April 22 - Cruising to Budapest

The morning was free to further explore Vienna but by the time I got moving, had breakfast and enough coffee to start thinking where to go it would have been a rush to see or do anything before we had to be back on board to head down the river. I was still feeling sore from the previous day's exertions and fighting a headache, so I booked a massage with the ship masseur Balazs. The captain had said he had magic hands and I would have to agree as my headache was gone, I could rotate my left arm without pain and my feet and knees were floating on a cloud.
I was surprised at how 'new' and cosmopolitan Vienna felt but that was explained by our tour guide as most of the buildings were badly destroyed during the war and therefore had to be rebuilt from old plans, so the buildings are largely new.  The cosmopolitan, big city feel I thinks comes from being one of the major centres for the UN with over 3000 people in their employ, more than New York one American noted. It definitely felt more like a modern city than many others visited to date.
At one o'clock we set out for Budapest and an afternoon and evening of leisurely sailing. In the process I managed to be in three countries in one day - Vienna and Austria, through Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, and on to Hungary, and the multitude of tiny fishing huts along the shores. It is quite a chore to be a fisherman, as you have to pay several hundred dollars and go to school to get a fishing license, then you have to lease a piece of river to fish from - about 30 meters at a fee of around a thousand dollars a year - and then you are limited as to what fish you can catch, how many, etc.  Not like Canada where you pay your twenty or thirty dollars for a license, grab your rod and bait and head out to any stream or river that is open for fishing.
As it was Good Friday, the Captain held his farewell special dinner tonight starting with champagne cocktails in the lounge before another fabulous dinner. The menu included shrimp cocktail with a chili and tomato vinaigrette and seasonal salad leaves, followed by spring asparagus soup with pistachio creme (served with a French white wine), then champagne sorbet to clean the palate (as the gourmet's would say). The main choices were pan fried beef tournedo served with sauteed foie gras, macaire potato, seasonal vegetable in a rich port wine sauce or grilled salmon fillet and jumbo shrimp with sauteed spinach, white asparagus, negro risotto and herb beurre blanc (served with a 2008 French red wine). Dessert was the baked alaska parade followed by the cheese board and petit fours.