Eastern Europe - Days 41, 42 and 43 - Budapest

---

Today we left Slovakia and took a train to Budapest. The train trip was quite a fun experience. We had to take 3 different trains and somehow we didn't manage to keep quiet through the entire journey. Susan, myself and our tour leader Chris ended up sharing a carraige for a lot of the time and there was a lot of giggling occuring throughout the 6 hour journey. When we got into Budapest Chris took us for a brief orientation tour of Budapest. This involved a walk through the streets to the State Opera House, St Stephen's Church, Roosevelt Square and the Chain Bridge, and then over the Chain bridge to Buda Castle. The State Opera House is very lovely from the outside and is apparently beautiful on the inside as well. St Stephen's Church was actually most lovely as well. We actually went inside this church and the inside was very beautiful. Of course it couldn't quite compare to the churches that I have seen in St Petersburg, but it was still lovely. Inside the church was also the Chapel of the Hand of the Spilled Blood ( I think). Anyway it was a chapel that was built to renevate the hand of a saint.

After visting the church we headed off to take a look at the Chain Bridge. According to Chris the Chain Bridge is the second most beautiful bridge in Europe. Just like the parliament building is the second most beautiful parliament building in Europe. Apparently the Hungarians are very good at being second best. The Chain Bridge is called the Chain Bridge because when it is viewed at a distance the construction of the bridge makes it look as though it was the chain of a bike. After the bridge we headed up to the Buda Castle and took a wee wander around. After all the palaces that I have seen in Eastern Europe I wasn't overly excited. However the castle did provide a magic view of the city.

The following day was the last day of our trip, and the end of the first of my 3 trips. It was very sad to say goodbye to everybody on our tour, but that night we were due to meet the next group of 9 people that would be joining us. Chris, our tour leader, is staying and Susan and Stuart are also continuing on with me on the next part of the trip. But we were only due to meet the rest of the group at 6pm that night for the welcome meeting. So we had the most of the day to kill so Susan and I decided that after the 6 hours that we had spent on trains the day before that we really needed to go for a bit of a walk. We therefore headed out of the hotel in the morning and practically didn't return until the trip meeting that night. The first order of business was to find a laundrette that would do our washing for us. This proveded to be a little tricky in the first instance when the hotel reception said that the laundrette that we were planning on using was actually closed and the other was only self service. Now self service laundry did not sound at all exciting to me so I said that I would wait until the next place that we were going before I did any laundry. However luckily Chris (our tour leader) came to the rescue again and found the address of a nearby laundrette that would do all our laundry for us. So off we trotted to get our laundery done. Following dropping off our laundery we ended up walking down the banks of the Danube and then along the river past the Parliament buildings, up and over a bridge onto Margaret Island, along the 2km of Margaret Island, back over another bridge and then miles down some of the ugliest streets of Budapest. At the end of our massive walk we had come to the conclusion that Budapest was a bit of a hole.

However today Budapest managed to completly redeem itself. Today was a free day on the next trip. We meet up with the group last night and had our first dinner all together. I have to say that this trip is going to be very different from the tour that we have just completed. You could tell instantly at the trip meeting that the people that we were dealing with were completly different. Also the average size of the people on the trip went up considerably. So things are going to be a little different. Time will only tel if we have a group that is as good as our last group.

Anyway today I started off the day by taking Chris's orientation tour for a second time with the new group. After the tour we headed up to the top of Gellert Hill to take a look at the view of Budapest from the top. I have to say that this was just gorgeous. The weather today has been amazing and the view of the city with perfect blue skies was just amazing. Somehow we managed to walk straight into Susan (who had decided to not do the orientation tour) at the top of the hill. At the top of the hill we decided that we would like to walk back down the hill (grab a quick drink) and then pop into the supermarket to get some supplies for a relaxed picnic in Varosliget park before we headed off to the famous thermal baths (Szechenyi Furdo). This was an amazing way to spend the afternoon. When we got to the park we discovered that there was a wine and food festival happening in the park so we ended up sitting down at a table for about 3 hours, just drinking and eating the local food and wine. After we discovered that time was starting to run away with us a little bit we got up and headed off to the baths. The baths were just fantastic. We paid our money and headed into the bathhouse (which is enormous) and headed down to the change rooms. These were a little freaky for a girl from Dubai as there were naked people just everywhere. In Dubai it is illegal to be naked in public so to see women just wandering around the corridors with nothing on (in view of the men walking down the outside corridor) was a little disconcerting. After we negotiated the hazards of the change rooms we headed up into the outdoor baths were we lolloped about for another couple of hours. The baths were amazing with one of them being 37 degrees, just about perfect for a girl from Dubai 😊

---