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Published: April 25th 2008
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April 17 - 21
Budapest, Hungary
April 17
Arrived here late afternoon after the less than 2 hour flight from Kyiv. Our hotel is close to the center of town so we took a short walk about and had a very good typical Hungarian dinner in a small local restaurant.
April 18, 2008
Today we took the local “City Tour“ bus to get a feel for the city. This is a “Hop on - Hop off” bus that operates all day throughout a set route. ( Exactly what Kiev needs ). This was a very good way to see the city highlights. THIS IS A VERY BEAUTIFUL CITY !!!
The city area has been occupied for a couple of thousand years but the city as it is today is only a few hundred years old. The architecture is spectacular with many different styles from different eras. The view from the Citadel that is high above the city is a great place to see the 2 cities Buda ( mountain side of the Dana, or Danube River) and Pest ( Plains side of the river ) that combined to form Budapest. They pronounce it “Budapesht”.
Our
second day in Budapest was another walking day to see more of the local attractions including an early morning visit to the Great Market Hall which is a very large covered market for all kinds of produce and meat as well as local handicrafts. This is a very interesting place with all the local cheeses sausage and meat cuts and of course all the paprika ( peppers ) that is in almost all the local dishes. We then took a 1 hour boat cruise on the Danube River to get a river side view of this beautiful city. From there a short walk to the St. Stephens Basilica, the Budapest Opera House and back to our hotel. A very good day finished with a short walk through the shopping district. The Basilica and Opera house are well worth seeing and are only a short walk from the main hotel district.
On Sunday we spent a quiet day with some time checking our emails and more time at the many shops in the center of town.
We are both very impressed with Budapest. This is a wonderful, very clean, city with lots to see and do, great food (
including the famous Goulash Soup ), very friendly people and some of the most amazing architecture. We had no problems with language issues as a lot of people speak some English. This is a place we will definitely come back to and spend some more time. You need a minimum of 3 to 4 days to see the city sights and a few extra days if you want to see some of the countryside. We saw some very nice River Boat Cruise Ships ( with sleeper cabins ) that travel here on the Danube and this might be an interesting way to visit the next time.
( We'll be back ). This has set a kind of new standard to meet for other cities to come on our travels.
Tomorrow morning we leave for Madrid, Spain and another part of our adventure adventure.
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