desired and half way across the bridge going from one side of the Danube to the other we found an underground passage that was the walkway to the island. It was dark, covered in graffiti and worse than a underground subway - not a place to venture alone.

We then walked the 2-3 kilometre walk back to the boat texting our friends and family over in NZ ‘Happy New Year’. We didn't get many texts back so am imagining all the texts sent at that time of the year getting mixed up somewhere over Asia or perhaps everyone is partying hard, or worse still tucked up in bed asleep. Anyway, while waiting for lunch Harry and I did some anagrams on Happy New Year imagining homeless words flying around in the sky...(small things amuse small minds they say!!).
Rap hey awe pyn
Neap hary wype
Papry wren hye
Away henry pep
Ay pray nephew
Appear why yen
Pep her anyway
Pray nap hewey
We were all tired in the afternoon so we spent a few hours playing 500 (I won’t tell you who won but did mention to Barbara that it is worth keeping the bragging rights till the end of the cruise otherwise the boys won’t want to play). After that relaxing time we felt quite refreshed. We saw the New Year in, in style.  Floating along the Danube back towards Bratislava and eating a gala dinner (we have 3 or 4 courses every meal and gala was a massive 6), more dancing and watching fireworks along the banks of the Danube banks. Eastern Europe has found a place in my heart and when I think of the very sad statement I read somewhere about Hungary ‘the motherland has no home’  am glad that these people have a brighter future and hopefully can now begin to look forward to some political and economic stability.