Passage to Eastern Europe—a Viking Experience—The Journey Begins!

(August 24- September 4. 2025)

Dear Friends and Family,

Ellen’s new travel journey adventure begins: together with my dear friend and Appalachian State University Colleague, Dr. Charlene Sox, we will set off from Charlotte to begin our 12 day adventure behind the former Iron Curtain.p

A Viking Map of our adventure

August 24: Day One flights to Hungary.

Following Church for Ellen at Alliance, we made our way to Charlotte for a 3:00 arrival time for our 6:40 flight with only two stops on the way, one at Ruby Tuesdays for lunch, and one to pick up Charlene’s daughter and son-in-law who will “babysit” my Subaru for the trip.

The flight to Munich was easy. The Munich airport has some interesting additions that I have not seen in the states. In our wing of the airport there were free-standing sleeping containers that could be rented for catching up on needed rest while waiting for you next flight,

Free standing sleeping cube by Napcabs.
This Nap-cab had two small rooms available for rent.

The other interesting station was the coffee kiosk. You had the choice of selecting 7 different coffee combinations. You make your selection, use your debit card, your coffee beans are then ground, and delivered. The cost for a delicious airport cup of coffee, only $3.46. American or 2.99 Euros.

Coffee Kioske

We arrived about 2 hours late, and after passport control,(getting a new stamp in my passport) Viking met us for the trip to our 5 star hotel, The Corinthian.

Our second leg of the trip was not without a few hiccups. Our first plane was considered unsafe for the 55 minute flight to Budapest so we were bussed across the airport to a back-up plane (older and much nosier) Boarding required lots of stairs, but fortunately we had help with our carry-on luggage.

The next stop was our beautiful Hotel in downtown Budapest. It couldn’t be nicer.

The Corinthian Hotel, Budapest

A wonderful dinner at the Cafe Vian, of traditional Hungarian food. Then a walk around the blocks near our hotel (we did not stay too far),

Dinner at Cafe Vian

A return to the hotel and then bed by 8:30 for the first time in over 40 hours. It is now 3 AM Tuesday and my 7 hours of sleep came to an end so I am up writing!

More of our adventure tomorrow. Short posts on Facebook will add to this narrative.

(Posting this now without my editor-in-chief, Charlene, to check it. She is still catching up on much needed rest at 3:35 am Budapest time..so any corrections needed will be from lack of sleep and will be made later!)

Signing off: Ellen