Budapest
 

All the pictures on this page have links to their larger versions.
Hotel Agro      Our plane was due to depart from Bristol International Airport at 7.15am. The takeoff  was delayed by about 15 minutes. 
     Despite the late takeoff we arrived at Budapest Airport on time, and lost no time in finding the desk to book the "white minibus" to the Agro hotel. We were the third party to be dropped by the minibus, but that gave us a good opportunity to get our bearings.  If we had booked a taxi with a meter running, I am sure I would have thought that  we were being taken the long way around to reach our hotel,  we later realized that the detours were because of major road works to the main road up to Normafa.
     We were more than pleased with the Hotel. In fact for the little we paid, we were delighted - the view from the room's balcony over Budapest was stunning. 
     Unfortunately after unpacking it started to rain, and I mean serious rain, so we decided to postpone  our exploration of the City until the next day.     

Agro Panorama at Normafa.

 
     The hotel has two bars - one on the ground floor (open until 4pm) - another on second floor (open 4pm until late) with 'ten pin bowling' and free internet facility. We found the restaurant (on the top floor) very good value - in fact we dined there every evening (except for the last disastrous evening - the exploits of the last evening will be described later on this page).
     Attila, the porter at the hotel was extremely helpful, polite, spoke excellent English and was a real ambassador not only for the hotel but for Budapest and Hungary.
     The next morning dawned bright, so after en early breakfast, we bought two (single journey) transport tickets from the hotel reception desk, and we were ready to explore the delights of Budapest. 
     From the hotel it was only a short walk to the No. 21 bus stop, and within twenty minutes we were in Moszkva (ter) Square.       Moszkva Square was (to me) a fascinating place, not touristy, but a place where trams seem to come from every direction - with crowds of locals coming and  going.  It also has a Metro station, so we attempted to buy a 3day 'rover ticket' : but unfortunately ended up with a much more expensive Buda Card. This gave use 3day travel on the Metro, Trams and Buses (the same as the rover card) but in addition free or discounted entrance to the major sites.  In my opinion the rover card was the best value. Over the next few days Moszkva Square became (to us) almost the centre of the universe; every excursion started and ended there. 
     On this page we can only list a few of the many things we saw and did in Budapest.   

The Cog Railway
  • The Children's Railway- Well worth a visit- and for us within walking distance of the hotel. 
  • The Cog Railway- We used this frequently- to and from the hotel.
  • Funicular Railway up to the Castle- this railway is not covered by the 'three day'  ticket.
  • St Margaret's Island- worth the visit for its peace and calm- linked by the tram at each end.
  • The Old Town-   Try to visit early in the morning before the crowds gather, you can get a mini bus from Moszkva Square.  
  • Gellert Hill- Bused  up, walked down- tremendous views over Budapest  
  • Heroes Square- Also visited the gardens behind the square.
  • Used the trams every day- very good value.
One of the things we wanted to do was take some pictures of Budapest by night: unfortunately we put off the night time photography excursion until the last night of our stay. Each evening, from our hotel room, we could see the Parliament Building beautifully floodlight, in the distance.     So, on the last evening, we set out  with two objectives, one to take a picture of the  Parliament Building from the other side of the Danube and secondly to photograph the Royal Palace  with the floodlit Chain Bridge in the foreground. We almost failed on both accounts!  
     All the time that we had been in Budapest we had watched the Danube rising, gradually flooding the roads that run along its banks.   We started out successfully by catching the tram from  the 'centre of the universe' (sorry Moszkva Square) to Margaret's Bridge.   We then found that the tram from Margaret's Bridge to Chain Bridge, due to the flooding, was not running so we had to walk.  Also as we neared the Parliament building the street lights that were operating became fewer, also only half of the Chain bridge's lights were working. But we made the best of it by photographing just the one side of the bridge with the Royal Palace in the background.  

Moszkva (ter) square
    On crossing the river, we found that all  the floodlights were out on the Parliament Building, so we decided to return to the hotel: but the trams didn't seem to be working on the Buda side of the river.    To cut a long story short,  we realized when we eventually got back  to Moszkva Square,  the hotel  restaurant would be closed
    The only place that was open, for food, in the square, was a  MacDonalds.  Very impressed with the building and decor, but as to the food- well MacDonalds we will say no more.
     On arriving  back at the Hotel, we discovered that a large group of adolescent students had booked in, I will not name the country that they came from: but it was not Britain or  Hungary.  They were making a lot of noise, climbing from one balcony to the next. We managed, after some time to go to sleep, but at about 2am our telephone rang, it was one of the youths demanding to know our names etc. this happened three time until we unplugged the telephone.  But the bad experience in the hotel, would not put us off rebooking with the hotel when we visit Budapest again.

    This was the first time that we had traveled abroad as 'independent travelers' . Therefore we were both a little apprehensive about transferring between two European cities under our own steam. As it turned out we need not have worried.  On the penultimate  day in Budapest we went to the nearest main line railway station to the hotel (Deli pu) and they booked the journey for us. If the train had departed from Deli pu, I am sure we would have used public  transport from the hotel to the station: but the Vienna train departed from Keleti pu, the other side of the city. So we booked a taxi.

Please continue the trip report from Vienna

Also see the Budapest 2008 trip report

Budapest Picture Gallery

 

Continuation of the trip report from Vienna

 Back to the main page