Slept really well and woke up ready for a day of sightseeing around this beautiful city. Gorgeous day weatherwise, blue skies and about 28C rising to 31C.
We walked out from the apartment to near St Stephen’s Basilica – about 7 mins – to the Big Bus Office and changed our vouchers for tickets. Pen and Dave have a 2 day ticket. We have a 1 day one – tomorrow we are going to the Gellert Spa with Daisy.
on the bus!
After that we went into a lovely little coffee shop for coffee and croissants. Very nice to eat breakfast outside. Then across the road to the nearby bus stop where a bus was waiting for us. We got seats upstairs and off it went all around the city. We had a very good commentary through our ear plugs – good sound and quite interesting information. Budapest is architecturally very lovely with lots of little squares and parks as well as gorgeous buildings. We saw the second largest synagogue in the world, Heroes Square, Parliament, Chain Bridge, Castle Gardens and Elizabeth Bridge. We crisscrossed the Danube a couple of times – massive river. Probably about the same width as the Thames in central London but of course much much longer.
We got off the hop on hop off bus just by the Chain Bridge on the Buda side and picked up the Castle bus which was an elongated golf cart vehicle that runs all around the hilltop castle district. We got it up to Fisherman’s Bastion which is the madly decorated lacy platform running around the edge of the castle area near St Matthias Church. It was pretty busy up there with tourists.
We bought tickets to Our Lady of Buda, the beautiful church of St Matthias. The tiled roof is a work of art and inside the walls are all decorated in a Gothic manner, beautiful stained glass windows and statuary. Absolutely magnificent and well worth the £4ish entrance fee. We got Senior discount! I always hope they’ll challenge me but sadly they never do…….
We then had to queue to get a ticket to go up along the Fisherman’s Bastion but the views from there are absolutely worth it – fantastic views down to the river and across to the Pest side and the Parliament Building.
By now it was lunchtime so we needed to eat. We found a cute little restaurant between the Church and the Palace and sat outside at a shady table there. I had the Buda platter which was a charcuterie board and a very nice glass of rose wine from the Balaton region. Really nice. Bob had a chicken salad and Penny and Dave shared a pizza. It was all very good and including service and several beers, water and wines, it came to about £50. Not bad for such a touristy area.
We picked up the little bus again and it took us back down to river level and we walked across the Chain Bridge enjoying being close up with the Danube. Our bus tickets included a one hour boat trip on the river so we walked down to the piers. We were a bit early so we found a shady spot and had some cold drinks and then got the 3pm boat. It was a slight scramble as we were at the wrong pier but it was close by. The upper deck of the boat was unshaded and I have to say it was like a grill up there but I enjoyed seeing the city from the river level. Nice views of the Parliament especially.
Walked back to our place and found the landlord had been in and left us a sweet message, a box of chocolates, a bottle of wine and a big bowl of gorgeous tomatoes from his garden. A very nice gesture, the lift wasn’t his fault after all.
Lucy and Geri have arrived in Budapest, Lucy carrying her wedding dress! Massive bag I must say. Daisy arrives tonight.
We met the gang for dinner at Bistro 41, a really nice steak restaurant about 10 minutes from us. We ate in their large atrium courtyard which was a nice environment. Lucy and Geri came to join us which was really lovely. Had a super meal – very good food and can highly recommend this place. I started with a crab cake on a truffle scone with a vegetable cream sauce and then had a fantastic ribeye steak with peppercorn sauce and a potato side that had grilled artichokes in it with a blue cheese sauce. Absolutely great and very generous portions. Bob started with an iced rhubarb soup with a raspberry sorbet and then he had a sirloin steak with chips.
A really fantastic evening with great company. So nice to walk back through the illuminated streets.
Daisy’s airport bus arrived at about 11 and we met her. It was only 3 minutes walk back to the apartment. We are off for a spa pools day tomorrow.