Day 54 - Dodging Deals in Budapest

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So much to tell about today but so little time to tell it. The first part of the day was spent doing a walking tour. Our guide, Robert, had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Hungary and the sites he was showing us.
I could make this a lesson on Hungary's troubled past but that's not the point. Some interesting points though.
Budapest is actually the joining of the two cities either side of the Danube, Buda and Pest.
They joined the Nazis in WWII when Hitler promised to give them back the territory they lost after WWI.
The soviets liberated Hungary in WWII and then as our guide put it, forgot to leave bringing communism and oppression to the country.
Budapest are in competition with Vienna. They try very hard to be considered better than their previous capitol when under Austrian rule. I'm not sure they have achieved that but they certainly have given it a good shake. And lastly we finished our walking tour on a tour boat called the Akadamia 3. The o ly boat of it kind to survive WWII and one Hitler was reputed to have dined at leadt twice.

The second part of the day we spent taking a ride on the number 2 tram. This was a recommendation from our guide who said you get a good view of a number of iconic Budapest sites.

So for the last part of our day Jeff and I went to the Word Athletics Championships to try and get in. Last night Tom was lucky enough to see Nina Kennedy win gold in the pole vault for Australia.
We made our way to the stadium and basically looked for dodgy people scalping tickets. We saw a guy from yesterday who was selling tickets and approached him. 10 minutes later the deal was done and we were through the outer gates and on our way in. Then through security. Then to the turn stiles where we came undone. It seems our barcodes had already been used for the night. Dam, scammed!!!
We went backoutside none too happy looking for the guy but couldn't find him. We hung around hoping he'd come back and surprisingly he did. On confronting him he basically said don't worry wait here. Another guy then escorted us all the way back into the stadium with our phony tickets and went to the end turn stile. He then waited til the attendent was distracted pushed aside a barrier and ushered us through. Then he scampered, and so did we, in opposite directions. We were in.
Obviously we couldn't go to the seats on our tickets but we did manage to find some free seats in the same bay.
How stressful!
Tomorrow we are back on the bikes heading to Tissi about 65kms along the Danube leaving the dodgy dealings of Budapest behind us.

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Photos

Ronald Ragan
Loved here for helping to end communism in Hungary

The market
Equivalent of the Victoria Market