Permission to come aboard, Captain

 Heading to the ship this morning. We are sailing on the Viking  Vidar, who is described as the Norse God of Vengence For avenging the death of his father Odin by killing a wolf.” This picture shows our ship and it is docked with another Viking ship tethered to it.Viking has 50+ ships traveling the rivers of Europe and often they will share a dock like this. When the passengers of the farthest ship disembark they walk through the lobby of our ship. I imagine this will happen often during our journey.     Our taxi pulled up right in front of the ship and before we could hop out there was a staff member at our side helping get our luggage out. That’s one of the perks of this company..excellent service! We have gotten very spoiled. It turned into a very sunny spring day and walking down the gangway was exhilarating! Im always better when the actual trip time arrives. I like our on-our-own adventures but when we get to the point where someone else is going to worry and take care of me….I swoon with delight.!!!!

 The view from our room towards the bow. 

Inside the staterooms it is tight, but manageable. The room is smaller than our Ocean cruise room.. good thing we are only here for 28 days. It has all the essentials and you will notice the bottles of wine… no those did not come with our room.. the fruits of our tasting from yesterday. We will continue to taste them throughout the trip.

It took about a half hour for us to fully unpack, Al’s hand is still quite sore so I got the job of hanging everything on hangers and sorting….much like at home. (Some things never change) 

The view outside our stateroom. This bank was very active with lots of people walking and enjoying the Riverside. We just needed to remember to close the curtains as evening came ….

                            After we settled in our cabin, it seemed like a good time to take a slight walk along the river. We came across this art installation a few hundred meters from our ship. The shoes along the Danube was art that we remembered from our last trip and it seemed very appropriate that we return here before we leave Budapest.  Im 

Shoes on the Danube Bank (Hungarian: Cipők a Duna-parton) is a memorial erected on 16 April 2005, in Budapest, Hungary. Conceived by film director Can Togay, he created it on the east bank of the Danube River with sculptor Gyula Pauer [hu] to honour the Jews who were massacred by fascist Hungarian militia belonging to the Arrow Cross Party in Budapest during the Second World War. They were ordered to take off their shoes (shoes were valuable and could be stolen and resold by the militia after the massacre), and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away. The memorial represents their shoes left behind on the bank. 

There were some 20,000 Jews and undesirables lost here.

It is a sobering reminder and I find it appalling that today we seem to have forgotten the horrors that humans can commit towards other deemed “different” 

Throughout our trip I expect to see reminders of this and even though it is hard for me to see, I must remember how important it is that we never forget.

 

It was sobering to see even small children’s shoes. 

As the evening started and the majority of passengers were aboard, it was time for the safety briefings and practice. We donned our life jackets and headed up to the top deck to check in to our safety place. The night lights of Budapest twinkled for us.!

Tomorrow we still are here in Budapest but Im going to relax,read and just do nothing but eat, sleep and catch up on the blog… starting Friday we will be busy every single day.