My business class train ticket from Prague to Budapest was really great until we had to exit the train and transfer to motor coaches to finish the journey due to construction on the line. I really would have liked prior warning of this because I would have taken the Flixbus or flown instead. The transfer was a cold, wet cluster that got me into Budapest an hour later than scheduled.
Like Prague, Budapest is also filled with tourists. Both hilly Buda and flat Pest were gleaming yesterday after recent rains when I visited the major sights. I bought a 72-hour transportation pass and hopped on the metro, then a bus and made my way to Fisherman’s Bastion, Mattias Church, Buda Castle, Heroes’ Square, and took a zillion pictures of the Hungarian Parliament Building. If you’ve ever seen a Viking River Tours ad, I’m living in that moment.
I finally found a place to eat and had an omelet in a 1000-year-old building of a hotel dining room. Things seemed strangely quiet for a Wednesday. Many places, including all the grocery stores, were closed. I later realized it was a national holiday in Hungary – All Saints’ Day.
I was still hungry after my previous day of transportation shenanigans during which I had had little to eat, so I had a nice meal at a Japanese restaurant.
After a rest at my beautiful, spacious Airbnb, I took a walk/tram/walk to a boat ride on the Danube River. It was beautiful, a little chilly, and made more interesting by some conversation with some climate-change-denying Australians who were about to go on a Viking River Cruise and unlimited prosecco.
