We were up bright and early this morning for a guided tour with a local expert. She was telling us that the restaurant we went to last night with the Michelin rating has actually hosted the queen and some Pope-e-age or other, plus lots of stars!
We went on the coach to the Heroes Square first – we have been there before and it was amazing, just as I remember. The sky wasn’t quite as blue as last time so the reflection on the huge monuments wasn’t as green, but they are still really impressive. Next we went on to Fishermans Bastian at the very top of the hill after visiting Bishops Hill, which has an expansive view over the whole of Buda and Pest. It started to rain while we were visiting Saint Stevens church with its amazing ceramic roof tiles – the colours are really eye-catching. We teetered around as the cobbles were very slippery with the rain so we went in to a cafe for a lovely cake and drink.
We have decided not to do the 2 optionals today as Graeme would really like to wander the city and explore more, plus we saw a barbershop yesterday that he would like to go back to and see if he can get a haircut and shave. We have already done the river cruise with dinner before, when we were here 4 years ago, so we will just make our own way exploring.
We got out and walked and walked today – 16,000 steps at least! Not bad in the heat and we went to the black sheep barbers shop. What an experience that is the place is humming and it was back to back with customers. Watching them do cuts and shaves for the hipsters was worth the wait. Graeme got a haircut and cutthroat razor shave and a Heineken beer was included – rather nice! What a cool place :-).
After that we walked and explored – we were going to go to the famous Central market but when we got there, along with half of the tourist population, we all found that it had closed – boo! So we wondered around and found a craft beer house – I had a virgin cherry beer and it was fantastic. Melbourne is so far behind surprisingly in craft beers, although I probably need to look into them further but what is available over here in Europe, its fantastic so many flavours.
We stopped on the way back at a traditional Hungarian restaurant and ordered paprika chicken with popcorn dumplings to share and another couple of beers then back to our room for a laydown for 45 minutes, before going out again for a wander. We stopped at the burger joint we ate at a couple of days ago which rated really well on TripAdvisor later in the evening, and had a burger and another beer! So nice in this heat. Now we need to tidy up and pack as we have been asked to be ready at 6 am and bags out at 7 am, before leaving for Slovakia.
The one thing we have noticed with being here in the heat of summer, is the smell from the drains everywhere, it’s really strong! Don’t remember it when we were last here as it was much much colder (like snowing colder!). Something funny I have noticed is there is a lot of graffiti on the buildings and their English must be a little sketchy, as I have seen Fak, Fuk and Falk before I saw the correct spelling lmao 😂.
Day 12
Wake up calls at 6 am this morning as we have one of the two long travelling days of the tour. Today we drive from Hungary, through Slovakia and into Poland, where we are stopping in Krakow for two nights. We had a few stops along the way for lunch and toilet stops. Alex our tour director has kindly said he would cover everyone’s restroom cost of 1 euro each time in both countries, since we haven’t been to get any money out yet, which is generous considering they are 33 people on board! He is the youngest tour director we’ve had – maybe in his 30s and lives in Perth, but comes over for European summers to do tours like ours – highlights of eastern Europe/summer. Our bus driver is Lazlo and he has an impressive handlebar moustache like Graemes! He is a really smooth driver which is so nice – we always remember the driver we had in England some years ago who we all named miserable Mike- he never smiled and always drove by surging then hitting the brakes, the whole way around the UK! So we are very appreciative of Lazlo :-).
The temperature has remained fairly constant as we move through to Poland – went down to 27° but is back up to 30° in Kraków. But not unpleasant.
We travelled for 8 1/2 hours today and everyone is feeling pretty achy but great not to have to worry about how to get there too as the road all the way was single lane and very narrow from Budapest.
We are here for two nights, and a very early wake up at 5 am tomorrow for the salt mines tour.
We are staying at a Mercure which is rather upmarket and lucky us got a high floor on the very end room :-) we have an interesting view of both the very old and the very new out our window, with a traditional house on one side of the road and a brand-new shopping centre on the other. We are staying in the old district which looks really interesting.
We have included dinner tonight in the hotel and then bed!
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3 comments:
Good you’ve got a good driver and an nice guide.
Nice writing on the travel blog Denise and loving the photos , jaysus ye are outdoing the Irish on the beer on this trip though aye :)
Hahaha love it Karl! When in Rome ....
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