A free day in Budapest

Wed 7^th September

Sunrise 6:11am – Sunset 7:12pm

Weather Forecast:  

Steps:                        16,813           11.6 km                                

I woke around 7am this morning and went down to breakfast around 8am. The breakfast room was fairly full, with French women.  When I came back to the hotel last night, there were 30 or so ladies standing outside the entrance to the hotel, all dressed to the nine’s in black leather of some sort and high heels and more were coming out of the hotel, as I was going in. 

Anyway, at breakfast this morning there was no special theme dress.

I opted to have OJ, a couple of slices of meat and cheese and some fresh watermelon & rockmelon.

I departed the hotel around 9am and walked along Duna korzó, or the Promenade,  which runs parallel with the Danube, (taking photos along the way)

Statue of Ignac Roskovics a famous Hungarian painter

until I reached Szecheny Istvan ter and then walked over the Chain Bridge

 and took the funicular (Siklo)

up to the Castle area.  I just couldn’t face walking up to the top. I have done that before but that was the first day of arrival in Europe and my legs were fresh.  It was close to 10 by the time I reached the top, as a queue had formed already but it moved fairly quickly.  You couldn’t walk past the Sandor Palace

or the National Dance Theatre (which was covered in scaffolding) but had to use the road nearbye to get to Disz Ter.  The road works that were happening when I was last here in 2013 are well and truly finished and all the roads around that area, leading to Matthias Church, are paved.

Some more statues.    

For a change, I bought a ticket to visit the Fisherman’s Bastion. Usually I don’t, as I think the price is a bit of a rip off.  The view over the Danube is lovely and you can get a reasonable photo of the Parliament building.

From there, I followed the “Visit Budapest” walking tour but found that having the Ulmon map on the iPad to refer to (I had mapped it out on “CityMaps2Go” before I left home) a great help. Even though it’s an offline map, the GPS was working and I could see exactly where I was.

Headed along Tancsics Mihaly utca 

Táncsics Mihály was a Hungarian writer, teacher, journalist and politician

until I got to the Becsi Kapu ter (Vienna Gate). 

From there it was a short walk to the Maria Magdalena Tower, which are the ruins of a 13^th century Fransciscan Church. 

I then headed south along Orszaghaz utca and saw the 3 houses, #’s 18,20 & 22

Number 18

Number 20

Number 22

that date back to the 14^th century.  
Took a right into Darda utca, left into Uri utca and then another right into Noegylet utca, which took me to Toth Arpad setany, which is a pedestrian only street. And straight in front was the Miro Terasz Café, although I think it is now called Bastya. 

It was around midday, so I had lunch there.

Toth Arpad setany

Toth Arpad setany

After that, I just started heading back to the hotel for some down time. As I was walking back over the Chain Bridge, my fitbit buzzed for 10,000 steps. I walked back via the Sofitel Chain Bridge Hotel, as that is where I move to on Saturday, for the start of the tour.  10 minutes, if that, from the Mercure City Centre.

I wandered out again around 3pm to do some retail window shopping. And that was the only shopping that I did.

I had put 3 pair of pants in for laundry cleaning and they were back in my room when I returned.

I had dinner at the Italian Restaurant “Cucina”, which is just outside the front entrance to the Mercure. Seems if you don’t give exact money, they assume the rest is a tip. The bill came to 3,651 (AUD 19.80) and that already included a 12% service charge and when I gave him 4,000 he said thank you and that was that. Maybe I should have sat at the table until he returned with the change. Mind you, it only equated to about $2.00. I shouldn’t be so mean.  The French ladies were heading out again as I came back to my room. Roaring 20's theme night tonight.

Back in the hotel by 7:45. Once I have posted this, I’m having an early night.  Off to the Puszta Great Plains and Kecskemet tomorrow, with Poolsuk & Val.
Oh, and I had a reply from the Sofitel in Brussels. They couldn't locate the coin purse and I didn't really expect them to BUT I found that I had put the $50 note in with the British notes that I had, so the loss is coins. I had forgotten that there were British pounds in there too. Never mind.

Margaret Island has now been moved to Friday.  Night all