A quick check at the weather yesterday revealed forecasted thunderstorms for today. Luckily, the storms occurred at the very best time possible – between 6 and 7am when were all snuggled in bed listening to it outside. By 8am we were all packed and breakfasted, ready for another epic travelling day. We clambered into our mini bus and all had extremely excited looks on our faces when we realised that our seats reclined!
The five hour bus trip to Budapest was actually quite pleasant. Comfy, air-conditioned seats meant sleep was possible (the view outside was covered in fog so we weren’t missing much by closing our eyes). Chatting to Andy on the phone for 40 minutes also helped pass the time! There was a mini stop over at a small Slovakian town for hot chocolate and the purchase of chips, but other than that there is not much else notable to report.
At around 1.30pm we arrived at our hotel in Budapest and after settling in we headed out on an orientation walk. Julie and I only had the one afternoon in this city so we soon left the group, deciding instead to grab the Hop On, Hop Off bus around the city. The first of these busses that we jumped on was very full and we were stuck in the unairconditioned downstairs. After a quick stop off, however, we were lucky to grab the spot up the top right in the front (even if it still didn’t have air-conditioning). The whole bus trip took two hours all up and we were back at the hotel by the required 7pm for the group dinner.
Julie and I are both incredibly undecided about this city. Everyone had told us that Budapest was amazing and that we would really regret not having extra time here… perhaps that gave us too high expectations? I think we were a bit skewed by the fact that the majority of the bus trip was spent driving down busy streets, often stuck in traffic, and neither of us are big city people. We stopped off at the City Park for a bit but didn’t see anything that stood out to us. What was really lovely was when the bus drove up to the castle district and the Citadel. From here you could see the Danube and the very impressive Parliament building. If we’d had the extra two days like the others we would have spent all our time up there just relaxing and enjoying the view. And then rest of the time would have been spent in the thermal baths.
As it is, Budapest was nice but it didn’t really win us over as much as other cities had done. We seem to be alone in this opinion though, all the others love it here and perhaps one day I do need to come back and give the city another try. Anyway, at 7pm most of us went to the final group dinner, except Dan and Sarah who had gone to see a ballet. I ordered a Hungarian Goulash – I had been stoically avoiding goulash the whole trip so as to have the proper thing here. Unfortunately apparently an authentic goulash is actually only watery broth with chunks of meat in it. Not really what I was expecting! I much preferred the apple and pear crepes I had for dessert.
After the dinner Hamish, Marissa, Julie and I went back to the square surrounding the big church here – we sat at an outdoor cafe, drank a bottle of Hungarian wine together and watched Germany beat Greece on the TV screens that are everywhere. We then headed back to the hotel in the hope of catching Dan and Sarah – they had left us their room number and after knocking on their door, calling their room and receiving no answer we assumed that they had not yet returned. This meant that we sat downstairs and drank a Chardonnay, whilst waiting for them to come back. At 1am we conceded that perhaps they were actually sleeping in their room and all headed up to our own rooms to sleep!
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