When we last left you we had not yet completed our last day in Budapest. I spoke about the things happening in Budapest seemingly non stop for all tastes. I did not mention that we went on a Danube River night cruise. Legenda is the operator of the Bella Duna ship that took us a 1 hour tour on the Danube. Between parliament and the Gellert Hotel everything and all the bridges are illuminated nightly. It is a lovely sight and well worth the roughly $25 per person. A welcome glass of champagne was followed half way through by either a glass of wine or beer. Headsets provided a tour in over 6 languages. We walked the 15 minutes back to Le Meridian and stopped at Las Vegas, one of two local casinos. All casinos require ... read more

We mistakenly believed that Lufthansa was becoming a no frills carrier but were pleasantly surprised by the high quality level of food and the equally high quality level of service on board. Typical of German enterprise, the flight landed in Dusseldorf exactly on time. With reference to the service not only were we offered cocktails prior to dinner, we also had wine and champagne with dinner. Hot towels were provided before dinner and before breakfast. Travelling to Budapest we crossed the Danube a number of times and followed it into the airport. The whole feeling was surreal! Budapest airport is small and efficient and we were in our hotel room within 45 mins of landing. The staff at Le Meridien surprised us by having our room ready when we arrived at 9:30am. The front desk manager ... read more

We have been to Europe a number of times, however; the way we travel has changed dramatically since that time. In 1984 I booked our trip with a travel agent. All my information came from travel publications such as Travel & Leisure, and the travel section of the Star and Globe. Our reservations were made by teletype, fax or snail mail. This time, our information was obtained by travel blogs, Trip Advisor and other websites. Airmiles was used for the airfare and hotels, and everything else was reserved online - instantaneously. Rarely did we think about calling home. We knew everyone would be excited to learn about our trip once we returned and had the film developed. Now I have a global SIM that I will put in a quad band GSM phone and make calls ... read more