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Published: September 10th 2018
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Our second day in Budapest, we decided to cross the chain bridge and explore the Buda side and its two hills, Gellert and Varhegy.
Our hotel was within easy walking distance so, after a very generous and varied breakfast buffet that was included with our stay, we made our way leisurely across the beautiful bridge and headed along the Danube towards Gellert Hill.
It was hot, much hotter than we had hoped, so not rushing was a must. The Danube Promenade on the Buda side was lined with nice parks, and lots of restaurants and cafes. It was a nice stroll.
The climb to the hill was challenging, with equal parts steps and steep lanes, but we stopped at various levels for a break and to admire the view from different levels. There are shady benches at regular intervals to make those mandatory rest stops comfortable.
Much to our delight, we found out when we got to the top that there was a local foot race taking place, so we watched one of the starts and the runners for a little while. There was a small arts and farmers market going on as well. We walked around
the Citadella, which was larger than I expected, but didn't go inside the Museum. Unfortunately, the weather decided not to cooperate at this point, and it started raining so we made our way down a little sooner than planned, but it soon stopped and we made our way to Castle Hill without much inconvenience.
Thank goodness for the funicular. Climbing another hill so soon was not appealing to either of us, and we were already rather hot.
The little, very old, funicular is very cute. Fortunately, the line to ride it was not very long because the capacity is not very large.
Alas, our luck didn't hold once we got to the top. After walking around the palace, we had badly wanted to tour Matthias Church, but there were five weddings taking place that day. We had to be content with comparing the various brides as we explored around the area which is a full neighborhood, old and charming.
There was another street market/festival taking place here so we deduced that it must be a weekend occurrence and we would have been better off visiting the hill during a week day without the weddings and additional
crowds. However, we enjoyed watching the mock sword play and archery displays from a Medieval costumed troupe, and then walking around the neighborhood and taking in the stunning views of Parliament from Fishermen's Bastion, which was also very crowded so we didn't linger for very long there.
Our last stop for the day was a much anticipated one. A Hungarian wine tasting at Faust Wine Cellar, a lovely wine bar somewhere in a cave in the hill that took a couple of flights of stairs to get to. The tasting we picked was called Hungarian Rarities. We picked the nine wines tasting and it included some small production wines that were very good. The tasting was very leisurely paced, with generous tasting portions and delicious small cheese warn breads to absorb the alcohol and clean the palate. The Sommelier would come and tell us about the wine and the region, pour the wine and then leave for long enough for us to savor the wine without rushing. We enjoyed the wines, and even bought a bottle to take with us.
By the time we left it was pouring down raining again, so we stopped for another drink at
the Hilton Bar, next to the wine shop. It put a damper on our plans to check out another of the highly rated rooftop bars on the Pest side on the way back to the hotel. We took advantage of a break in the weather to take the funicular down the hill right before it stopped for the night, and enjoy the wonderful view of the lit bridge and parliament. We got caught in a heavy downpour shortly afterwards, but were lucky to find a taxi to take us back to the hotel feeling that, overall, it had been a very successful day.
Exhausted, but happy, we went to bed looking forward to the next day and our tour of the Jewish Quarter.
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