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In the morning we boarded our bus for a tour of the Dohány Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in the world situated in the heart of Budapest. While basically in a Moorish style, it also features a mixture of Byzantine, Romantic, and Gothic elements.

In 1251, King Bela IV gave Jews legal rights and welcomed Jewish immigration. The Jewish community became well integrated into Hungarian society until in 1941, a series of Nazi anti-Semitic laws were passed.

In 1944, the synagogue was included first in a military district, then in an internment camp for the city Jews. Adolph Eichmann turned it into a concentration point from which the Nazis sent many of the Budapest Jews to their extermination. Over two thousand of those who died in the ghetto from hunger and cold are buried in the courtyard of the synagogue. The synagogue was also used as a shelter, and towards the end of World War 2, the building suffered some severe damage from aerial raids during the battle for the liberation of Budapest.

In 1991 a monument dedicated to the memory of the 600,000 Hungarian Jews who perished in the Holocaust was installed in the rear courtyard of the synagogue, in a small park named for Raoul Wallenberg. The Holocaust memorial, the work of Imre Varga, resembles a weeping willow whose leaves bear inscriptions with the names of the victims and boasts the inscription Whose agony is greater than mine. 240 non-Jewish Hungarians righteous among the nations, who saved Jews during the Holocaust, are inscribed on four large marble plaques. Here, our guide told us her heart wretching personal experience of those turbulent times.

We were then taken through the streets of the former Jewish ghetto to an older orthodox synagogue as yet not restored.. Old wreaths had been placed at a spot in front of the building where Nazi executions were carried out. Saddened we trooped back to the busses for our return trip to the ship for lunch.

In the afternoon we made a 35 mile trip northwest of Budapest to Godollo Palace, the second largest Baroque palace in the world. It was originally the Grassalkovich Palace, which had been given to a Hungarian magnate, by Empress Maria Theresia.  After the "Hungarian Compromise" which created the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867, and which owed its success in no small part, to the part played by Elisabeth in promoting it, the grateful Hungarian government gifted the building and surrounding hunting estate to the Imperial family.

Elisabeth spent many happy summer retreats here. As well as sumptuous living quarters, Godollo boasted the finest stables, where Sisi kept her outstanding team of horses, and even a separate kitchen dedicated to the creation of exotic pastries and cakes.  Crown Prince Rudolph had his own personal suite of rooms here while Elisabeth played hostess to her large entourage of English hunting friends.

After 1945, the palace was used as a barracks and military hospital by the occupying Soviet troops and largely neglected following the communist collapse. Restoration work began in 1994 and the refurbished rooms of Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth, are open to visitors.

It was dark when we returned to the ship

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