Day 03 - Thursday 11th Aprl

We woke this morning at about 6:15am. It was great to have a good night's sleep after the long trip from Sydney to Budapest via Doha. My weather app said it was currently 11C and raining.

At about 7:30am, we went downstairs to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. It was very impressive. The food was good and so was the service. There was plenty of choice. I was impressed with their pastries and the fruit. The waitress organised a delicious omelette for me.

Around the restaurant, there were various sayings written on blackboards. My favourite was "stressed is desserts spelled backwards".

Chris and Janet were keen to get out of their hotel across the road and move into ours. They had arranged to bring their bags across at 9am and meet us in the foyer. Suzy went downstairs at 9am to meet them and stayed with them while they had breakfast. I stayed in the room to catch up on my blog.

At 10am, Chris and I set off to walk to the nearby Vodafone shop. I wanted to buy a local SIM for my mini WiFi whereas he had bought a local SIM yesterday for his mobile phone and had some questions for them.

None of the staff spoke fluent English but in the end, we got what we wanted. The salesman sold me a SIM with 5GB of data and assured me it would work in other European countries. He said I would be able to top it up online.

At about 11am, the four of us set off to explore Budapest. We walked past the Sofitel Hotel where we had stayed last time and then walked across the Chain Bridge.

Our objective was to go to the castle that is at the top of the hill on the other side of the Chain Bridge (the Buda side). Normally you would catch the funicular to get to the top but, as luck would have it, the funicular is closed this week for maintenance.

Instead we bought tickets to catch the mini tourist bus that does a circle through the main tourist spots on the hill. You can get on and off as many times as you like. There is a bus every 8 minutes.

We got off at the first stop at the top of the hill which is outside the castle. Our bus driver told me that the president has recently moved into the castle and therefore there would be lots of police around.

After about 10 minutes of strolling around the buildings, we heard commotion further along. There was a brass band and a military parade. It turns out that there is a changing of the guard ceremony at noon.

By the time we rushed over there, a large crowd had gathered around and we stood at the rear trying to take photos over their heads. However, I was lucky because where I ended up standing was the path they took at the end of the parade and so I got plenty of great photo opportunities.

Then we walked further along the walkway past the castle which gave us fabulous views of the Danube River below and the various buildings along the river and elsewhere on the Pest side of the river.

Next we strolled back towards the bus stop where we caught the shuttle bus to the stop just past the Church. We took some photos here but did not dwell too much because we knew we would be coming back here in a couple of days as part of the APT river cruise.

Since it was after 1pm by this time, we started looking for somewhere to eat. We walked down a street opposite the plaza that contains the church. The first cafe looked very popular but it only sold coffee and cake. Next we went to Jamie's Italian Restaurant but there was a long queue.

The next restaurant was not busy and had plenty of tables outside so we could admire the view back to the church and the passing parade of tourists. We had a very pleasant meal and shared a bottle of Hungarian red wine.

Next we wanted to go to the Hospital in the Rock which wasn't far away. We took the elevator to the bottom of the cliff and walked a short distance to the entrance where we spent some time negotiating with the attendant to convince him to give us the half price entry fee for seniors.

Then we waited for the 3pm tour. The site started as a series of caves but was re-purposed as a hospital in World War II. It consists of a long series of tunnels and small rooms carved into the side of the hill about 10m to 20m underground. After the war it became a nuclear war bunker.

Now it is a museum for tourists. The tour started with a movie describing the history. Our guide then took us through many of the tunnels where there were life-sized displays of the conditions during the war. There were full-size mannequins dressed as doctors, nurses, soldiers, patients etc.

We saw the operating theatre, wards, control rooms, etc. Nowadays, the tunnels are air-conditioned. Altogether there are more than 1km of tunnels. It was a real eye opener and quite confronting at times.

We caught the lift back up to the top of the cliff and then walked along the street lined with cherry blossom trees. Then we caught the bus back down the hill to the Chain Bridge.

Janet was keen to see the Jewish shoes. This is a memorial on the edge of the Danube on the Pest side about 500m from the Chain Bridge. This memorial is dedicated to the Jewish people who were murdered and pushed into the river.

For dinner, we booked into the Red Pepper restaurant. Once again we made the booking early. We set off from the hotel to find it and got lost several times partly because of the construction work happening in nearby streets. When we found it, it turned out to be quite close to our hotel (by a direct route rather than the way we'd gone).

The restaurant wasn't crowded and we had a good meal. The other three had pork knuckles and loved them. The beer that Chris ordered was a generous size.

After dinner we decided to take a ride on the ferris wheel in Elisabeth Park opposite the hotel This brightly lit ferris wheel is known as the Budapest Eye. It is a very large ferris wheel but not as big as the London Eye.

It is obviously a popular attraction especially for your people. It gives you an excellent view of the city. It was particularly pretty with the city lights and the illuminated buildings. Photos didn't turn out too well because of the reflections in the plastic windows.

It had been a very busy day with lots of walking - about 16,000 steps. Despite the forecasts, we had encountered numerous puddles but no rain. We were in bed at 10pm.