Another sunny and warm day in the forecast. After breakfast we headed out to the Hop-on-Hop-off bus again. After touring most of Budapest yesterday, today was to be a river cruise (a little ironic given our plan for the next couple of weeks) and a visit up to the Buda Hill area. For those that don’t know, the name Budapest comes from the formation of two cities into one, Buda and Pest. Evidently locals will still identify as coming from Buda or Pest and there are still friendly rivalries between the two.
The bus trip to the dock was only one stop, and we had about a 30 minute wait once we got there. I was surprised at how little river traffic there was on the Danube. So far we have only seen two commercial barges.
Once on the boat we headed for the outside deck upstairs. Much of what we saw was a repeat of yesterday but from a different viewpoint so I’ll try not to throw repeat pictures in.
We got a better view of the Parliament buildings from the river, unfortunately the untamed finger snuck into the second picture!
Moored up at the side of the river was a boat that looked as though it would be more at home on the Mississippi.
Below is the Chain Bridge
Below is a picture taken when we were walking across the bridge. It got it’s name from the original bridge that was constructed a couple of centuries ago which used chains as part of it’s construction. The bridge, and all the others crossing the Danube, were destroyed in WWII and have since been rebuilt.
As we were cruising along we saw the Emerald Sky, our cruise ship for the trip to Amsterdam
At the end of the cruise we walked back to the Chain Bridge and crossed it to the Buda side of the Danube. From here we took a large golf cart, otherwise known as the Castle Bus, up to the Bud Hill area of the city.
We were expecting to just go up to a hill that houses the Buda Castle (aka the Royal Palace, see yesterday for pictures), however we discovered there was a complete town up there. Within the town was the magnificent Matthias Church.
We spent quite a time wandering around the town and then had lunch before heading back down to river level.
We continued walking along the river bank to the botanical gardens.
From the Botanical Gardens we headed back to the Hop-on-Hop-off bus and made our way back to the hotel.
We decided to go back to the Bazar again for our evening meal. This time we found a restaurant that had a more Hungarian menu and chose a local stew and dumplings.
Back at the hotel I tried out a couple of night views from the patio.
Tomorrow we head out to join the cruise.