Booda & Pesht (aka Budapest)

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Well, here we are again.

Landed in Budapest around 5pm, taxi to hotel.

The Sofitel is very nice and quite reasonable with club lounge access which means if you don't have to eat out if you take advantage of the spread they provide. You also don't check in in the lobby, but get taken straight up to the Club lounge and check in there. Very civilized.

Gaynor is getting stuck into it with her champagne journey around Europe. We spent the evening chatting with a couple of ladies from England Sue and B who are here on a girls weekend away, and loving it. The lounge closed so we off to bed to ready ourselves the next day of sightseeing.

In the morning after breakfast bought a Hop on-Hop off bus ticket and went around the town. Took in the sights and sounds of of the Pest side of things. The bus was actually a bit rundown with shared headphones that had been hung over the seat back and worn prior by who knows. Lucky for me I had my earbuds from my Ipod so I was safe from the "other people's head" germs. Gaynor not so lucky. Interesting styles of buildings with the old, the communist and and the new. Some very stark differences. Even some buildings that still have bullet holes from the 2nd world war. Back to the hotel/lounge for a break and sort out where we pick up the boat from. Rang a couple of numbers, no answer. Finally got through to someone who was very hard to understand. Her engrish was ok but a combination of my poor hearing and crap phone I was none the wiser. Albiet I did manage to figure out the boat would dock opposite parliament house, which could see from our hotel room. So pretty straight forward. And it was.

We ventured out to the 1st of what I no doubt will many Christmas markets. It was right behind our hotel in Vörösmarty tér, you can check it out http://www.christmasmarkets.com/Hungary/budapest-christmas-market.html.
Gaynor bought stuff (Xmassy. You think!), I had some Gluhwein which is hot wine with lots of spices like cinnamon, very nice when hot but not so good cold. We also shared a potato rosti type thing that had been deep fried and was absolutely dripping in oil. Not the best. Also has a large pretzel type thing with cheese, also not so good. The market itself was good and very busy. From there back to the club lounge for a catch up with the 2 girls from Pommy land and managed to drink a lot of wine/champagne. Off to bed again as we needed to pack again for the morning transfer to the boat. Our Club hostess kindly booked us in for a late checkout of 2pm as we couldn’t get on the boat till 3pm.



Up next day (Saturday as it turns out), breakfast, packed, unpacked and repacked 3 times. Took my binoculars to seek out the boat and it was where they said it would be (amazingly enough). Out to go to the New York Café which was on our bus tour but we didn’t go, so we headed there. What an amazing set up, so over the top but so classy as well. Well run with good coffee and cake. We went back to the hotel on foot to get more of the atmosphere and just happened to bump into another market. More stuff then back to the hotel. Got a cab to the dock and were greeted warmly by the boat staff and shown into the lounge, the start of another slightly boozy evening, with local beer Bitburger, wine (from somewhere) and Jim Beam (from you know where). Met some lovely people, managed to insult some Canadians by calling the Americans, they were understanding. Sat through a very long introduction from the tour directress and some other gentleman. I can only describe it as a bad skit from Comedy Company with the 2 Russian news readers Svette and Viktor. Trying hard but not very good, albeit there are people who would laugh at a brick if you told them it was funny. Staggered of to bed to ready ourselves for the next day.

Up at 6ish and into the shower with disco lights, strange to say the least. Breakfast, buffet style with eggs to order then we asked if I could go on the Spa tour as opposed to the town tour as we had seen much of what we wanted to. That was ok and Gaynor decided to stay in write out Christmas cards. We needed some space as we had been living in each other’s pockets for the past 12 days. I headed off to the spa http://www.szechenyibath.hu/. What a place with waters ranging from 32°Celsius to 38° Celsius, saunas so hot 5 minutes was more than enough and gentlemen playing chess whilst sitting in the pool. Spent 1½ hours swirling around getting the badness out. Very relaxing.

Got back and sent Gaynor back out to the Markets whilst I chilled out on the boat and wrote my blog. We sail tonight for Vienna, the longest cruise of the tour, taking about 23 hours so plenty of time lounge and play cards.



More later





Greg

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Booda & Pesht
Who's the Pesht next to the Booda statue?