Biking in Budapest

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Kara took me on a fabulous weekend away for my 30th birthday to Budapest, flying BA from Heathrow, which was a delight after my recent Ryan Air experience.

We arrived in to our hotel which was on the river Danube and had a lovely outlook of the Buda Castle. We made the climb to the top, it gave a lovely panoramic view of the city. As luck would have it there was a modernised Opera performance; the setting was lovely surround by ruins (and actually the Hilton, which must have been a hotel, built in the communist area).

We started our Saturday by navigating the public transport system to get to the centre of Pest, to join a biking tour (which we spotted the pervious evening and got the details of). The bike tour was an absolute highlight, we were very lucky the guide took us off the usual tourist route to see the real side of the city. We were even luckier as he gave us the skinny to the last 20years moving from communism to (so called) democracy. He was a qualified economist and lawyer, threw in his finance career and is starting up a tour company … I fully recommend him, as you get the insight you could never get from a guide book. (Gabor - www.triptobudapest.hu). We also visited some of the communist housing blocks, they were built so people had limited opportunities to socialise and network. We sent a lot of time on Margaret Island while he brought us up to speed with history and the current situation. After the trip ended we have a lovely lunch at one if the new restaurant/bars, the bar scene in Budapest is great, there are so many really cool bars.

After the biking we headed towards some baths, an experience you clearly have to have in Budapest. It was rather confusing experience, we entered the baths then had no idea where to get changed and the protocol, etc, in fact we nearly walked into the men’s area, whoops. But we managed to sort it all out and test a few of the hot pools, plus have a Thai massage (very bizarre-o experience, Thai massage in Hungary).

The next day we had a slow start, jog along the Danube then headed towards the Jewish quarter and took a very interesting tour around the Central Synagogue. We learnt all about the terrible situation in WWII, but it was very informative so that was great. The museum was also interesting and there were a lot of artefacts there, so we found out more about the religion. After that we headed down to the Modern Art Museum - Ludwig, there were some very cool pieces.

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After a relaxing lunch we headed back to London.

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