My Top Ten Photos of 2023

On December 31, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Photography4 Comments

You didn’t expect me back so soon, did you?. I have to admit that I have never had such a busy December on this blog. We never (in the past) go anyplace in December…at least, we don’t usually go anywhere that I want to take photos of or write about.

But it is New Year’s Eve, so that means I need to post my annual “Top Ten Photos I Took in 2023.” So, without further ado, here they are. You have seen all of them before except one. I will let you try and figure out which one that is.

Honorable Mentions

It is really hard to decide on the Top Ten, so I give myself permission to have a bunch of honorable mentions. I will caption directly on these photos and show them to you in a gallery. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

WAIT! One other thing. If you are looking at these on a tablet or computer monitor, please turn your brightness up all the way.

This is the first photo I took this year that made it into this group. And I didn’t take it until May. In Vancouver.

Took this one in August in Port Orchard, WA. Can’t take credit for the awesome sky. Just glad I was there to take it.

Another amazing sky. This time over Montreal in September.

Also in Montreal in September. Symmetry!

On Cape Breton, Nova Scotia…my second-best people photo this year.

It’s all about the light.

Number 10—The Parliament Building in Budapest

This was one of the more than 300 photos I took of this building earlier this month. Even harder than choosing my Top Ten was choosing which one of these shots to post here. The building just pulls you in. Night and day. If you see it and you have a camera in your hand, you want to take a photo of it. And at night, the attraction is worse!

Number 9—Cape Breton Church

I think what makes this photo (more than anything else) is the sky. We were VERY LUCKY to be visiting Cape Breton’s Highland Village on a glorious sunny day. This is another building that kept calling me to take its photo. And unlike the Budapest Parliament, I could walk around this church and catch it from every angle. This one was the best. The clouds makes it work.

Number 8—Lipizzan Stallion in Vienna

We were in Vienna earlier this month when we visited the Spanish Riding School, home of the incredible Lipizzan Stallions. We weren’t allowed to take photos in the actual stables but we were allowed to take them in an outer courtyard where there were windows into a few of the stables. This guy (enticed by our guide) stuck his head out. I chose this one because I love the technical quality. I was close enough and shooting with a low enough ISO that you can see individual hairs. And yes, that L-shaped mark is actually on him. I keep trying to wipe it off. I took it off in Photoshop but decided it was better to leave it. Still not sure if I should have.

Number 7—Tram #28

Probably the most famous of the tram lines in Lisboa, Portugal, is #28. It has the most turns and the most ups and downs of any of the tram lines. I have to say that I walked most of the line one day or another during our stay earlier this month. Of all the photos I took of the car itself, I like this one the best.

Number 6—The Cemetery in Vienna’s Jewish Ghetto

If you look back at my photography over the last ten years you will see less than ten photos in black and white. And six of those come from this month. Of all of them, this shot I took in Vienna earlier this month was my best. I liked it because of the cold, the snow, the grey skies, the dark trees—they all pushed me to make the photo black and white. BTW: for the non-photo folks out there, this is taken in color but converted to black and white when I process the photo.

Number 5—Cape Breton Farm

I took this photo within about 15 minutes of taking the church photo, which is number nine above. I think this one is better because it is like I went back in time to take it. That’s because the Cape Breton Highland Village is a Living Museum. That means that the docents working there dress up as they would have been in the time frame in their part of the Village. These folks are portraying turn-of-the-century farmers. Again, the sky really helps this photo, but not as much as it does the church. I only think this one is better because it is unusual. I should also add that I have already had this one printed on canvas, and it is hanging over our couch.

Number 4—Lighthouse outside Portland, Maine

When we did our cruise on Oceania’s Vista from Montreal to Miami, I was really looking for a photo that screamed NEW ENGLAND! I think I found it with this one. As we were sailing out, I stood on the upper deck and shot photos of the lighthouse as we went by. This is another one where I think I took upwards of 40 photos of the lighthouse, and this was the ONLY one where you could see the light shining directly at the camera. To me, that makes this photo special.

Number 3—Woman in Lisboa

On our first night in Lisboa, Portugal, I stepped outside the restaurant and saw some amazing holiday decorations I really wanted to photograph. So I walked down the street about half a block and took the photos. As I was turning to leave, I noticed this woman leaning on the wall of the restaurant where we had eaten. I love the look on her face. It is a combination of resignation that her husband is again taking photographs…that she just saw him take a photo of her…and that she still loves him anyway. I can see it in her “almost smile.” That’s what it’s all about, folks. Everything in my life comes together in one photo. I should add that she thinks I should not be using this picture. But this is MY Top Ten, and this one, for me, deserves to be in the Top Three. I mean, really—she is my number one…forever.

Number 2—Portland, Maine Street Scene

There is nothing I value more in photography than light. Great light trumps everything else. But this photo is all about the color, not the light. It is a very unusual photo for me. I don’t usually look for this kind of photo. In fact, when I took it, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. But then, when I saw it on my MacBook screen, I fell in love. I will admit to cropping it a little, but that’s about all I did to it. It is such a great study in yellow (one of my least favorite colors) because everything works.

Number 1—A Boat Caught in the Light

Remember what I just said in the previous paragraph about light. Well, this photo proves that I am right. When trying to decide between the two as to which was number one, the light in this photo won me over. That afternoon, as we sailed out of New York City’s harbor, the light was about as perfect as you could get—a great mix of sun, blue sky and intermittent dark clouds. When the sun hit the Tower and then dropped to the water, and then the boat moved right through the sun’s reflection, it was photographic magic.

That about does it for 2023. It has been a great year of travel, of taking travel photos and of getting to share our experiences with everyone who reads this. We will be back in June with a month-long trip to England, Scotland and Norway, and then again in October when we visit Madrid and do a Douro River cruise. And of course, there will be a few posts in between.

Lastly, I welcome your comments about which ones you like. Feel free to tell me what your number one or two are (if they are different than mine) in the comment section below.

Photography, as a powerful medium of expression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution. —Ansel Adams

My Top Ten Photos of 2023…is not ready

On December 30, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Sorry about that last e-mail you got. I hit Save on my blogging program and for some reason it posted it. It was not supposed to so I took it down. I promise it will be back tomorrow. I am just not done with it yet.

Let me sum up…

On December 28, 2023December 30, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Photography14 Comments

I am so sorry this has taken me so long. I am back with my final summation of our entire European trip this month. As usual, I will break it down into some categories so it doesn’t look like you have a massive block of text to read all at one time. I welcome any comments about my views, but please realize that they are based on my experience.

We loved Lisbon!

If you read my Lisbon reports, you know that we loved it. It was like the early days of travel for us—just the two of us having a great time in a great city. If there was one thing we didn’t like, it was living out of a suitcase. We loved our tours, the food, the hotel (especially the hotel) and pretty much everything else. It is also a very inexpensive place to visit. Oh, we didn’t have a very good time at our Fado dinner. There must be better places. But that was just a minor annoyance.

Our flights and airport experiences

Again, I have detailed these pretty well in this post in my huge rant about Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris. All the rest of our flight experiences were excellent. We really liked our flights with Delta much more than we did a year ago when we flew with them home from Barcelona.

Prague—ice and cold

After we flew to Prague from Lisbon, we became Viking’s problems as this was part of our pre-cruise extension. Read and see all about it by clicking here. It was an OK extension but we could have done without the ice and snow. I know that Viking can’t do anything about ice and snow, but they can figure out a way for people who are not great walkers when it is dry and warm to see some of the city’s sights. Viking offers an “included excursion” for every day of an extension and for every port on a cruise. But to only have an excursion that on a dry and warm day would be “challenging” leaves out a huge part of their clientele and those that shouldn’t attempt it but do hold back those that can handle it.

But other than my complaint about shore excursions, we loved Prague. It was a great hotel with a great breakfast; we found a super place for dinner, thanks to a friend here in Redmond, and the tours we were able to take were pretty darn good.

Nuremberg—worst hotel, best tour of the entire trip

Viking should immediately stop using Le Méridien Grand Hotel. Yes, it is very well situated, but it is so old and out of date, they need to find something better. Our room was tiny and felt like a cell, not a room. There was one elevator to serve more than 200 rooms. The restaurant was never open to guests for lunch or dinner, so we ended up eating in the bar (where the menu was as small as our room). Their breakfast was good, but that can’t make up for the rooms and the fact that there was no place to eat. If you do any pre-extension with Viking, make sure to pre-book your restaurant reservations for dinner yourself. If you get there and find you can’t get into any place, check with your tour manager (who works for Viking) and see if they can find you somewhere. That worked for us in Budapest.

But in Nuremberg, I went on the best tour of the entire trip. If you go, do the WWII Nuremberg tour. If you can get Werner as your guide, you will have hit the jackpot. His knowledge and understanding of the topic are encyclopedic, and he was great with the delivery—a born storyteller.

The Cruise—from Regensburg to Budapest on Viking Gulveig

Now that’s a long ship. Maybe that’s why Viking calls it a longship.

This was our first river cruise, and I have to say we truly enjoyed it. It is quite different from an ocean cruise, and we are looking forward to our next one on the Douro River in Portugal next October. It will be a really different experience than the ice and frigid cold we experienced on this one.

The cruise (as you may recall) was billed as Christmas on the Danube—Europe’s Christmas Markets. I don’t know what I thought the Christmas Market thing would be, but it wasn’t that. My expectations were that once we were in Europe, we would be Christmased to death. We weren’t. If anything, it was almost the opposite. As much as I loved the ship, it just wasn’t very festive. We saw a lot of other riverboats/ships, and 90% were better decorated for Christmas than ours was. And there was little to no Christmas music on board. The piano player would drop one or two holiday tunes into his nightly repertoire, but that was it.

And the Christmas Markets were pretty much all alike. The ones we saw in Lisbon were our favorites, followed by the ones in Budapest, but otherwise, they were all about the same. The same merchandise, the same foods, the same crowds, the same drinks. It truly was a case of if you have seen one, you have seen them all. And Viking felt we wanted to see them all for three or four hours. I don’t know what I was supposed to do at a Christmas Market for that amount of time.

Getting back to the ship, our stateroom was excellent. We had a typical verandah, which is tiny by ocean ship standards (205 square feet with the verandah), but it was so well-designed that we barely noticed. The bed was much more comfortable than the bed we had on our Viking Ocean cruise in October 2022. We had plenty of storage, and by the time we got to our stateroom (after being in three hotels in the last ten days.

Things we loved about the cruise and the ship

Embarkation was amazing and easy. We arrived from Nuremberg, got off our “luxury motor coach,” and went right onto the ship. We (about 40 of us coming from the extension) gave them our credit card info and got our room keys in less than 10 minutes. Then, every person was escorted directly to their stateroom by a crew member. We got Natalia from Poland. She later turned out to be one of our servers in the dining room. She was so great, showing us how everything in our stateroom worked and telling us how to get help if we needed it. She stayed and talked for about 15 minutes, asking about us and seeing if there was anything else she could do for us. What a treat! Best embarkation ever.
The main dining room was surprisingly spacious. But unlike ocean cruises, you better like to meet people because there are NO tables for two. There aren’t even tables for four. There are tables for six, eight or ten people. That’s it. But that worked for us. We were thrilled to have meals with new friends, especially our new friend from New Hampshire, Carol.
We never had to wait for an elevator. Because we really didn’t have to. There are only three levels on a Viking longship. And the only reason to go below level two is if you have a stateroom on deck one. We were on deck two (stateroom 213), so we never went down to one. The main dining room is on deck two as well, so we could have eaten all our meals and never even gone upstairs if we didn’t want to. But the top deck had the only lounge and a small buffet. We went up for drinks most nights and to hear what Debra, our Program Director, told us what was on tap for the next day.
Dinner times were interesting. By that, I mean that they were later…or earlier. They changed every day. They were usually close to 7:00 pm but, one night (because of an after-dinner concert in Vienna that many attended), dinner was at 5:30. Other nights, if there was a late shore excursion coming back to the ship, it might be as late as 7:30 (which is really late for us).

Things we would love to see changed

These things are going to be really picky. Why? Because Kathleen and I could only think of some minor annoyances that we didn’t like.

The pianist in the lounge was too loud! Why do cruise lines, restaurants, and pretty much every public lounge or bar think we want to hear loud music every single second of the day? We met some great people on this cruise—people we would have loved to have traded travel stories with. But most of the time, when we were in the only lounge on the ship, we couldn’t hear people sitting directly across from us talk. The pianist thought that louder was better, and he played one of those electronic pianos that made him the entire band, and he liked to show it off. Not to mention the fact that he barely played any Christmas music. TURN HIM DOWN PLEASE! During the rest of the day there is excellent recorded music playing in the lounge. At a low volume. Low enough that you can have a conversation. We would have loved to have that in the evenings. If you read my review of our ocean cruise on Oceania’s Vista in October, you know I complained about that on that ship as well. On Viking Ocean ships, there are many places to go and. have a nice, quiet drink with conversation. But river ships only have one lounge, and if Mr. Loud is playing the piano, you are screwed.
Laundry service was highway robbery. By the time we boarded the ship, we had been on the road for ten days. We needed to send some things out to get clean. We knew there was a chargeable laundry service on the ship, but not one that charged $4 to wash a pair of socks, $7 to wash a pair of jeans or $6 to wash a tee-shirt. We ended up sending out six items, and the bill was $42. That’s HORRIBLE!
Rafting was fine, except once when it was UNSAFE! If you aren’t familiar with rafting (as it pertains to river ships), it is when two, three, or four of these very long ships tie up to each other. Then, if your ship is the second, third or fourth ship out from the dock, you cross through the lobby area of each of the inside ships to get to yours. It’s not a big deal, and you can look at the other ships a little. But this kind of rafting only happened with other Viking ships. The one time we were rafted with a non-Viking ship, we had returned from Munich, it was very dark and we were not allowed to cross through the other ship’s lobby. We had to climb to the top (observation/sun) deck, cross over and climb down into our ship. This meant climbing some slippery stairs, crossing over an icy deck, then onto a very narrow gangplank between the ships (three stories off the water) across our ship’s icy deck and then back down some more slippery steps. This should not happen.
The lunch on embarkation day was just wrong. We left Nuremberg at 11:00 am (too early for lunch). We arrived at the ship at 2:00 pm and were told that there was a buffet lunch in the lounge on deck three. That lunch was really sparse. And really poor. They need to improve this situation. Better scheduling (leaving Nuremberg earlier or later) would help.

As you can see, we are nitpicking here. It was a great cruise with four tiny blips. All of them are easily fixable.

Viking Shore Excursions

I have already mentioned that our pre-cruise tours were outstanding. And our post cruise tours were even better when we got to Budapest. But I want to run through the ports really quickly. You can always go back for a more in-depth look in previous posts.

All the tours on this cruise were better than any of the tours we took on our Viking Ocean cruise in the Mediterranean back in 2022.
The worst guide was the guy we had in Regensburg. His job was to show us around the city in about 45 minutes. What he did was get us off the ship on back streets, told misogynistic jokes as we walked, took us to see nothing really interesting and then left us in the middle of town saying, “The river is over that way. Just get there and turn right.” WTF? He should never be used again.
The second worst was the guide who took us to Munich. He was just okay as a guide, but what he or Viking did to us was not. This was the day that we enjoyed going to the BMW headquarters and then downtown Munich and then a very nice lunch. But after that, we were just told we had three hours of free time and no place to go to get out of the cold. That was WRONG! No one needs to shop for three hours, especially on a Sunday when all the shops in the old town core were closed. The only real option for shopping was the Christmas Market but how many ornaments can you buy or how much mulled wine could you drink (and still find your way back to the bus). This needs to change.
Some of the excursions were just “fine.” They were nothing to write home about. The tours on the extensions were much better than those on the cruise, except for maybe the “Panoramic Budapest” tour that we took with the hilarious Barbie. The rest were either bad (like the first two above) or just “fine.”
It would be VERY hard to do private tours. On an ocean ship, we would just have done private tours, but I am just not sure if you could do that on a river cruise. The reason you would have a hard time doing that is that you never know where the ship is going to be. For instance, we went to bed in Regensburg with the knowledge that the next morning, we would still be in the same place. If we had been doing a private tour, we would have told our guide to meet us there and then found out where we could rejoin the ship. But when we got up, we were miles down the river because the ship had to move quickly to get under some low bridges just outside Regensburg. This was NOT Viking’s fault. The river levels cannot be controlled. When we got up that morning, we were going to Munich. The ship just pulled over, tied up in the middle of nowhere, and we got off and met our “luxury motor coach” on a very rural road.
I make jokes about “luxury motor coaches,” but that really didn’t apply to the buses we rode on during this cruise. They truly were luxury motor coaches: great seats, lots of legroom, places to put anything you carried. We had been dreading the long bus rides from Prague to Nuremberg and from there to Regensburg, but they were very nice. And they planned restroom breaks when needed. I would have no problem taking them again. Much better than on our Viking Ocean cruise in October 22.

The Food

Our last ocean cruise on Oceania’s Vista in October 2023 was all about the food. The rest of the cruise was nice, but I wrote a lot about the food, as I do on many of our cruises. On this cruise, we had very little to complain about food-wise. Our servers were outstanding. Breakfast in the dining room was a buffet, but you can also order from a really nice menu.

We had only one complaint about the food in the entire cruise. Jamie and I ordered fish and chips one day, and we sent it back. The fish had sat too long and had turned to rubber instead of being crisp. That may have been more of a service thing than a cooking thing. We do wish that the chef had some heartier soups. When you come in from a cold excursion and go to have lunch and all the soups are just broth, you kind of wish for a nice clam, corn or potato chowder.

Other than that, the food was great. Lots of variety, lots of interesting dishes. My brother said it passed the “Steve Test.”

Beautiful Budapest

If you have been following along for the last three weeks, then you know we LOVED Budapest: great tours, a very nice hotel with an amazing view, and a super tour coordinator. Only one guide was truly horrid, and we have already forgotten the horrible Lazlo. If you missed my detailed reports on Budapest, they start here.

The Final Word

And that does it. I hope you have enjoyed coming along on this trip. We had a great time; it only felt like we had hit a wall a few times and would do it again (but NOT a Christmas Market cruise). We are going back to do another river cruise in October. But for my faithful readers, stick with us. We are off to England, Scotland and Norway in June for almost a full month. And, of course, a few posts before that.

Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have. —Louis E. Boone.

I just can’t figure airports—especially this one

On December 22, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Air travel6 Comments

Our last two sojourns to Europe have both finished badly. It is horrid that you have a great trip, and then the day you fly home, things suck. I promised to detail this for you, so here we go. Just once, I would like to be able to get home without feeling like I was run over by a truck.

We had originally purchased seats on Air France from Seattle to Lisbon via Paris and then home from Budapest to Seattle, again via Paris. Our original flights had a four-hour layover at Charles DeGaulle Airport (CDG–above) on our way out and a three-hour layover at CDG on the way back. I liked that. I thought it was a good amount of time to transition from one plane to another.

But then Air France canceled our flight. Well, they didn’t really cancel it; they moved us via a codeshare to Delta (that means that we were flying on a Delta plane but under an Air France ticket), flight 80 on the way out and 81 on the way back. We would still be on the same Air France flights from Paris to Lisbon and Budapest to Paris. On the front end of the trip, our schedule pretty much stayed the same, but on the way home…not so much. We went from a three-hour layover to a 95-minute layover. My friend Mike had warned me that CDG was not an easy airport, and I was really worried about it. Air France offered us a complete refund, but that would mean finding another flight less than two months before the trip. And those tickets would cost us almost three times the amount we had paid for the original flight. Plus, we would lose the flights to Lisbon and from Budapest…so we took the Delta offer and knew we would just have to move our butts.

Our flights coming to Euorpe weren’t too bad, but our experience at CDG on the way to Lisbon was not. You can read the post about that by clicking here. But on the way back, things went very bad.

I had been tracking both these flights on FlightAware.com before the cruise. If you have not used FlightAware before, you can plug in a flight and see how on time that flight is each day for about a week back. I tracked them both for more than a month—checking their on-time performance every day. I felt better seeing that our flight from Budapest to Paris was usually either on time or early. As it was the first flight of the day, we felt pretty confident we would get to Paris on time. And Delta flight 81 was also pretty much on-time most days. That didn’t make me that happy. I would rather see it being a little late so we had more time to transition at the airport.

How worried were we about making the flight to Seattle? So worried that we looked at videos of how to move from the E gates (where intra-Europe flights land) to Terminal M (where flights outside of Europe originate from). We studied airport maps. We read posts on FlyerTalk. We found a bunch of contradictions about what we would have to go through, but we did understand where we would have to go. Most of these said we should be able to traverse the long walk from the E gates to Passport Control, go through that and then take a train/bus to the M gates, which should take about half an hour to 45 minutes. That would get us to our gate to go home after they had started boarding but before they closed the doors. We weren’t worried about our luggage since we were going home and knew if they didn’t make the connection, they would catch up soon after, and we have clothes at home. Our day was planned, and we went to bed knowing that we might have a stressful trip, but we could do it. Kathleen was still worried about how she would do with her knee.

We got up at 2:00 am, had our luggage ready to be picked up by Viking, loaded on the “luxury motor coach” to the airport by 2:45, and we were downstairs in the lobby, ready to board that bus at 3:00 am. We arrived at the airport at 4:00 am for a 6:20 flight, right on time. We boarded the plane on time. And then…the pilot announced that we needed to de-ice the plane, and that would take about half an hour. We freaked. But then I got a notification from Delta that our flight from Paris to Seattle had been rescheduled to one hour later. YEAH! A flight attendant onboard was great at telling us where our next gates would be, and when we mentioned we were worried about making it to the Seattle flight, she said not to worry too much. There were 24 people on that plane from Budapest going to our flight to Seattle. She said, “They aren’t going to want to rebook 24 people. They won’t fly without you.”

Our flight from Budapest finally left about 45 minutes late. So we had lost 15 minutes of that hour. We had been scheduled to get into Paris at 8:30 am. We arrived at 9:45 and had to get across the airport by 11:30. So off we went. We found our way through the E gates pretty easily, but Kathleen’s knee was already starting to hurt, and we had already walked quite a distance. And then we hit Passport Control.

We had high hopes that being in Business Class there would be a special line for us. And there was. But it wasn’t moving any faster, nor was it any shorter than the other lines. And all of them were going slow. In the meantime, a bunch of people were going up to an airport supervisor, asking to be let in early. He would scan their boarding passes, and if they had less than a certain amount of time, he would let them through. We saw him send 90% of those people back to the end of our line. Of course, they didn’t go to the back of the line; they just kind of blended into the line a few people back. We saw a number of them, who should have been 100 people behind us, get through before we did.

After 45 minutes, we got to where we could see the Passport Control booths, and of course, on a day when there were a lot of late planes due to weather (ice and cold), only four of 10 of the booths were operating. I can never figure that kind of thing out. We finally got through, and it was 11:15. We thought we had only 15 minutes to get to the gate, which was quite a ways away. But I got another text from Delta at just about that minute saying that the flight was now delayed until 11:50. We breathed another sigh of almost relief.

From there, we made our way to gate M-29, where our plane was supposed to load. Now, before I continue, I need to tell you what we are carrying between us as we went. Kathleen has her carry-on (a regular-size carry-on roller) and her personal item, a bag about one-third the size of a carry-on. She was pushing both on the roller’s wheels. I had my standard roller carry-on and my computer/camera bag as my personal item. Both our carry-ons are standard size and weight, and Kathleen’s personal item wasn’t that big or heavy. But my computer/camera bag weighs about 35 lbs. Half the reason I don’t check the roller bag is because I need it as a dolly for the computer bag. That’s how we rolled through the airport.

So now you know what we had between us, you will know why the next thing that happened really killed us (especially me). When it was time to go down the jetway to our plane, we went about halfway down, and there was a door, and we were directed to go through it and down three flights of stairs to a waiting bus. The plane at our gate, at the end of that jetway was not our jet. With Kathleen’s knees, there was no way she could carry her bags down the stairs. She needed to have her hands free to grab a rail. So I carried them all down—all four bags. No elevators, no escalators, just three flights of stairs going down.

Then, when we got to the bottom, there was a very ugly bus. Most people on it had to stand up. Luckily, Kathleen got a seat while I managed the bags and stood. We literally drove to the other side of the airport. I truly believe the bus ride was approximately 30 minutes. And when we finally arrived we saw that our plane did not have a gate or jetway, just a set of stairs next to the plane. So now I would have to carry those bags up a very long and steep set of stairs while I worried that Kathleen would be able to do it safely as well. And there was no way I could carry all four. She had to take her small one.

To make matters worse, they wouldn’t let us off the bus. They had five buses lined up with everyone on board. And since it was a cold day out, they kept the doors closed. For at least 20 minutes, they just kept us there. Eventually, people yelled so loud about the heat on the bus and the smell of diesel fuel that they opened the doors of the buses, but they still would not let us off. I was truly surprised no one passed out from the heat and fumes.

Finally, someone from Delta came to each bus and said that the food service provider was servicing the plane and we were not allowed to be onboard until he was finished, which he thought would be in about 10 minutes. All this time, most of the people on all five buses were still standing up, trying to hold up their bags. Finally, we were allowed to board the plane. By this time, it was almost 12:30 pm. Kathleen made it up with a minimum of trouble. I still have a sore shoulder from getting those bags up those stairs. The cherry on the whole crappy day was that they had changed planes, so our seats were no longer together. Not a huge deal but it meant I wasn’t right there to deal with getting the carryons up and down from the overhead bins for her. And we couldn’t communicate during the flight without getting out of our seats. We managed.

The flight itself was fine. I watched a couple of movies, worked with some photos, had a nice meal, and drank a lot of water. We landed in Seattle after 3:00 (supposed to be 12:45), got through Customs, we were met by our driver (who had monitored our flight and knew we were late), and we were home in our house before 5:00. But what a day—23 hours from waking up in Budapest to unpacking in our home. And to top it all off…it was my 71st birthday. Not one I will soon forget.

See why plane travel makes me feel old…and ruins the end of trips? When I have days like this, I totally get why my good friend Bob hates air travel. I totally understand. Oh, and when I checked this morning on FlightAware, both of those flights had been right on time (within 15 minutes) every day before and since. Our particular day was the only one that was different. That’s crazy.

I have one more post to write and this trip is toast. This is just a summary and review of the whole thing, especially the cruise. See you soon—hopefully tomorrow, but more likely the day after Christmas. Lots of cooking and shopping and wrapping to do before then.

Running through airports with pounds of luggage – that’s a good workout. —Rachel McAdams

Nazis, Heroes, Communists, Food and more…

On December 21, 2023December 21, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Food Experiences, Photography2 Comments

Yes, we had all those things in our last full day in Budapest; we got up late (after our late-night, worthless tour), and while Kathleen showered and changed and before we had our hotel buffet breakfast (included in our Viking post-cruise extension) I went out for a short pre-dawn photo walk. I hadn’t gotten many of those in on this trip. Really not a single one since we had left Lisbon. It’s not like I hadn’t planned for them. I had maps of the things I wanted to take photos of in that wonderful early morning light. And I had brought clothing to wear along with my boots—I had even planned on the ice and snow we encountered in Prague. What I hadn’t expected was how late the sun would come up. Most of the time, we had someplace we had to be (usually a tour) at 8:30. And when the sun doesn’t come up until 7:30 or later, it’s hard to find time to be there when it does.

This day was different as our only tour didn’t start until 10:00 am, so I was able to go out and take photos of the last two major sites I hadn’t seen yet. First up were some close-ups of the incredible Parliament Building I had been taking so many long-distance photos of, and then, while walking back to the hotel, I could visit the Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial. We had driven by the Shoes memorial a few times, and I had the chance in on two previous afternoons, but I wanted to be there alone, and usually, it was jammed with people. If you have not heard of the Shoes on the Danube Bank before, it is a monument to thousands of Jews who were taken from the Jewish Ghetto in Budapest in 1944-45 and killed. The fascist Hungarian Arrow Cross party took them to the edge of the Danube, made them undress and take off their shoes (which could later be sold) and then shot them so they fell into the river and were swept away. The memorial is a beautiful tribute to those people. You can read about it by clicking here.

In the meantime, here are the photos I took early that morning. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

As i headed out from the hotel I took one shots of Buda on the far side of the river.

This statue stands at the east end of the Parliament Building

And here are some close ups of this beautiful building that looks so magnificent at night with the lights on. i

Close up 1

Close up 2

Close up 3

Close up 4

Close up 5

Close up 6

Close up 7

And then another look back across the river…

Where the sun was just starting to make an appearance.

And then the Shoes on the Danube Memorial.

People had left flowers and candles.

It is such a wonderful and symbolic memorial.

That commemorates the evil men do to others.

It is both somber and sobering.

And incredibly sad.

Once past it I head back to our hotel.

On the way I passed our ship, now with an entirely new set of passengers.

And less than 100 yards away…our hotel.

For the balance of the day, we had a private tour planned with Melinda from Tours by Locals. If you have been reading my posts, you know that this is a company I have grown to love. Between myself and Jamie and Steve on their London/Paris land trip we have used them on at least 15 tours. I chose Melinda’s tour because in the description of her tour she said, “This private tour is perfect for those who have already seen the highlights and want to explore the city further.” This meant that we could do the tours with Viking, and then I could let her know what we still wanted to see, and she would set us up to go there.

Even though this was a private tour in a van (not a “luxury motor coach”), Kathleen was worried that getting in and out of the van and doing what walking we would be doing might make her knee worse. And she was VERY worried (as was I) about the next day when we knew we would make a long tramp through Charles DeGaulle airport, not to mention wading through security and check-in here in Budapest. Plus, she was still wiped out after our worthless tour the night before when we didn’t get back until almost 11:00. So she decided to let the other four of us go (our new friend Carol was joining us as well).

Right on time, Melinda walked into the hotel lobby to collect us. We jumped into a Mercedes van with a driver, and we were off on our four-hour adventure. Our first stop was Heroes Square. On our first-day overview tour with Barbie, we had driven past it, but we wanted to walk around as well as see the castle and seasonal ice skating rink behind it. Heroes Square is packed with amazing statues and monuments to (I think) every person who ever had a hand in creating Hungary and keeping it alive during the years in between. I wish I could tell you who all the statues represented, and I did get a few of them. You can read about them below, in the captions of the photos I took in the square. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Stupidly, I forgot to take a photo of the overall square. This is one corner.

This is the other.

This is the center

A closeup of the seven statues that represent the founders of Hungary.

The statues are about 30 feet high.

But they. are impressive.

And they are everywhere.

It was worth coming back to see them.

The Hungarians truly respect their heroes.

These two sat opposite each other on the left and right corners.

Kind of a face off between war and peace.

I liked this shot because it combines the old with the contrails of the modern.

There were protestors in the Square as well.

Very eye-catching.

As was this helium (not hot air) balloon that suddenly appeared behind the square.

Just across the street from Heroes Square were two other places we wanted to see: the seasonal ice skating rink and the Vajdahunyad Castle that sat right behind it. We had seen both while driving with Barbie, and I got an idea for some artsy photography I wanted to try at the rink. Here are the photos we took (without the artsy black-and-white stuff). Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

A really nice castle…

The balloon makes another appearance.

As we get closer to the castle…

I see a really cool lion.

Other parts of the castle.

This building houses the Hungarian Agricultural Department.

There is also a small chapel.

The chapel had a very unique façade.

Next to the castle is the seasonal (not there all year) outdoor skating rink.

This is the building behind the ice rink.

I kind of liked it.

And then there is Anonymous. Seriously, that’s the statues name.

And the castle from behind.

One other thing during our stop near Heroes Square was another Christmas Market. Not a huge one, but certainly as big as many we had seen. But they had some of the best looking food I had seen and since it was early in the day, there wasn’t a huge crowd waiting to buy it so I could get some great photos…that I hope will make your mouth water. Enjoy.

The food at every Christmas Market we had seen was this good…

And there was this much of it.

Of course these changed by country.

But the quality and the quantity were amazing.

I get hungry just looking at these.

It’s almost lunch time as I am typing this…

Wish I was there.

Just amazing food.

And it all looked so darned good.

After our walk, we were off to our longest drive of the day to Memento Park. Our good friend Marjorie had visited the park when she was in Budapest and had told us about it. As I always do, I thought it sounded interesting but more importantly, a chance for some great photography. This was the only place I had told Melinda we wanted to go before we got to Budapest because I knew it was too far out in the countryside for Viking to take us there. Besides, it was one of those hidden gems you always hear about.

Memento Park is where old statues go to die. Seriously. In the early 1990s, when the Communist dictatorship ended, the people of Hungary were ticked! So they took down all the symbols of Communism from around the city of Budapest and moved samples of it to Mememto Park as a constant reminder to never let that happen again. So you can go and visit these statues and celebrate how incredibly naïve Soviet-era communism was. Check out the photos to get an idea of what I am talking about. Their symbolism is truly wrong, but they are interesting historical artifacts. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Welcome to Memento Park.

These are not in the park. The two boots you see there are Stalin’s they were at that bottom of a statue that was more than 80 feet. All they moved here were the boots.

Outside the park…about to head in we saw…

Marx and Engels, the two founding fathers of Communism.

An original Trabant, Built in East Germany, it is almost made of cardboard.

The inside. Strange thing…we saw one of these on the street that evening.

Once inside there are about 30 statues…

Spread all around the park.

All types of Soviet artwork.

Representing the worst of Communism.

This one is definitely the best.

I just wish I had thought to put people in the photo for scale.

Wanted to get him in the best light.

Strange stuff.

Melinda explains one of the statues to Jamie and Steve.

This one commemorates the Hungarian Communist contribution to the Spanish Civil War.

Not a statue but how the Hungarians build water towers.

I loved the way he is catching a jet in the sky.

More humans for scale. My brother is six foot, eight so you know these statues must be huge.

A very interesting piece showing Stalin urging troops on to war.

Some closeups of the piece.

Really different from everything else.

I liked these guys….

The electrical wires in the background seemed to suit them as opposed to being a distraction.

The ticket sales area actually had music (military music) playing on this very old radio.

On my way out of the park.

After this quick look at the Soviet occupation, we were off to see two more things. One was a viewpoint where Melinda said we could get a wonderful and complete overall view of Budapest, and the other was the Opera House, where we could get photos of the lobby but would need to take a tour to see the inside, and we didn’t have time to do that with her. Here are the photos from those spots. You know the drill.

Melinda was right…

What an incredible view!

We could see everything from up here…

From a completely different angle than from down below.

Even the Parliament Building.

And then a quick drive downtown to the Opera House.

Which, sadly, was having a private function, so this was the only photo I could get.

After that, we went back to the hotel so we could pack for our flight the next morning. Anita (our Viking Extension concierge) had wrangled us some reservations at a great restaurant because we all wanted one more night of Hungarian food. The place was called Rezkakas, and their goulash was about as close to a perfect meal as we had eaten on this trip. If you go to Budapest, eat there! I wish I had taken a photo of it but when it got to the table, it looked so good, I ate it without thinking about it. The whole evening was a great experience…especially since Carol joined us for a farewell dinner, and Steve and Jamie picked up the entire check as a birthday present (the next day) for me.

Dictators fall when they’re overconfident; they stay in power when they’re paranoid. —Masha Gessen

Markets, Hotels and a Worthless Tour

On December 20, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Food Experiences, Photography2 Comments

The morning of our second day in Budapest, we had to do something we hated. We had to get off of Viking Gulveig. That sucked. We truly loved being on board and made many new friends among the crew and the other passengers. Our stateroom was wonderful, the ship beautiful, and except for one horrible lunch dish, the food was excellent (more about that later this week).

After getting tossed off the ship, Viking was nice enough to give us a ride to our hotel. We were doing the Budapest Extension with Viking, and they were putting us up at the Intercontinental Hotel. From the ship, the “luxury motor coach” ride to the hotel took just about exactly…3 minutes. Seriously, we could see the hotel from the ship. It took us longer to get on and off the bus than it would have taken me to walk directly there. It was just on the other side of the Chain Bridge.

Sadly, the rest of that day was wasted to some extent. The hotel didn’t have rooms ready for us, and having our carry-ons with us, as well as Kathleen really being tired and having (as she said) “hit a wall,” just needed some rest. So when we got to the hotel, our new tour coordinator, Anita, offered the entire group a short walking tour to get oriented to where we were; Kathleen decided to stay in the lobby on a nice couch and read while I went and heard what Anita had to say. Anita walked us about ten blocks from the hotel and showed us how to get around. I have to say that both our pre-cruise tour coordinator in Prague (Vicki) and post-tour coordinator in Budapest (Anita) were amazing to work with. Just took care of everything we needed. Anita even acted as our Concierge by finding us reservations for dinner on the last night we were in Budapest.

After Anita finished her tour, I realized that I needed to get back to Kathleen to give her a break from the bags and discuss what to do next. She was OK with me going off to take photos and then come back, and we could have lunch. So off I went to find the local public market. This was NOT a Christmas Market. This was a huge building that housed just about everything you could want to buy, from soup to nuts (not to mention meat, spices, dishes, clothing, etc.) This was where the locals shopped, and we visitors took pictures (although I did buy some paprika here for myself and Kathleen’s daughter Michelle). Let me drop in the photos I took on that walk right here so you can see what I am talking about. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

On my way to the Market I shot some photos…

…(of course I did) of statues and…

Buildings that I saw on my way.

Including this awesome sculpture that from far away was supposed to look like the symbol for pi.

When you got closer, you could see that the inside was just pi pushed out to a WHOLE LOT OF DIGITS!

One of the things that made getting around easier was knowing there were only five bridges and if you got to the river and could see them, you would know where you were.

I was in front of the Market.

Where I saw this VERY fashionable young lady with her VERY fashionable dog.

And then I went inside. HOLY you know what…

This place was huge.

I went up the second floor gallery and walked…

All the way around snapping what was below…

Before I headed back down to get some street photos (so to speak).

Meat…

Pottery…

Lots of veggies…

People talking and discussing.

You could tell these were locals.

It was very festive.

So much to see.

A shop owner dropping prices late in the day.

Sweets…

I had no clue that this was what…

paprika looked like before it was ground.

The crowds were amazing.

Outside I did some shots of the area, including this tram.

The bridge,

A statue in the distance.

Another bridge.

Some other buildings,

A very cool Budapest mural.

The top of the second largest synagogue in Europe.

As well as the front.

After this little foray into a part of the city we had not seen before, I went back and found Kathleen talking to our new friend Carol. The three of us decided to get some lunch in the very nice lounge right there at the hotel. The food was good, especially the goulash soup that Kathleen and I shared.

After lunch, we were finally able to get into our room, where we saw this…

Yes, boy and girls, this was the view out our ninth-floor hotel room window. I took this photo the next night, but suffice it to say that we NEVER closed the curtains (except when we wanted to nap and keep the light out), and this view became our companion all the time, even serving as a night light. After a normal room in Prague and a horrible room in Nuremberg, we had finally won the room lottery with this view.

Other than the view, the hotel was just “fine.” It is much more modern in the public areas and older (more in need of an update) in the rooms. Our room was a good size, had that view and could really use an update. It also had a bathtub instead of a shower, which Kathleen hates. She is the short person in our family, and that means that getting into and out of a VERY high tub is a pain. This one was VERY high. How high? It was sooooo high that I kept bumping my foot when I got in, and getting out was like climbing down a ladder. Except for the location and the view, we would probably not have stayed there. But that view was so amazing, that we probably would go back.

We had dinner that night in the hotel with Jamie, Steve and Carol. In the evening, the restaurant that serves a buffet breakfast converts to a sit-down establishment with Lebanese food. You can either order Lebanese or from the lounge menu we tried at lunch. Everyone at the table went Lebanese, and we weren’t sorry. The food was OUTSTANDING…and very inexpensive. I would have to say that unless you were lunching at the Four Seasons (as Steve and Jamie did since they were staying there to burn more of that Future Cruise Credit), this was the most affordable city we had visited since Lisbon.

After dinner, we had booked our last tour with Viking, “Budapest by Night.” We were still burning Future Cruise Credit, but to be honest, if I had to do this tour again, we would (and SHOULD) have skipped it. We met our tour guide, Lazlo, and boarded a bus that took us around some of the same stuff we had seen the day before while on the ship’s tour with Barbie, but in the dark. Then we headed to the Buda side of the river so everyone could get off the “luxury motor coach” and take pictures of the Parliament (that I had taken the photos of that I showed you yesterday). That did get Kathleen and I in one of my pics (above), but that’s about it.

Then they drove us up the hill toward Fisherman’s Bastion (we got off the bus about fifty feet from where we had the day before) and Lazlo walked us through a construction area (that surprised him by being there—it was like he hadn’t walked this tour in years), down a bunch of steps and two elevators (he kept saying “he hoped were open” and if they hadn’t been he needed to carry us down the steps), past a couple of sculptures and did just enough damage to Kathleen’s knees that she could barely walk the next day…for us to see nothing really that interesting. Just to kill time.

Then we got back on the “luxury motor coach” and killed some more by driving about a mile (we could see our hotel room across the river), having us disembark at a restaurant that looked like it was staying open just for us, grab a half-full glass of sparkling wine, sit in a tiny booth and drink it. Then back on the bus and back to the hotel. WHAT A WASTE OF TIME. And Lazlo was a horrible guide. Told worse jokes than I have ever told (I know, hard to believe) and just dragged us around. He was nice enough to help a woman who was by herself go down the stairs, but my point is, we should NEVER have been on those stairs anyway.

Even though we had gone less than three miles from hotel to hotel, we ate up almost two and a half hours. What a terrible way to end a pretty good day. I did take a few decent photos on the tour, so here they are. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Saw a couple of nice statues…

The outside of some buildings.

Photographed the castle close up.

And our hotel from the top.

As well as the Parliament Building from a different angle.

And the Chain Bridge.

And that was Day 2. We didn’t get to bed until 11:00, and Kathleen’s knee hurt all night, which did not make for a really great Day 3 when we had some great plans. See you there soon.

Great cooking is about being inspired by the simple things around you – fresh markets and various spices. It doesn’t necessarily have to look fancy. —G. Garvin

The Lights of Budapest

On December 19, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Photography6 Comments

This is the first post of this trip that I am writing from our own living room. We flew back yesterday on another nightmare of a day of flying (a birthday I won’t soon forget). It is 2:43 am, and of course, I am still on Budapest time, where it is almost noon. But I shouldn’t complain because jet lag is always easier to handle at home. I will get into our flight day as soon as I am more coherent, but I will say that it was another bad one and that we will never fly through or to Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris again. If we have to go to Paris (we are not planning on it), we will fly to Amsterdam and take the train.

In the meantime, I will give you the photos of Budapest at night that I promised would knock your socks off. After spending three and a half days there I can say with total certainty—this is the most photogenic city I have ever had the pleasure of visiting—and it’s at night when it really shines. On the first night, we were in port. I was going to go out after dinner and take pictures, but with the sun setting so early and it getting really dark by 5:00 pm, I went out before dinner. It was truly a photo walk I will remember. You are going to see 25 photos in the gallery below. I took 346 on that early (very cold🥶) evening walk. Well, enough narrative; here are the photos. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Just opposite where Gulveig (our ship), was docked was the Four Seasons, where Steve and Jamie would stay.

Then I turned and crossed the Chain Bridge.

It was beautifully lit up…

And I could look back and shoot our ship moored just below it.

The real prime parking spot.

There will be some duplication here because…

…the light kept changing.

And as I walked further out on the bridge I could start to see the Parliament Building.

And an excursion boat went underneath as I looked out.

The Parliament Building just keeps on catching my eye.

But incredible views are everywhere…

Off the bridge and headed back up the Danube/

I keep seeing more and more of the Parliament.

And the river walk had some nice shadows.

But oh, that amazing building.

It’s like the Opera House in Sydney….

if you see it, it just screams, “TAKE MY PICTURE!”

But so does the bridge.

And the castle.

And the lions at the end of the bridge.

And the castle again.

And the traffic on the river front.

We would see a lot of this view…

…because when we moved from our ship to the hotel, we were looking right at it.

And the bridge again as I turned to go back to the ship for dinner.

There is nothing like walking that riverbank at night. Every single place you look, you see something you HAVE TO TAKE A PICTURE OF! What an amazing place to be a photographer. I sometimes wonder if the people who live in Budapest end up getting jaded by these views. I am sure they do, but I hope they don’t. I hope I wouldn’t.

Editor’s Note: My plan is to do two more posts about Budapest (we were there for three days), one about our flight day and then do a summary of the cruise, what we loved and what we didn’t like so much. And I have been getting some questions. So I will try and answer those with the follow-up. I really want all this wound up before Christmas, but that will depend on three things: a cut/crack I have developed on my ring finger that makes it really hurt to type (you never realize how much you use any individual finger while typing until you hurt one). How much time do I sleep versus writing as I finish up with jet lag? And how much time it takes to get ready for Christmas?

Photogenic is a stupid, nonsensical word, but it is also a great mystery. —Blaise Cendrars

Saved the Best for Last–Budapest

On December 16, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Photography2 Comments

My good friends Mike and Cathy took this exact cruise with Viking last year at about the same time. Well, it was not exactly the same cruise; they went the other way. Instead of sailing from Regensburg to Budapest (BTW: we have learned that the name of this city is pronounced Budapesht; they don’t want to be a pest 😀). We did the opposite. And now that we have arrived here, I am so glad we did it that way. Our cruise started with the worst port, and every one after it got a little better until Thursday morning when we arrived in this incredible city.

When we visited Sydney, Australia, a bunch of years ago, I thought it had to be the most photogenic city in the world. From just about anywhere, you could see either the bridge or the Opera House, and if you could get either of them into your photo, it was gold. I now believe Sydney is number two. This city is number one.

We were warned the night before by our wonderful Program Director Debra that we would sail into Budapest around 8:30 am and that if we wanted to see one of the best sail-ins ever, we should be up and watching. So we were! I was on the top deck. (where again it was freezing in the wind) as we sailed in. And as you will see in my photos, it was worth it to be out there in that cold. I am going to say one more thing before the usual warning—if you think Budapest looks good in the daylight, wait until you see her in the dark 😳. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Budapest starts slow with some modern buildings.

I got a great shot of the sunrise reflected in one of them.

Then you can see the right bank of the river.

And it is pretty amazing.

Until you come around the bend and see the Parliament Building on the left.

Then you can’t stop shooting. I think I have 30 copies of this photo.

But the right side is almost as good…

But then you notice the left again.

And then the right.

And then the left.

And the right.

The right holds your interest a little more as other sights come into view.

Churches, palaces and castles are everywhere.

And cranes. Lots of cranes.

But I can always Photoshop those out later.

You shoot the right bank so much you turn and find out you have passed the Parliament.

Until I started doing research for our trip, I had no idea that Budapest was really two cities—Buda and Pest. Buda is on the right side of the river as you are going downriver. Buda is built on a hill. Pest is on the left side of the city (where the Parliament Building is) and is pretty much flat. Both sides are equally beautiful and photogenic.

Soon after, we were tied up in just about the best moorage in all of the city—we were at the base of the Chain Bridge. This Bridge, which is closed to all but transit and pedestrians, is right in the literal heart of the cities. And it is a beautiful bridge.

After our sail-in, we left almost immediately for our first tour of this incredible city. Viking calls this tour “Panoramic Budapest.” And to make things even better, we had maybe the best tour guide we have had so far on the cruise (remember, Werner in Nuremberg was not part of the cruise—just our pre-cruise extension—he was the best of the trip)—Barbie. And even though she wasn’t wearing pink, our Barbie was young and cool and even had a ponytail. It really is the year of Barbie. She was both a great guide and hilarious to listen to.

When you go on a “Panoramic Tour,” that usually means you get driven all around the cities and get out a few times to look at stuff. When we did this in Munich, most of it was a big snore. Here, there is way too much to see, so as our “luxury motor coach” drove down the road in Pest, my head is like a swivel chair going from side to side. For me, it was making a list of the things that I wanted to come back and take photos of without a bus window between me and the scene.

Then we drove to the top of the hill in Buda and went for a walk with Barbie. We saw the main cathedral you saw in the photos above and then went to the amazing Fishermen’s Bastion. According to the interwebs, it is called The Fishermen’s Bastion because “it was the section of the Buda City Wall entrusted to the guild of fishermen, but more likely to the Danube side settlement, Fishtown (Halászváros) also called Watertown,” where there were so many incredible views, I just couldn’t stop shooting them. In the four hours of this tour, I truly believe I shot more than 500 photos. You don’t have to see them all but here are the best of that tour. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Debra (our Program Director) organizing the tour guides, pre-tour.

At the top of Buda is the Cathedral.

And of course rhere was a Christmas Market.

Not as crowded as others but it was still early.

These are called chimney cakes. I really want one and haven’t had one yet.

You could get so many things to eat.

I even saw Krampus…the goblin of European Christmas.

But your attention gets called back to the cathedral.

The cathedral has an amazing patterned roof.

It covers the entire building.

And inside it is truly beautiful.

Everywhere you looked.

The organ…

The pulpit…

Even the altar was ready to be photographed.

And we were back outside for some free time.

Which meant I could walk around to the Fishermen’s Bastion, where I could see our ship…

To take photos looking down at Pest and the river.

Of course photos of the Bastion itself…

As well as the statues all around…

Even the manhole covers were photogenic.

But you are always drawn back to Pest…

There was even time for my brother to snap this shot.

Especially when you can get artsy like this.

After we had gotten our fill of photos from up on the top, we were back on the “luxury motor coach” and headed back to the ship. That was followed by lunch and a chance for Kathleen to take a nap and for me to sit in the Lounge on the ship, look out at this incredible city and review my photos. We had three full days in Budapest, so I knew I could wait for Kathleen to rest up and get to see the photos before I headed back out.

That pretty much covers our first day in Budapest but not the night. The night is when the real beauty shows up. Yes, this city gets even more incredible when the lights come on. But you will have to wait until later or tomorrow to see it as I need to go upstairs and get ready for our last full day here. We have a private tour, a traditional Hungarian dinner and an early night so we can be up and at the airport for our 6:20 am flight from Budapest to Paris and then on to Seattle.

But if you go from Moscow to Budapest, you think you are in Paris. —Gyorgy Ligeti

Vienna Clears Up–It’s All About Horses!

On December 15, 2023December 30, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Photography5 Comments

As I write this, I am sitting in a darkened lounge looking out across the Danube at the Buda side of Budapest. So much has happened in the day since I last wrote (our first day in Vienna) and today that it is hard to take it all in and put it in order. But I shall do my best. I only hope I get this online before 6:00 am as we have to be off the ship today by 9:45 for the last time—our cruise ends today. We are transferring to the Intercontinental Hotel for two nights, and then on Monday, we fly home.

But back to day two in Vienna. When we got up, the skies had cleared, and there was no fog. After posting and breakfast, we really had nothing we had to do before lunch and our afternoon excursion, so I decided to take another walk. This time, instead of staying on the side of the river our ship was moored on, I walked to the big bridge ahead of the ship and crossed over to an island that turned out to be pretty cool. I took the panoramic shot at the top of this post from the middle of that bridge.

On the way, I found some colorful workers, a lighthouse, and some modern landscapes (Vienna does have skyscrapers, but they are limited to being far from the old city. It’s like the modern city on one side of the river and the old one on the other), a beautiful park, strange statues, a sandy beach and Kathleen. See the pics below to find out how I saw all that on an early morning walk. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Santa Claus has helpers loading supplies on ships.

The sky was much clearer than the day before.

I find out we are on the wrong ship…these guys have a hot tub!

The skyscraper I shot yesterday in the fog.

Our ship from across the Danube looking back.

The skyline of the newest part of Vienna on the other bank of the Danube.

Some strange sculptures in the park.

Not sure what this is but I think in the summer it is a recreation swimming area.

They have a sandy beach…

A lighthouse…

That is mostly a cell tower…

Some views of the skyscrapers on one side of the island…

And views of the old city on the other.

This crazy building looking back at me…

And a minaret off in a distant old city.

And Kathleen (look close) on our balcony, across the Danube.

After my walk, it was lunchtime, and after lunch, we were back in the Old City for the only paid excursion we had signed up for on our original trip (we didn’t take) back in 2020—visiting the Spanish Riding School and seeing the Lipizzan Stallions. If you have no clue what I am talking about, then allow me to tell you. Found in 1572 by the Hapsburg Dynasty and brought to Vienna from Spain, the Spanish Riding School trains Lipizzan stallions to perform. Suffice it to say that if you really are intrigued after seeing my photos, make sure and check out the linked website. The horses and the organization are truly amazing.

How did we find out about them? A long time ago…(1963), there was a Disney movie called “The Miracle of the White Stallions.” It was all about how the Spanish Riding School had saved their beautiful and incredible white stallions from the Nazis. When we were kids, Kathleen and I had both seen it, and these incredible horses were something we have always wanted to see ever since. And on Wednesday, we got our chance. And not to see them perform but to go backstage to meet them and get to see (and smell😜) them close up. Check out the photos below and the captions for the story…or go watch the movie (because of the limitations of the WiFi on board, I can’t check to see if it is on Disney Plus, but you can buy the DVD at the link). Or just look at my pics. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

The Spanish Riding School is located…

In the Imperial Palace in the center of the city.

The entrance is guarded by…

These two rather impressive statues.

This is their performance hall. Truly beautiful.

This is our view as we walk into the stables

We can see just one of the stallions peaking out into the courtyard.

We get to tour the tack room.

So much tack.

Saddles.

Tiny horses the saddles rest on.

No photos are allowed in the stables but some of the horses face outside and you can take their pictures.

Like this friendly guy.

Who did his best to pose for us.

After our backstage tour of the stallions, we had a little bit of time in the area of the Imperial Palace, and we went to have coffee and cake at a small Viennese Cafe in one of the museums (OK, it was a cafeteria, and the coffee was cold and cake stale) but that meant I had time to take a few photos of buildings that had been fogged in the day before and I really liked some of the shots I got of this opulent city. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Some buildings on the way to the stallions…

with BLUE SKIES!!!

Atop the museum with the lousy coffee shop.

In front of the museum with the lousy coffee shop.

City Hall…

A truly magnificent building…

Especially at night.

And then we were back on the “luxury motor coach” and headed into Viennese traffic for our ride to the ship. As soon as we were on board, the captain untied and set sail for our final cruise destination—Budapest! More about that tomorrow. I have to go take a shower, put my bags out (unlike ocean cruise ships, on a river ship, you don’t put out your bags until 8:00 am on the day you get off), have breakfast and be out of our room by 8:00. Our time to leave the ship is 9:45 for our transfer to the Intercontinental Hotel which will be our home for the next two nights. I will try to post again tomorrow, but if the weather is good, I am going to bundle up and go for a pre-dawn photo walk so it might be two days. You never know.

A barn with cattle and horses is the place to begin Christmas; after all, that’s where the original event happened, and that same smell was the first air that the Christ Child breathed. —Paul Engle

Vienna in the fog…

On December 14, 2023 By Jim BellomoIn Photography6 Comments

Vienna, Austria, is known as the city of music…and a few other things. When we first arrived here, I thought they should name it the City of Fog. As you can see from my photo above, upon arrival in Vienna, it was shrouded in clouds. But that was OK; we were on vacation, and at least it wasn’t raining, and there was no snow or ice, so after breakfast, we were off on our “included” Viking overview of Vienna.

Viking gives you one excursion per port as part of your cruise fare. I kind of find it funny that they usually call that excursion “panoramic” something (insert name of where you are. here). I keep trying to figure out how driving to someplace, getting out and walking for two hours is “panoramic.” But today’s was a little different as our “luxury motor coach” took us on a drive, not only into the city but around Vienna’s Ring Road, which pretty much encircles all the places you want to see. I should note here that in Vienna, you do not dock anywhere near the center of the city (unlike many of the places we have visited so far). The river itself is about a one-hour walk from the old town section of the city. So a ride on a “luxury motor coach” is a must.

After we drove around the entire Ring Road (which runs the exact route that the old city wall used to be built on), seeing all the incredible Hapsburg Empire buildings, you stop and get out with your guide, and you are off on a walk into the center of the old town to see St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Well, the outside of the cathedral, anyway. It is interesting to me that Viking’s included tours always seem to take you to a cathedral or church but never into it. You are left to return and go inside if you want to. That’s OK as I have my buddy Mike’s pictures of the inside of every church in Europe (or maybe the world) to look at. For instance, if you would like to see what the inside of St. Stephen’s looks like, click here to see it on Mike’s website. His pictures are gorgeous. We had 30 minutes of free time, and that was not enough to get to the restrooms, buy a souvenir and take pictures of the outside of the cathedral. If we wanted to see the rest, we would have to come back later. And if you read yesterday’s post about my feelings on the opulence of churches, you know that going inside was not high on my list of things I “have to see.”

After walking the square around the cathedral, we were walked back to the bus (Kathleen and I were taking the “easy” tour) and we drove to…a Christmas Market! Oh boy! I will say that this one was much nicer than any we had seen before—more homemade crafts, better-looking food, etc. But it was still the same thing. So far, we have been to eight Christmas Markets, and we have not spent a cent in any of them—just nothing we want or need. We kind of made a vow that after cleaning out the houses of deceased parents, we would continue to get rid of things rather than add new ones. (At this point, a little voice in my head is saying, “Shut up Jim…you are the one who took a Christmas Market cruise.”)

After an hour at the Christmas Market (where I walked around, but Kathleen was able to keep warm on the bus), we headed out of the fog-shrouded city back to the ship for lunch before we were to embark on our afternoon tour of “festive Schönbrunn Palace.”

Of course, I took some photos while we were walking around the old city so here they are. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

The first building our guide pointed out after we got off the bus—a Greek Orthodox church.

There is an obligatory stupid joke here but I will skip it. Vienna decorated for Christmas.

Another cool building with a statue in front of it. Used to be a home, now it’s a law firm.

St. Stephan’s Cathedral.

From every angle I can take it from.

Close ups…

Showing the dirt…

And the gold…

And the very modern building directly across the square (who approved this?).

Enough buildings. This was the perfect place for some street photography.

So I started snapping…

I have friends who love these kind of shot when I post them on my daily Instagram and FB posts.

So I shot a bunch.

There were lots of interesting…

…and animated people like this guy…

…who was really excited.

Even horses are part of the street.

These guys were eye catching…

But nothing like Mr. Good Looking in his costume selling concert tickets.Probably a scam.

This is my winner. Can you imagine a better looking, better dressed couple? I can’t.

The Christmas Market was held in Maria Theresa Square.

They had some amazing buildings and the square was built to be perfectly symmetric.

This enormous statue sits in the middle of it…

With this exact copy of the other building on the other side.

Our afternoon tour was at Schönbrunn Palace. This was the summer home of the Hapsburgs and (probably) another wonderfully opulent place to visit. Kathleen decided to stay on the ship and read while Steve, Jamie and I went to the Palace. I had almost convinced myself that I would stay behind as well, but Kathleen said I should go because I might find something cool to take pictures of. So the three of us boarded our “luxury motor coach,” and off we went.

Our guide started the tour as we drove away from the ship with three rules for the Schönbrunn Palace. I don’t remember what the first two were, but when he got to the third one, I got off the bus. Seriously, when he said, “No Photography is Allowed,” I asked if I had heard him correctly, and he said yes, so I asked the driver to pull over, and I got off the bus. I am sure the other people on board thought I was a total nut job, but Kathleen had talked me into going because I might grab a great photo or two, so if I can’t take pictures, why go?

You probably think I am nuts as well, considering this is an optional excursion and, therefore, an excursion that we chose to go on and paid additional money to take, and here I was, just giving up a $149 excursion because I couldn’t take pictures. And Kathleen had skipped it as well so we were out almost $300. But we weren’t, and we really didn’t choose this excursion. You may remember that back when I started this trip, I mentioned that this was a trip that we had planned and paid for in 2018 to take in 2020 and then got canceled because of COVID. Well, Viking offered us either our money back or 125% of our cruise fare to use on another cruise in the future. That’s kind of how most of the cruise lines survived. Enough people were willing to do that, and we were two of them (actually four of them).

But there was a catch to their 125% offer. You had to use it all on one cruise. You could not use part of it on one cruise and the rest of it on another. You also had to spend it just on the cruise itself. It did not convert to onboard credit that you could spend along the way. Any part of it that you didn’t spend before the ship left the first port reverted back to Viking. This meant that we had a lot of extra money to book optional shore excursions. Shore excursions we would not have taken it without having that extra 25%. In fact, I just checked, and the only optional shore excursion we booked on the original cruise was a visit to the Spanish Riding School here in Vienna to see the incredible Lippanzer Stallions (more about that tomorrow because we saw them yesterday). So, any shore excursion we walked away from was not really costing us money.

At this point, I am off the bus and walking back to the ship. Thankfully, the bus had just been getting out of the riverside area, so I didn’t have far to walk. Once I got back, I decided what I really needed was to take a long and FAST walk. When you tour, you walk slowly, stop and look at things, and then you walk slowly again. You might take two hours to walk a little more than a mile. At home, I walk somewhere between five and seven miles a day for exercise, and I walk them at a 16-minute-per-mile pace. So, really, I have gotten no real exercise for a week, and at that point, I didn’t realize how it was affecting me. When we do ocean cruises, I always find time to do at least a four-mile walk onboard the ship on sea days.

I know all of you have heard of endorphins. You know, the chemicals that your body produces when you exercise that can produce an “analgesic effect.” At home, I get those all the time, and it certainly improves my mood by about a thousand percent. But this week, I have gotten none of them, so part of my lethargy and tiredness comes from having done a lot less exercise than I usually do. I should add that it has also been the reason my clothes are getting tighter by the day (Viking’s food has been outstanding). So I changed into my sweats, and I was off for a quick four-mile photo walk (I never walk while traveling without my camera) and sure enough, I was right to have taken it along because I got some photos I truly like. You can see them below. Sorry, no churches, cathedrals, government buildings or Christmas decorations of any kind. Just some photography that I can experiment with and some wildlife that I encountered. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

First thing I found was a swan…

…then a lot of swans.

A WHOLE BUNCH OF SWANS

I hope you like swans.

I know I do.

I am under the belief that they are so graceful…

And beautiful…

And photogenic…

That I can’t stop taking photos of them.

This is my favorite. How did that duck get in there?

And there were bunnies. Everywhere.

And a big church across the road.

As well as this very modern apartment building a block away.

And some really big buildings on the other side of the Danube.

I also wanted to experiment a little with black and white. I hardly ever shoot with the intention of creating black-and-white shots as the final product. But on this day, with the flat sky and the fog, I thought it might work. So here’s my study of the banks of the Danube in black and white. If you aren’t a fan of “artsy” photography, you can skip this slide show. Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

Lady on the shore with bridge.

Two women walking.

Woman walking

Woman walking closer

This isn’t a duplicate, it had arches at both ends.

totally falling apart…

…it was sad because it was probably something…

…in its heyday.

I found an old restaurant in disrepair…

I think that about covers the day. When I got back from my walk, we changed for drinks and dinner, and then it was back to the stateroom for bed before our second day in Vienna. See you tomorrow.

Vienna is a handsome, lively city, and pleases me exceedingly.
—Frederic Chopin

Honorable Mentions

Number 10—The Parliament Building in Budapest

Number 9—Cape Breton Church

Number 8—Lipizzan Stallion in Vienna

Number 7—Tram #28

Number 6—The Cemetery in Vienna’s Jewish Ghetto

Number 5—Cape Breton Farm

Number 4—Lighthouse outside Portland, Maine

Number 3—Woman in Lisboa

Number 2—Portland, Maine Street Scene

Number 1—A Boat Caught in the Light

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We loved Lisbon!

Our flights and airport experiences

Prague—ice and cold

Nuremberg—worst hotel, best tour of the entire trip

The Cruise—from Regensburg to Budapest on Viking Gulveig

Things we loved about the cruise and the ship

Things we would love to see changed

Viking Shore Excursions

The Food

Beautiful Budapest

The Final Word

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