"Budapest, Prague and Vienna" a Hungary Travel Page by BarbaraRT

Sun. July 8
We met our 7 friends at DFW airport. Mike and I had the window and aisle seats. We didn’t get much sleep. Our flight was on Lufthansa at 3:30 PM to Frankfurt where we just had 35 minutes to get on our next flight on to Budapest.
Monday, July 9
Someone from the airline met us to escort us to our next flight since time was short. It’s a good thing because we were some of the last ones on the shuttle and it was a long ride out to the plane. The flight on to Budapest took an hour. We got our bags and met Ana, our guide. We got on the bus to Hotel Ramada Budapest. They pronounce it RA-ma-da. Our room, 237, was small but comfortable. It reminded me of our room on the cruise ship last summer. After an hour we met Ana downstairs and walked to the Danube River through the main pedestrian street, Vacu ytca. We walked across the Chain Bridge to take photos then sat under umbrellas outside at a restaurant to have expensive desserts. It was equal to about $18 US for two desserts and two drinks. We had a few minutes to walk along the shopping street before we all met Ana to take the metro back, then walk on to the hotel. We had an hour to shower and pack our day-pack for the next day. We were just dog tired after not sleeping all night. We went downstairs for the tour information meeting at six and dinner at seven. It was a buffet including a drink and was very good. It was a good first day even though we were so tired. Budapest is very beautiful but I was surprised at the amount of graffiti on everything. It was warm and humid. The hotel was OK. Ana told us to get some sleep and said that after a good night’s sleep we would “feel newly born.”

Tuesday, July 10
We had a really good breakfast buffet at the hotel then met Ana at 8:30 to go on a bus tour of the city in the rain. We went in the Parliament Building which was very beautiful. Next we went up to Castle Hill and the Royal Palace on the Buda side and walked around some but it was raining so it was hard to hear the guide with all of the umbrellas crowded around her. In the Matthias Church there and to the Fishermen’s Bastion. Got some shots of the Danube then went by Hero’s Square and the Opera House. The tour ended in “town” so our group all started the walk down the main street to the market at the other end. It had interesting food stuff on the first floor and souvenirs upstairs. We got a lace table runner for about $20, a can of Paprika, $4, and a little snow globe for $10. We started the long walk back. Mike needed to find an ATM to get some more Hungarian Forints for a boat ride we were going on. We met Ana and a lot of the group at 4:30 for the rush hour metro ride back and the walk on to the hotel. The escalators in the subway are the fastest we’ve ever been on. We had a couple of hours to go to the room to shower, and take a short nap then back down for the Danube Riverboat Sunset Dinner Cruise at $60 each. It was something Ana set up just for our group. We had a good guide on the bus to the small boat. There was a long table of Hungarian food, fruit, cheese, breads, meats and desserts, plus a couple of kinds of wine on each table. We went up and down the river enjoying the views as we ate. As it got dark and the buildings were lit up, I went on the upper deck to take photos. It was really beautiful and soon almost everyone was up there. After we got off of the boat they took us by bus up to an overlook (Gellert Hill I think) that had a really beautiful view of the area. We finally got to bed about midnigh

The rest of the trip is on my Travelogue page...July 11 - 21, 2007

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/tt/a0a87/#TL