15 Aug 2022 – We began our 14-day Viking River Cruise (Grand European Tour – Budapest to Amsterdam) after arriving in Budapest, Hungary. We were supposed to board the Viking Modi in Budapest and spend the 16th & 17th visiting sights in the city. Mother Nature, however, had different plans. The weather was nice but the rivers in Europe were extremely low and the longboat could not traverse the river going north. Consequently, Viking bussed us from the Budapest airport to Komarom, Hungary, about 50 km North of Budapest where we spent the night on the Viking Skirnir, which turned out to be our vessel for the entire trip. Komarom is on the south bank of the Danube. Slovakia is on the north bank of the river. Viking did bus us to Budapest on the 16th and we got a few hours of touring the city. We did not get our ‘Budapest at Night’ tour, however. The one-way trip between the cities took about 90 minutes and we were exhausted at the end of the day. Photos in Hungary included that of the rail yard in Komarom and various street shots in Budapest. Impressive buildings in Budapest were also photographed. The parts of Budapest that we visited were very clean, not at all like the filthy cities in the USA. Also, the road network that we traveled by bus was exceptional. States in this country should take a lesson in road maintenance from Hungary and other European nations. We were totally impressed by the cleanliness and upkeep of the roadways in most of the areas that we traveled.

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