Arrival day of the Mystical Heart of Europe tour

Sat 10th September

Sunrise 6:15am – Sunset 7:06pm

Weather Forecast:   29c and sunny

Steps:   14,559    10.05km                                         

I went to bed around 9:30 last night and had a good nights sleep.  I eventually got up and went down to breakfast around 7:30am.  Packed everything up (or so I thought) and then went for a walk.  Found a café open and had a quick coffee.  Back to the hotel and I decided to check out. 

I didn't take many photos today, as I was re-visiting some of the places from yesterday.

I knew that there wouldn’t be a room available at the Sofitel but I could store the luggage and sit alongside the Danube and people watch. I checked in and they said it would be an hour at least before a room was ready, so I went and sat on one of the seats, overlooking the Danube.  Two ladies wandered up and sat down beside me and we got chatting. They were waiting to board their Viking cruise ship and had an hour or so to fill in. One lady, Janette, was from Oregon and the other, Barbara, from Arizona.

We had a delightful hour plus, chatting about all manner of things.

They then went to see if they could board the ship and I walked to the hotel to see if a room was available.  I had to wait another ½ an hour.

By then it was almost midday and a group of people arrived on an Insight Bus. When they came into the hotel, I could see our TD with them, so knew they were my fellow travellers. I decided to wait until they were taken care of before asking about my room. While I was waiting Karin introduced herself and made a few suggestions about what I could do in the afternoon.

I was eventually given a room key, so picked my bags up and went to my room. 

Room 238 Sofitel Budapest

A bit more upmarket than where I had been staying BUT the electrical outlets here are few and far between. I can only find 2 and they are both on the floor behind the desk. As the hotel room has an iron and ironing board, I thought there would have been an outlet near the wardrobe. At least the Mercure had 3 or 4 outlets and none on the floor.

After ironing the clothes for tonight & tomorrow I then decided to head back to the Parliament area and explore a little more than I did yesterday.  Back to St. Stephens Basilica.

By now it was 1.30, so I found a restaurant and had some lunch. 

I also walked through Liberty Square and found this memorial

 and Ronald Reagan

I eventually arrived back at the hotel around 3.30pm and when I went to get the cable to download the photos from the camera to the computer, no cable. I phoned the Mercure City Centre and the man I spoke to said that nothing had been recorded in the lost and found. 

I knew that I could download the photos to the iPad and then transferred them from the iPad to the computer but I wasn’t happy about losing the cable, so decided to pay the Mercure City Centre a visit. It’s only a 10 minute walk.

When I arrived there, I explained to the guy at reception, that I must have left it in the room. He phoned Housekeeping.  Housekeeping spoke to Teresia, who cleaned my room and she had found the cable. She brought it down and I was a very relieved lady.   Interesting though. I had left a tip for Teresia yesterday, as I didn’t know if she would be working today, being the weekend. Anyway, she wrote me a nice thank you note and when I had spoken to her over the past few days, she had pretty good English.

When I asked her where she found it, the guy from the desk was coming over to us and she spoke to him in the local language and he told me that she couldn’t understand what I was saying, so I asked him to thank her for me.  Sounds like she doesn’t want the front end staff to know that she speaks and writes English. For whatever reason.

Our Welcome drink & dinner started at 6:15 this evening. A mixture of nationalities. A few Australians, a majority of Canadians, some South Africans.  Quite a few from the USA and one from Northern Ireland.  33 on the tour all together.  There are 7 people on the tour who were on the 2014 BB tour, so it's nice to catch up with them again.

After dinner finished I went across the road to see a guy playing wine glasses. 

He was quite good. I only stayed a short while, as we will be out of here by 8.45am tomorrow morning and tomorrow Budapest are holding their “Wizz Air Half Marathon”.  I seem to remember another Sunday 3 years ago when a marathon was being run here in Budapest.