We were anticipating our overnight excursion into Budapest. Ton packed a small bag with the stuff we would need and we were off to our hotel in town around 10 am. Our plan was to drop our bag off at the hotel and head out on a walk. We were really pleased when we checked in that they assigned us our room on the spot, so we got a few extra hours in the hotel.
Instead of setting out right away we enjoyed a few hours of relaxation before heading out for a late lunch/early dinner around 2:30. Ton had found a Transylvanian restaurant she wanted to try so we decided to make a day of it by strolling there.
Transylvania was Hungarian for hundreds of years, and to most Americans is associated with Hungary because the Hungarian born Bella Lagozy played Dracula in the original movies. During the period it belonged to Hungary the region was settled mostly by Germans just to add to the mix of nationalities. After WWI most of the region was given to Romania and it remains Romanian today. When we traveled to Romania a few years ago we spent quite a bit of time in Transylvania and it is beautiful country. Another region with fascinating history. The food was good; though in the end we ordered Hungarian not Transylvanian food.
As we have been walking the streets we keep seeing shops doing booming business selling a confection called funnel cake. Ton did a little research on them and found the Hungarians held them in some disdain calling them “Tourist Cakes” or “Tourist Traps”. But they did look good so we sampled one, think of a churro with ice cream. One is enough.
Since we have arrived I have been fascinated with how the Danube influences the city. We both wanted to try a night time river cruise. We choose one of the longer ones that started just before sunset and lasted until after sunset.
The river cruise covered the whole city in about 2 hours and since both sides of the river are beautiful it was nice to be able to look at the Buda bank going one way and the Pest bank going the other. As I said it seems every architect in Budapest designs their building to present its best side to the Danube. It really pays off on the river cruise.
The views are essentially the same as you see from the River Bank, but of course being on a boat adds some charm. The best thing is it would take 2 hours of hard walking to cover the same distance that we did from a nice seat enjoying the view the whole time.
As the trip ended I convinced Ton to walk down to the Parliament building to take some more pictures. When we passed on the boat the lights weren’t on yet. The weather was perfect and we really enjoyed our evening stroll.
When we returned to the hotel we decided to have a glass of wine to toast our evening. It was a great way to end a night enjoying one of the worlds beautiful cities.
