Budapest

We woke up the next morning to find rather depressing looking grey clouds blotting out the sun. I sighed to myself and had visions of us wandering around Budapest huddled under my umbrella. But lo and behold, by the time we'd got ourselves sorted and ready to go, it started to show signs of brightening up.

Our first order of business was to find something to eat for breakfast. I rarely do hotel breakfasts as they force you to get up far too early when you're on holiday (a big no no in my book) and can charge you far more than you would pay for the same breakfast in a cafe next door. This was the case in New York last year and we never had a problem finding somewhere suitable to eat in Rome where otherwise our hotel would have charged us 7 euros for a single cup of juice and 8 euros for a small bowl of cereal! Ironically in Dubai, breakfast was included in the price but, like muppets, we completely forgot as we'd got so used to the routine of going out for breakfast in Rome it hadn't occurred to us that we could get it for free there!

Anyway, after a nice meal (in a cafe by the Basilica), and a scan through the two guide books that I'd bought (yes, I couldn't decide on which I'd preferred and they did complement each other quite well with one giving a good overview of walking routes and such like and the other giving you more detail on the background of places where you were going and handy tips that generally I wouldn't have known otherwise) we started our journey of exploration around Budapest.

Since we were by the Basilica, this was our first port of call. Last time I was here, my nephew and I climbed the 360 odd steps to get to the top of the dome only to discover that we could have taken a lift! This time I didn't make the same mistake twice and we were whisked up relatively quickly and with a lot less sweat than my last journey to the top with the added bonus of the fact that the clouds had now dissipated and the sun had come out.

It was turning out to be a lovely day for sightseeing!

Over the course of the next few days the weather got progressively better, the early cloud becoming wispier and wispier and breaking down much quicker until the Friday when we awoke to clear blue skies and temperatures touching the high 30s out in the countryside!

We walked most everywhere, and took the metro (Europe's oldest: circa 1896) from time-to-time to get from one side of the city to the other in double quick time. Budapest's metro is actually very good and trains never seemed as crowded as anything I've experienced in London. Perhaps this is because ticket prices for your typical local visitor from the Hungarian countryside are seen as too high and the numerous buses and trams make for a cheaper (though slower, in rush-hour) alternative.

As it was, a single fare was less than a pound and we once opted for a day travel card (the machines for which could be switched to English) when we knew we would be going backwards and forwards around the city a bit. Last time I bought a BudapestCard, a vehicle aimed squarely at tourists but which I now know from experience is a waste of money unless you are too lazy to buy a travelcard each day or do intend to traverse the city multiple times every day from a location in the suburbs. Also, the location of our hotel, right on the Danube between the two major bridges and within five minutes walk of the main pedestrianised shopping areas, somewhat negated the need for this as we could walk most places you'd want to.

So, over the next few days we took in all the sights including the other two other excellent scenic vantage points of Gellert Hill and the Fisherman's Bastion (where I'd highly recommend a walk behind the main well-trodden tourist road too for a peaceful tree-lined stroll back to the main square) and chilled out on the Thursday afternoon at the Széchenyi thermal baths, something that, surprisingly, I've never done in all my visits to the city before.

It was a sunny day with blue skies when we visited the baths in the City Park and such an interesting experience to boot. Though prices were all written out in English too, it was still all a bit confused but not quite knowing what to do was all part of the experience.

For instance the attendant who was letting people into the changing rooms was a bit "simple". His main job, in so far as we could tell, was to take your entry card and put it through a turnstile to gain you entry and exit. He told me in Hungarian that the rooms were full and that we'd have to wait which I translated to a number of non-Hungarian speakers behind us in the queue. After five minutes, with quite a queue building up, a local walked straight passed us and through the turnstile asking us why we were all waiting!

When I asked the attendant if we could go in too he acted as if he hadn't even noticed that there was a queue and let us through as if nothing untoward had happened. Very strange?!

The baths were lovely. You basically moved from pool to pool (both inside and out) trying out the different temperatures. Each had a sign telling you how long it was recommended you stay in (the hotter ones, no more than 10 mins.) and you basically just chilled out. There were lots of families, old men playing chess by the poolside and a number of bars and cafes strung around the outside pools outside of which you could sit and relax. We wished we gone there earlier on in the week as we probably would have gone back a few times at the end of each day.

Later on that evening, sitting outside in a restaurant on one of the main squares not too far from our hotel, we got yet another taste of freaky weather as a warm and pleasant evening suddenly turned nasty with, initially, gale force winds blowing everything in the square all over the place. The bonus was that the waiters showed us into a room around the side of the restaurant that was obviously used for private functions. It turned out to be quite a romantic evening with piped music, plush surroundings and a huge storm outside. Luckily the storm had abated, or at least the rainy part of it had by the time we left, so once again, another memorable evening was had by us both.

By Friday, we managed to take in all the sights bar the parliament tour, the tickets for which were sold out for the Thursday that we decided to go.

Our last full day, Friday, was to be spent visiting my family in the countryside, a nice contrast from the city.

To be continued...