Posts Tagged ‘Pest’
Budapest, an Historical City in Modern Times 1/7
Photo (hdm): Taken from a walkway just below the Buda Castle and overlooking the Danube toward the Parliament Buildings.
Introduction
Those new to reading posts on this blog will note many stories contain substantial social comment. This is less true in the Travelogue Section. While the sights and sounds of a new town, city or country are extremely interesting, what really piques my interest in the fabric of the society and the history of the people. Meeting young people is also important, as it is
young people who will largely define how well a country will meet the challenges of the future.
The experience of sailing up the Danube on the River Beatrice from Budapest, Hungary to Passau, Germany with stops in Slovakia and Austria, then overland to Prague in the Czech Republic, provided plenty of material upon which to comment. My impressions of how people have overcome the challenges experienced over the most recent century were overwhelmingly positive. It has never ceased to amaze me how the people of Europe, as mortal enemies in one decade or series of decades, have overcome their differences and become open, friendly trading partners in the next.
While part of the story of our travels will be presented in narrative form, photographs taken by Esther Dunn and myself (using identical Panasonic camera’s that we managed to mix up more than once) will be used to tell ‘the rest of the story.’ In a few instances, photos have been plucked from the Web in order to flesh out a storyline for those areas in which signs indicated “photography not allowed”. While I can normally overcome such instructions (these signs are usually posted for commercial reasons) I did manage to occasionally restrain myself. Each of the photos will be identified by the source.
Now to the stories of our travels along the Danube.
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