Vacation - Budapest

Budapest was another city on my list of places I wanted to visit. It was on Ben's list too. We loved Budapest. I rank Prague higher in terms of beauty and preservation, but Budapest is bigger and has more to see. It's also very lovely and charming.  We only had a day and half to spend there, but certainly could have stayed for a week and still have things left to return for.

The GPS we had in the car failed us on our arrival into Budapest. After that initial frustration, followed by a bit of panic when the first 4-5 hotels we stopped at were full, we found a comfortable, affordable place to park the car and spend the night. We had a couple hours left to explore a bit of the city, eat some dinner, and plan for the following day to see as much of Budapest as possible.

We made the most of our one full day in Budapest. We decided a hop-on/hop-off tour would be the simplest, least frustrating way to get around. We enjoyed stops at government centers, historical architecture beauties, a public market, and other stops to take in the views. Budapest is actually a  combination of two cities, Buda and Pest, into one. One on the the flat side of the Danube River (Pest) and the other (Buda) on a steep mountain on the other side of the Danube. Our hotels were on the mountain side. The first hotel was about half way up where we were lucky to get the last room. The other hotel, right next to the castle with a view of the castle from one of the windows in our room.

A few from Pest to Buda.

Another view from Pest to the mountainous Buda side.

Writing postcards to the kids.  Cards that arrived home about a month after we did.

The Parliament Building - on the Pest side.

Mary Magdalene Church on the Buda side.

Ben at Fisherman's Bastion.

Julie near a bridge with Pest in the background.

Parliament.

Parliament building.

Very, very delicious.  Even I was enjoying the break from the goulash, potatoes and cabbage by this point.

Candy in the Grand Market Hall.

Traditional dolls for sale in the Grand Market Hall.

Vegetables for sale in the Grand Market Hall.

Sundown at Fisherman's Bastion.

Sundown.

Fisherman's Bastion after dark.

Our biggest "adventure" of the vacation happened on our second night in Budapest. We drove our rental car to the top of the mountain with the idea to take some picturesque photos of the city at sundown -- a nice, romantic evening. Unfortunately, as Ben was parking, the front, passenger side tire rolled into a cobblestone curb, and, as luck would have it, the particular piece of cobblestone had a very sharp edge that gashed a hole in the tire. We could hear the air blowing out of the tire. Romance changed to, well, learning that we have two very different ways of reacting to a flat tire. My reaction was to leave the car where it was and call for help. Ben wanted to drive to the nearest gas station and get the tire fixed. Ben had the keys and the control, so off we went. We drove to the nearest gas station, but learned that they don't fix tires at gas stations in Hungary. We drove to the nearest "gumi" (Hungarian for tire - the only Hungarian word I know) store, but learned that it closed about and hour before and, at 6:00 p.m. on a Friday night, we probably didn't have any chance of getting our tire fixed on our own. Not to be deterred, we tried to put on the spare, only to learn that our car had no spare. It was equipped with some sort of pump that lined the tire with something strong enough to get you to a nearby service station. All well and good, except when your tire has a little more than a slow leak and the weekend has begun. A helpful Hungarian family helped us locate a 24-hour gumi store about 30 km away - on the highway. It was a tense ride, which included several stops to pump more air into the flat tire. Eventually, we made it to the 24-hour store, but learned that it did not have a tire that fit our car. We resorted to calling Hertz for help. They brought us a new car (exactly the same make and color of the one we had - including plates from Dresden!) and we were back in business. We missed out on our romantic evening of picture-taking, but were back on track to leave early in the morning to meet up with Johnstons in Split.