Day 25 - 27: Hungary

 Day 25, Day 26 and Day 27 were spent in Budapest, Hungary.

 

Budapest is amazing, it was by far one of my favourite cities at that point and will most definitely be top three by the time we finish. Its very picturesque with the Danube river running through the center, the flat new city on one side and the old castles, palace and citadel looking down from the hills on the other side.

 

We stayed over in the castle district which put us in the ideal location for some beautiful early morning runs, during which we had the castles to ourselves to roam and explore without the claustrophobia of the millions of tourists that inevitably show up every day. (That was my only complaint about the city - its popular, very popular, especially in summer!) From up on the hills we also had a great view down over the city.

 

 

  

We bought a two day ticket for the city's hop-on hop-off bus which also included a boat tour along the Danube. The boat was fun and gave us a new angle of view of the city, including the massive Hungarian Parliament building on the riverside, that is hard to take in from the street in front because its so big and packed in between other buildings. 

 

The bus took us all around the castles and palace on our side of the river where we got off so I could take some photos of the castles with my good camera (I couldn't carry that with me on the early runs obviously) and up to the citadel as well. We ate lunch up there and spent the hotter part of the day in some of the museums.

 

 

We rode the bus over to the city side as well. The city side is just as interesting as the castle side, with so much to see and do, outdoor walking malls with tons of souvenir shops, old buildings, points of interest, more museums and some great restaurants.

 

 

We did some shopping (me shopping, Ben at an outdoor bar), and went up to Heroes Square and into City Park with some more castles to explore. 

 

  

We had another dinner at Hard Rock Café, Budapest, where I ate an entire rack of ribs. All that site seeing works up an appetite!

On our final day in Budapest we relaxed for the morning, slept in, had a late run then went down to the natural baths - hot springs that have been built into man-made pools. There's a bunch of different pools all different temperatures that range from cold to as warm as a bath, the waters are supposed to have medicinal properties and we definitely needed some recuperating after three weeks on the go already!

After dragging ourselves out of the relaxing baths, we checked out of the hotel, trooped back to the train station and set out on the train  on a short four hour trip to our next destination, Vienna, Austria.

Budapest is most definitely on my 'must-see' list. We'll be back there for sure, with more time, more money and probably when its not quite so busy!