After dinner we were treated to a Hungarian Folklore Show. During the show the ship repositioned to a different peer "in order to make disembarking easier" and allowing a night cruise for viewing the Legislature building all lit up.

That evening the Cruise Manager had arranged for us to attend Midnight Mass at St. Stephen's Basilica.

Monday December 25^th:

The cruise manager arranged a 9:30 taxi for us. He brought us to the City Hotel Budapest. I expected to leave our luggage there and complete a check-in after our excursion to the Heroes' Monument. The City Hotel room was upgraded to their next door DorMero Hotel Budapest. The room was similar to what I expected with the City Hotel reservation. We checked in and headed on our walk to find the Heroes' Monument near the City Park. The three main sites of the square include the Hall of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Millennium Monument. The monument includes a 36-metre central column, topped by a statue of the archangel Gabriel who holds the Holy Crown as well as a two-barred apostolic cross. The cross is like the cross that the founder of the Kingdom of Hungary, St. Stephen, saw in his sleep according to a legend. The semi-circular monument has bronze statues of seven outstanding personalities of Hungarian history.

Marilou was tired and wanted to rest so I sought out to find Liszt Ferenc Square on my own. It was about three blocks from our hotel room. The statue of the musician and a musical school are located on this square. I also saw some restaurants open on a Sunday, so I brought Marilou back there that evening to eat at Paganini Art Bistro. They had a nice outdoor set-up, but all those seats were taken, so we ate inside. We had to climb a narrow stairway and the tables were a little tight. The waitress doesn't need a gym membership.

Tuesday December 26^th:

We found a place nearby for coffee and pastry. Marilou wasn't feeling like doing a lot of walking so I set out to get a closer look at some of the sites we breezed by on the bus tour. See map. I headed towards the Danube to encounter the Shoes memorial to the Jewish persons killed near the end of World War II. On the way I got some views of the decoration in the architecture of many of the buildings along the way.

I then headed along the river to the Parliament Building. They had a huge wooden carved nativity display in the lot. On the way home I took other building decoration photos.

That evening we headed to St. Stephen's Basilica to listen to an organ concert. We got there early in order to eat dinner in the Christmas market. My tickets for the concert were purchased from Opera Guide and the way to use them was a little confusing. I thought we needed to show the email in order to get the tickets, but it turned out we only needed to show the confirmation email at the door.

Having had checked in early I was able to snap better pictures of the basilica before the concert began. I was a little surprised that the organist controlled the organ from the altar. Other musicians complemented the organ during the evening performance. In all it was a very good concert.

Wednesday December 27^th:

Marilou had noticed she lost her wallet yesterday probably at the Christmas Market, so I headed there early to see if it fell near the table we ate at. The market wasn't open yet and I didn't find it. I asked one of men cleaning up if there was a lost and found for it. I'm not sure he understood the question.

For today I had reserved a Budapest Tuk Tuk City Tour that picked us up at the hotel. The driver (David) took us to some sites on the Pest side of the river. The start of the route was similar to the walk I had done the day before. We walked through the parliament so I could show her the nativity scene. When he pointed out the US consulate, Marilou went there and asked the guard if anyone had turned her wallet in there. No-one had but he had her file a report in case it came later. The Tuk Tuk driver then took us to the Police Station to file a claim.

He took us down Falk Street to see a statue of Peter Falk (Columbo), who was famous here even though he's not from there. Some unproven rumors were that he was related to someone from there. His dog, Dog, is also included. We then headed to the river front to see the shoes display, but they were under water.

The driver was going to take us to Castle Hill, but we told him we thoroughly saw it already so instead after crossing the chain bridge, he brought us to Szechenyi Spa. This is a spa that uses water from hot springs. The huge outside pool was closed for the month, but we entered to see the spa rooms and an inside pool was being used by a few persons.

From there we went by a hill named after the first bishop (Gerard of Csnanad) of the area and then were brought to a trail that led to a point of overlooking the city.

With our reserved time running out the driver asked us where we wanted dropped off and we had him take us to the Christmas Market. The market was just opening and there were some workers re-installing the fence around the Christmas Tree. Marilou asked the girl if there was a lost and found. She called on her radio to somewhere and then brought her to a place where she recovered her wallet with all her cards. We had another sausage and Mull Wine.