Day 16, May 13, 2018.  Sunday.
We arrived in Budapest, Hungary in the morning and took a bus tour of the city, first Pest and then across the Danube to the hilly Buda side.  We drove by Hero’s Square which included the Statue of Arpad, the first ruler of Hungary in the 9th and 10th centuries, Arpad also happened to be the name of my paternal grandfather, a Hungarian.  Although it is unknown if he was named after the ruler, I will claim he was nevertheless.  After the bus tour we did a walking tour of the Castle District including the Mathias Church and the turreted Fisherman’s Bastion.  The Bastion offered a fantastic view of the river and Pest.  We also walked around the castle complex which now houses museums and which also offered some great views over the river including our ship Skirnir moored next to the Chain Bridge.  After lunch, a bus ride to the Jewish District where we visited the Dohanny Street Synagogue also known as the Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in the world (next to Temple Emanuel in NYC).  Surprisingly church-like with spiral staircases leading to pulpits on each side and a large built-in pipe organ.  Next to the synagogue is a cemetery where 24 mass graves are holding some of the dead from the WWII ghetto where 70,000 Jews were confined to about 1/10th of an acre and in only 243 buildings.  Hungary’s 800,000 prewar Jewish population now number only about 80,000.  Or guide did an excellent job explaining the Hungarian Government’s decision to ally with Hitler during the war.  Hungary had lost two-thirds of its territories in WWI and viewed this as a chance to reclaim its prior territories not to mention Hungary had its own Nazi Party desirous of ridding itself of Jews.  Also, next to the synagogue is the Holocaust Tree of Life Memorial, a metal sculpture, which is in the shape of a weeping willow tree with each leaf containing the family name of Jews that perished in the Holocaust.  There are over 40,000 leaves on the tree.  Connected to the synagogue is a Jewish Museum which contained some interesting exhibits including a letter of Theodor Herzl. After the somber experience, we visited the Spinoza Coffee House for coffee and Flodni, a cake of layers of apple, nuts and poppy seeds.  A bit heavy but delicious.  Rosemary and I shared a piece (meaning I ate 90% of it) and took her piece to go for dessert after dinner.  On the way back to the ship we stopped at the Holocaust Monument consisting of 50 pairs on bronze shoes along the Danube commemorating the Jews who were marched to the river’s edge, told by the Nazis to remove their shoes and then were shot into the river.  After dinner, our ship took us for a ride up and down the Danube to see Budapest at night.  All of the city’s buildings and bridges are lighted at night and make a beautiful and memorable scene.  Quite a send off as we will disembark the ship the next morning.  Walking time 2:51, 14,109 steps.