Budapest: Day 1

Merry Christmas from Budapest! We arrived this morning at about 11:15AM local time. Considering the flight delays and cancellations in Europe this past week, we were pretty lucky with our flights – both left a bit late, but were otherwise uneventful. BTW, if you ever fly to Frankfurt Airport and have to make a connection, make sure you have at least 1.5 hours between flights. The airport is HUGE and has multiple terminals.

Has anyone flown Air Canada lately? First class has really weird pod seating (we weren’t in first class, just walked through it to and from economy!)

And they seem to be using some sort of chromatherapy with the lighting. It’s like they put the cabin through sunset with red lighting, night time with blue lighting, and sunrise with red lighting again. With some yellow, green, and purple thrown in.

We didn’t see Santa from the plane, but we opened our stockings in Row 32 after midnight Frankfurt time :-)

Too bad my camera was in the trunk of the cab between the airport and the B&B, because the scenery was really fascinating. More stark and sombre than pretty, partly because of the grey weather but mostly because of all the old abandoned and run down buildings, I found them fascinating because I’m sure there’s an interesting story behind them. Were they abandoned after WWII? After the fall of communism? And what did they look like in their prime? There was also a huge wall of graffiti that was really more like colourful art. I did some research and found that the largest legal graffiti wall in Budapest is called Filatorigát. I wonder it’s the wall I saw?

 The Budapest Underground

The cab ride was interesting once we got into the city. Our driver weaved his way through traffic as he sped through lanes that are way narrower than I’m used to! When we got to our destination (Kapital Inn), the owner Albert came down to meet us at the front gate. The building his B&B is in has a gate that opens to a sort of courtyard, which is in the center of the building. Our B&B has a patio that overlooks it. I didn’t take a pic myself, but here’s one from Trip Advisor:

Our B&B is on the top floor. It’s three floors up, and exactly 117 steps from the front gate to our room. That’ll get the heart rate up! Thank god Albert carried up our luggage – one bag in each hand, all the way up without stopping! This is the view from our room:

It reminds me a lot of the view we had from our room at St. Niklaas B&B in Bruges a few years ago, minus the Belfort Tower:

We took showers and naps, and then headed out to check out the city. It was freezing rain, so I left the camera at the B&B. We’re here till Friday, so I’m sure we’ll be taking LOTS of pictures! Not many places were open, but there’s a street filled with home decor stores that I’ll be checking out for sure! A few food booths at the Christmas Fair were open. I had a hot chocolate and hubby had a great big deep fried potato thing (more technically referred to as langos):

Red Bus Hostel

You know that commercial for Sarah’s House where Sarah is wearing heels slogging through the mud? I had that problem tonight walking to and from the Duna Palota (Danube Palace) in the snow & wind. But not as bad as the girl I saw walking through the snow in open toe spike heels with bare feet! CRAZY WOMAN! The symphony we saw at Danu Plata was great, although I had moments of almost falling asleep from the jetlag. After the symphony, we went for a boat cruise on the Danube and ate dinner. Nothing special food-wise, but it was a great night overall :-)

A couple of pics from our walk home…

And now, bed time!