The cruise

Yes a thousand apologies butI am now in Wales! The Internet on the ship seemed to be fully booked all the time and quite frankly I wanted to look at the scenery rather than be on the Internet. The cruise director kept kicking my travelling companion off the Internet telling her to go and look at another castle! We had a wonderful time - I particularly enjoyed Wurzburg where we toured an amazing Prince Bishop's palace - the stucco ceilings, marble floors and Mirror Gallery were amazing. Passau was a lovel little Austrian town with a magnificent Baroque Cathedral. In Vienna, I visited the Hofburg Palace - this contains three museums. The Silver Museum contained the silverware, glassware and porcelain of the Hapsburgs who ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire - it was mind boggling with porcelain from across Europe. Then there was an exhibition on the life of Sisi, Elisabeth of Bavaria, who led a somewhat adventuress life having married the Duke at age 16. She was assassinated in 1898 in Geneva. And then there were the Imperial Rooms which were just sumptuous. I naturally did a little shopping at Swaroski. We went through a total of 68 locks during the 15 days - these were works of art. Some of the locks were 25 metres and it could take an hour or so to go through. Our 68th lock slowed our arrival into Budapest due to a huge storm. The waves on the Danube were so high they kept coming in over the lock wall and filling it with water again. We arrived late into Budapest and had a shortened city tour but what a view from Fisherman's Wharf over the river to the city and the magnificent Parliament buildings. We had a night cruise after dinner which showed the city lights off to great affect.