Christmas Markets (Bratislava)

Our one stop in Slovakia was in the cool town of Bratislava. We had perfect weather and had a chance to walk around with some old friends from Bend, Oregon. The monuments, the buildings, the whole town atmosphere seemd classier than some of the other places we went. Here's a quick look around.

Traditional costumes (?) from two different eras singing together.

Friends we hadn't seen for years

Christmas Markets (Budapest)

We started our cruise in Budapest.

Fortunately we arrived only an hour and a half later than we expected due to snow at the airport in Vienna. Many of the other passengers were stranded in Frankfurt, or London, or Amsterdam as this was a bad time for weather across Europe. When the ship finally left Budapest to sail up the river, only 63 of the expected 140 passengers were on board.


The ship was the Viking Sky

Nicely equipped with a large sun deck

And a swimming pool

Budapest was a beautiful city full of monuments, statues, churches, and many quaint buildings and attractive streets.

The churches are overwhelming in size and complexity.

Many cities had monuments to the plague (or, maybe that is to the end of the plague).

Budapest at night was particularly spectacular.

I'm glad we didn't stay long enough to need to learn Hungarian.

Christmas Markets Along the Danube

On a whirlwind tour on the Danube in winter, we cruised from Budapest to Regensburg. Passing through four countries in nine days, our ship stopped in Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Germany. Notable features of this trip included quaint, cute old towns, cold weather, and lots of Christmas markets. The markets were the most fun; for people watching, junk souvenir trinket shopping, and tasting all kinds of yummy local and seasonal goodies, this was the way to go.


Let's get the good food out of the way:

You've got to try the sausages

 Or the other miscellaneous meats

A slurry of glop (not sure what it is in Hungarian)

Cinnamon bread cooked over charcoal

Lots of candies 

And nuts

Dried fruits

Of course they had gingerbread

Some of which they made in front of us

The Krapfen were great

Like a cinnamon donut

Nuts, meats, cheeses

Seafood

Various strudels

Each market had their signature mug for the mulled wine

And the marzipan, hand-made into wonderful shapes

And some strange ones.


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