Our Hungarian Adventure

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Day 1 - Wed. Sept. 21, 2016 - Departure - Thurs. Sept. 22, 2016 - Arrival



We departed for the Pearson International Airport right on our scheduled time of 3 pm. via Airways Transit. Even thought the traffic on the 401 was heavy and in a few places slowed to a crawl we arrived at the airport at 4:20. Prior to leaving home I had printed out our boarding passes so all we had to do was check in at the desk and have our bags weighed and tagged before we proceeded to the security screening area. Here we experienced a little delay mainly caused by the volume of travellers heading out to international destinations.



We met up with our travelling companions Mary Ann & John in the terminal waiting area. Since we opted for the Option Plus package that Air Transat offers we enjoyed Priority Seating, which allowed us to get on to the aircraft, find our seats and get settled before the rest of the Economy section filed in.



The flight was about 50 minutes late leaving the ground but after a fairly smooth flight with minimal turbulence we arrived in Budapest 20 minutes ahead of our scheduled arrival time. We must have picked up a fairly strong tail wind somewhere over the Atlantic. We were quickly processed by the immigration officers and there was no customs inspection. Again because of our Option Plus package our bags were tagged for priority handling and were off the plane first.



Mary Ann had arranged for a taxi/van to pick us up and as we entered the arrival receiving hall we were greeted by a young man holding a sign that read SKELTON.

The drive into the city, on the Pest side of the river, took about half an hour and we were dropped off right in front of the street entrance, which provides controlled access/passcode protection to the apartment’s courtyard. The entrance was just as the Google map street photo depicted it, flanked by outdoor restaurants.



Our landlord George, who is also a tour operator/guide, could not meet us and so delegated the task to his Mother. Unfortunately traffic had delayed her arrival by 30 minutes so we had to stand around waiting.



The apartment is on the third floor, which in actual fact turns out to be the fourth floor, since the ground level is not counted as we do in Canada as the first. Gaining access to the apartment required us to climb 81 steps in a large circular staircase, as there is no elevator in the building. Climbing up without the suitcases was a task in itself but we were nearly wiped out after we carried up four medium sized cases and four smaller ones. It was at that point when the jet lag really started to kick in.



Our hostess, who doesn’t speak English, gave Mary Ann a guided tour of the apartment in Hungarian. Once that was done we retreated to one of the restaurants at the street entrance for lunch followed by a five-hour nap.



Early evening found us somewhat refreshed and wandering down Sas Utca looking for our next eating establishment followed by a stroll over to the square in front of St. István’s Basilica, which turned out to be only a block away and some of the nearby streets. It’s really hard to orient yourself to a city in the dark so after a short walk through the center of Pest we decided to get a few groceries for breakfast and call it a night. We had to return to the apartment by way of a darkened stairwell because we couldn’t find the light switch!



So ended our first day in Budapest.

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