Sept 29 - Budapest on Our Own

There were no formal tours today that sounded interesting, so we slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, and headed out across the chain bridge to walk up to the Castle Hill that we had ridden to on the bus yesterday.

The Chain Bridge is the oldest permanent bridge over the
Danube in Budapest and is an interesting
type of suspension bridge.

There was a funicular to ride up, but we decided the exercise was more important and headed up the stairs and inclined walk. We arrived at an area we had not seen on our first day here, and walked past where we had been and saw the rest of the elevated plaza. We found an alternate way down and came back to that when we were done. At the east end of the plaza, there was a stone entrance gate for cars, and when we climbed to the top of it, we found a promenade that led around the backside of the district, so of course we explored. This was where locals came with their children, and we saw several dads with kids, apparently giving mom a short rest.

Locals enjoying the Castle District Promenade

It was also a lot warmer on this side because the buildings blocked all the wind.We came down off the hill toward the river, going through local neighborhood instead of a touristy area. We walked past an interesting church with a tiled roof we had seen from the boat, and then headed to the boat for lunch.

A bit after a light lunch, we walked to the pedestrian area we had seen yesterday and stopped in at Gerbeaud’s for a sinful (and expensive) snack. It was VERY rich! Although most shops are closed from 1pm Saturday til Monday, most of them in this area were open because of the tourist trade. Lots of people were out, but our guide suggested doing any shopping in Belgrade where the VAT was much less than in Budapest.

This building shows the different window designs on
each level that our guide told us about yesterday.

We wandered through a small market area, and then down along some of the trendy shopping streets, ogling the architecture as we went.

Parliament Building at night as we sailed away.

After dinner, the ship set sail and we headed south on the Danube to our next stop. The view of Budapest as we sailed away in the evening was delightful.