Today’s activities were scheduled to start later in the morning so we were able to take our time getting ready and having breakfast. I decided to join the choir being put together with volunteers from among the guests, so I attended the first rehearsal at 10:00 a.m. There were about twenty of us (out of the total of 110 guests on this cruise). In the meantime our luggage had been taken from our room in preparation for being transferred to the ship.
After the choir rehearsal ended at 10:45 a.m. I joined Darwin in the hotel lobby where we still had about a 45 minute wait until our departure for a tour on the Buda side of the city. The Pest side (which is where our hotel is located) is very flat. The Buda side, however, if quite hilly.
Our first stop was the Bartók house which is now a museum. Béla Bartók (a famous Hungarian composer) lived here between 1932 and 1940. There are rooms that contain some of the furniture from his time there, as well as his piano. At the end of the tour of the house we were treated to a short piano recital by Imre Dani in one of the rooms (using a different piano – not the one Bartók used when living there).
After leaving the Bartók house we were driven to an older part of the city on a high hill along the Danube. We walked past St. Mathias church with its beautiful roof. We weren’t able to go inside as there were a string of weddings taking place today.
We did go to the Museum of Musical Instruments where there were displays depicting the history of the work of both Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály who lived around the same time and who both dedicated much of their careers working to preserve local folk music. True to its name, the museum also contains many historical instruments.
Following our time in the Museum of Musical Instruments, Darwin and I stopped into an art gallery two doors down the street. But, no, we did not purchase anything!
Just as the group was joining back together at 3:30 p.m. a brief rain shower hit, but only last about ten minutes. We had seen the forecast and had our umbrellas with us. Those who hadn’t brought umbrellas scurried to find cover under building canopies. Once the rain had passed we walked back to the motor coach and were taken to the dock where we boarded our ship, the M. S. Savor.
Once we were on board and checked in to our cabin, we had a mandatory safety presentation in the lounge. Rather than the muster drill done on the large cruise ships, for this we all sat sipping drinks while watching a video presentation.
It was soon time for dinner which was followed by a concert given by the two “maestros” on the trip – a pianist (Raphael Fusco)and a singer (Michael Shaw). The main role of the maestros is to give talks about the musical aspects of the places we will be visiting on this trip.
Following dinner we hung out in the lounge for a while and then on to bed as we ended day five.