A long day! We arose and had a full breakfast. We put our packed luggage and left the in the hallway before attending a brief lecture on the nation of Slovakia by a native of the country. He did a great job in briefly laying out the foundation of the country. It was amiably separated from the Czech republic in 1989 (the velvet divorce). It was a good prelude to our visit to Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia. The town is also know by it previous German name of Pressburg.
We departed the MS Treasures for the final time at 10:15 am. Our river cruising is over for this trip. It sounds as if virtually all river traffic on the Danube is shutdown due to low water.
We boarded the motor coach and headed for Bratislava, arriving at about noon. We had lunch at the Carlton Hotel in Bratislava and then took a brief walking tour around the city. It is not a very large city. As the tour wound down, it appeared we would only have a short period of time to do any souvenir hunting, so David and I broke away and picked up a couple of things.
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| Slovakian Flag |
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| Bridge over the Danube at Czech |
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| Fortifications overlooking Bratislava |
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| Bratislava Opera House |
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| Where we ate lunch |
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| Modern art, so many cars were running over it they put up a warning sign |
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| Only city gate still standing |
Bratislava is known for its corn husk figurines. I got this one for Laura.
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| Corn husk figurine |
After our brief visit to Bratislava, we got back on the coach for another two hour drive to Budapest, arriving about 5:30 pm. We got checked into our hotel and quickly prepared for a short river cruise, with dinner, of the city.
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| Our Intercontinental Hotel bar in Budapest |
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| Our hotel |
Tonight we rest. Tomorrow we spend the morning touring the city via motor coach and have the afternoon to explore. Tomorrow evening, we have a "dress up" farwell dinner at the Akademia Club in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
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