John's "WTF? I've got cancer?" Blog: The GCW Tour, Budapest: Road Trip

Since I never go on them, I'd forgotten how much I dislike organized tours. I remember now.

Since Vienna is only two hours by car from Budapest, our resort had been hawking a tour to see the city. Since none of us had been to Vienna and were unlikely to be back in the neighborhood anytime soon, we elected to go. It was, to say the least, an adventure.

The trip was originally supposed to take place yesterday, but on Tuesday the social director approached us and explained something about rain and clouds and weather and asked, since we were the only ones booked for the tour, if we could move it to Thursday. Fine by us, so we moved it. This gave Sib1 two days to worry about what kind of vehicle we'd be in, since some of rides have taken place in a rather small sedan.

But this morning the guide/driver arrived with an Opel station wagon. And with just the four of us in the car, it was actually pretty roomy. Then came the drivers first question: would we mind if his wife came along with us? Now this was phrased as a question, but it wasn't really. It was just a nice way to let us know that the spouse would be riding to Vienna. Then came the second wrinkle: she might be bringing a friend. Interesting. Not sure why we don't know whether or not that's happening, but there are two seats in the way back so we can roll with it.

So we drive the 45 minutes into Budapest and meet the wife. At this point, driver begins calling on his cellphone looking for friend. No friend. We'll wait a few minutes. Driver starts to dial again. Older woman shows up. Is she friend? Why yes, yes she is, and here comes her husband.

Now here's where things get strange. By all indications, wife only speaks Hungarian. Woman who's approached only speaks Italian. Husband to woman who approached speaks Italian and English. So how, exactly, are these her friends? Clearly, they aren't. Clearly, they are fell members of the tour which for some odd reason the driver has elected not to describe as members of the tour. Why not? No idea. Never did figure that out.

The other thing I didn't figure out is why the driver came and got us before picking up wife and "friends" in that our hotel is on the way to Vienna from Budapest. Going the way he's gone would be like driving to Chicago from Seattle by way of Cabo San Lucas (though the distances are much shorter). Sure you could do it, but why would you? We got to spend an extra hour and a half in the car for no particular reason.

So now all seven of us are packed in the Opel. Apparently, the guides wife keeps falling asleep on Sib1 and BiL as she's in the back seat between them. (Standing a head and a half taller than everyone else, I've got shotgun.).After about twenty minutes the Italian in the back starts asking when we're going to stop for coffee. Driver tells him forty-five minutes or so, at about the halfway point. There we'll stop for coffee and pastry.

Eventually the time passes and we stop: at a gas station with a mini mart that sells espresso and pastries from a case. Oddly, it wasn't half bad, through I can't say it was exactly what I was expecting. Soon we're back on the road, but only after Italian has a cigarette so we can all get trapped with the smell in the car.

Now comes the question of what to expect at the boarder. The driver tells us it's possible that there could be as long as a three hour wait due to the immigration crisis leading the police to stop everyone. Or not. We won't know until we get there.

We get there and roll on through.

An hour later we're in Vienna, and our first stop is the palace whose name I forget but which basically served to house the breeders for three or for centuries of European royalty. As far as palaces go it seemed nice enough, but I can't I haven't seen better. I can't really prove it, though, since they wouldn't let you take pictures.

After the palace tour -- which, I might note, the Italians didn't take -- we got back in the care. Wife had disappeared on her own agenda, so at least we had some elbow room. The Italian, however, was less interested in elbow room than lunch. Before we could eat we had some stops at various statues and important buildings. Soon, though, we made it to lunch and the Italian bailed on the tour. He'd wait there while we -- and his wife -- finished the tour of Vienna.

So we saw the church where Napoleon was married, and where the one child of the Empress's sixteen that was allowed to marry for love was buried. We also saw Vienna's major cathedral, the GPS coordinates where a number of famous musicians died, and a statue commemorating the plague.

All things considered, I can't say Vienna made it to the top of my list of favorite European cities. It was nice enough -- and our guide actually turned out to be really educational and very entertaining -- but there were just way too many hurdles for Vienna to clear for me to categorize it as worthwhile.

It didn't help that city starts out ugly, and then gets pretty, but all the pretty is currently being refurbished and/or marketed, and so the ugly has pretty much taken over.

As usual, a few pics of a few things we saw...

Lots of wind farms between Budapest and Vienna

Dave found friends at the mini mart

Austro-Hungarian border crossing

Breeding grounds, er, palace

Rather nice city hall building obscured by PS4 advertising

Statue of empress and mother to sixteen future royals
(unless I'm getting more than one confused)

Statue famous for showing a horse on two legs

Terrace where Hitler shouted after the Nazi take over of Austria and/or
where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed,
depending on your point of reference