A new friend

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Day 4 - Sun. Sept. 25 - Budapest



The good side of vacations is that you kick back and relax, losing all sense of time. That is exactly what happened to us this morning. We got up a bit later, had a leisurely breakfast, read, Brooke worked on some of her genealogy, John reviewed his notes for his meeting tomorrow and before we knew it 1:00 pm had arrived. So we set out once again to find a desirable eating establishment. Heading down Zrinyi Street, which feeds directly into the square in front of the Basilica, we encountered a bronze statue of a 19^th century police officer who obviously enjoyed his food and beverage. Within a block of our portly friend we found our lunchtime eatery. John selected the place because they served a Ploughman’s style lunch, one of his favorites.



We have noted that the hallmark of the restaurants that we have visited so far is that they give you TIME to enjoy your surroundings, the meal and the company you are with. So it is easy to eat up, pun intended, a good hour and a half over a meal. By the time we had finished we were closing in on 3 o’clock and it was time to explore another section of Pest.



We ventured down the street and came across a photographer and his models doing a wedding photo shoot beside the side gate to the Four Seasons Hotel. They kept changing their locations down towards the parks along the river and finally at one of the riverboat cruise docks. After watching them for a while we retraced our steps up Zrinyi Street heading back towards the Basilica on our way to Andrássy Street, reputed to be Budapest’s equivalent to Paris’s Avenue des Champs-Élysées for its beautiful architecture and pricey retail establishments.



As we walked along the street we came to the Opera house, which according to legend the Austrian government decreed could not be built larger than the one in Vienna. Instead the Hungarians gave it a grander interior. The Opera house has regularly scheduled tours of the building and provides English tours plus a mini concert daily at 3 & 4 pm. We are going back later next week to take a tour.



While in the area of the Opera House we discovered the Nespresso outlet. Our landlord had provided a Nespresso machine and only a limited number of pods but didn’t leave any word as where one could obtain replacements. We had explored a number of the grocery stores in the area without any luck. They were closed today but tomorrow morning I’ll venture out to retrieve a number of sleeves.



Now the day is winding down again and after four hours of walking it is time to put on the feed bag again, head back to the apartment and get ready for tomorrow. John has to get up early for his flight to Berlin.

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