May 8 Taking the Waters

Happy Mother's Day!  What a beautiful place to be and how glorious the day!  I was despairing yesterday of being able to complete our activities but I think it's going to work out just fine beginning with a tour of Budapest.  The city was originally two - Buda on the hilly side and Pest (Pescht) on the flat side.  A series of beautiful bridges now connect them and the two have become one.  

The city was heavily bombed during the war and suffered mightily during the post war period when the communists were in power.  The old buildings were razed and replaced with the worst-looking cement structures - office buildings and apartments with shoddy workmanship and poor materials and a complete lack of architectural interest.  Think a flat box with aluminium framed windows in beige or tan adjacent to a beautiful 18th or 19th century building.  The residents called it communist gothic.  Fortunately these are limited to a few areas on the Pest side.  

I forgot to mention that we had a superb speaker from the University in Vienna who gave an hour lecture on the history of Austria - a country that went from world dominance to its current small size.  Vienna holds most of the country's population since it was designed to be the capital of an empire.  I now understand better its close ties to Hungary and its alliance with Germany and Hungary during the war.  And also why my Romanian facialist thought Hungary, her husband's country, was not much to be admired.  [The Romanians and the Russians fought the Hungarians in a fierce battle during WWII.]  Fate spared the Austrians ending up behind the Iron Curtain while Hungary was part of the USSR until it disbanded.  The wages are low here but the economy has slowly improved and with the tourist industry it continues to do so.

At 2 PM we headed to The Szechenyl, one of the largest natural mineral springs complexes in Europe.  We started in one of the huge outdoor pools and then meandered indoors where there were many more pools of various temperatures.  I braved two pools of 70 degrees - not bad if you start in a hot pool and it's very healthy.  I was alone in both the cold pools and laughed to myself when a few men stepped in only to scurry out.  One intrepid guy did come in for a minute after I said, 'You can do it!' 

Back on the ship, a fine dinner with a rose for each of the ladies on board.  Good day and good night.