We arose this morning at the Intercontinental Hotel on the Pest side of the Danube (FYI, Budapest is pronounced as if the "s" were a "sh"). The weather is still fine with the high today of 70F and some clouds.
We had a full breakfast and at 9:15 am joined the other tour people in the lobby to board the motor coach for a one-half day bus tour of both Buda and Pest. Buda and Pest were once individual cities on each side of the Danube. They were joined together in 1872 to become the capital city of Hungary. The Buda side of the city is mostly residential and contains the Coronation Palace, Fisherman's Bastion and the Church of our Lady (aka, Mathias Church). The Pest side is mostly commercial and financial. While part of the EU, Hungary has not yet measured up to use the Euro currency. They still use the Hungarian Forint (Ft). Today, the conversion rate was 260 Ft to one US dollar or 300 Ft to one EUR. Overall, the Hungarian economy is doing well with unemployment below 4%.
We first crossed the Danube and journeyed up the Castle Hill. We departed the bus and walked to the Church.
The church is still an active Catholic church. During our brief visit inside, they were having a choir rehearsal.
As with many of the buildings in Budapest, the church as heavily damage during WWII. The current wall "coverings" were painted to resemble Persian carpet design. The Turks, during one of their several invasions, had turned the church into a Mosque. The current wall coverings is an attempt to show the varied history of the church.
As we exited the church, I picked a note out of the basket. Kind of like a fortune cookie. It read:
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| Sounds like a Trumpism...I'll have to think about it!! |
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| King Stephen who brought the Hungarian barbarians into the Catholic faith...one way or another |
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| Looking out over the Pest side of the City |
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| Parliament Building |
After leaving the Buda side of the city, we bused back to the Pest side and over to the covered market. We were "dumped" there about 12:30 pm and told be in the lobby of the hotel at 6:15 pm for our opulent dinner.
David and I walked around all three levels of the market. We both bought some paprika and I also got some saffron.
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| All kinds of spices |
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| Honey |
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| Dead fish |
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| Sauerkraut |
Forty plus years after the collapse of the Eastern Block, they are still working to restore the city. Our local guide said they hope that in the next one or two decades to have brought Budapest back to it previous splendor. There are still many buildings that are crumbling due to decades of neglect.
Walked by the Budapest Hard Rock Cafe. Gavin and I will try it out in December.
We went down to the lobby at 6:15 pm to take a 20 minute motor coach ride (which would have taken 5 minutes if we had walked) to the Akademia Club for dinner.
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| Akademia Club |
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| Reception "band" |
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| David and Jean...what a couple!!! |
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| Dinner table |
Tauck gave us all a token of appreciation...a small bag of sweet and hot Hungarian paprika. My guess is that at least one-half of the tour guest had bought paprika at the Market today...as did David and I.
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| Unveiling the main course, roast venison and chicken |
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| Desert
After dinner we staggered back to the hotel, saving a 20 minute bus ride and settled into a couple of drinks at the Havana Bar.
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Tomorrow morning at 10:00 am, the tour officially ends. We will stay another night. My flight leaves at 6:15 am, which means I need to be up and get ready to go around 3:00 am.
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