Saturday, July 4 On the way to Budapest

This morning we left Cracow (pronounced "Crack ooof") for Budapest. It is approximately a 6 hour drive through Slovakia. They say 'approximately' because the roads in Poland and Slovakia are not as up-to-date as in the larger cities and there is much construction. The first 50 miles took us about 2 hours. There was a lot of 2 lane roads full of pot-holes and much construction as they try to update their roads. We stopped before leaving Poland for a rest stop and anyone entering the little store attached to the gas station would have thought that there was an American feeding frenzy! We all loaded up on the appropriate junk food and got back on the road for another two hours. We entered Slovakia and found it's terrain to be much like Oregon's - mountainous and very green. It was beautiful. We stopped in Slovakia for lunch (another gas station/store/restaurant) and found that the Polish hospitality did not exactly extend into Slovakia. But after our break, we were back on the road and on to Budapest. Our tour guide, Peter, gave several lectures on the history of Slovakia & Hungary as well as the effects of communism in those countries.

After a few more hours, we entered Hungary and drove through rural areas to a small village, (Bartura Osveny?) a World Heritage Site, that has retained the architecture of it's founding village with the exception of the roofs - the thatched roofs have been replaced by tiles to avoid fires. We also hiked up to Ravenstone Castle, however because of our extended time on the road, it was closed. Everyone however, was glad to get out and hike for a little while after being on the bus for so long.

We entered Budapest at dusk but could see that it was a beautiful city. Budapest is sometimes described as "The Little Paris of Central Europe". We arrived at our hotel in time for a wonderful dinner in a dining room that one of the choir members said reminded them of the dining room on the Titanic. We ate dinner to the piano accompaniment of show tunes but included American Christmas carols. (?)

Although we had been on the bus all day, most were tired from the hike up to the castle and were glad to go to our rooms. Some checked out the pool and hotel work-out rooms.