It always takes us a while to get going on the first day of a trip as it takes ages to get everything in some kind of order after being crammed in the suitcase. It was a very hot night despite the air con being on the entire time. After a very good breakfast with fruit salad, bread and jam and tea and fitted with my camera, we headed out for our first day of exploring with our digital travel card all ready.
We took the tram to the Parliament building and once off, the heat was stifling - the tickets works brilliantly. The building is very impressive but the full impact will be from the other side of the Danube on the Buda side. I found the Holocaust memorial of many shoes cast in bronze on the edge of the river Danube near the Parliament building but although beautifully cast, they were not quite as I had envisaged. They were covered in tea lights and yellow ribbons and seem to have been adopted by Israelis on behalf of people taken hostage by Hammas. An obviously awful event but not actually anything to do with the Holocaust and I felt the memorial was rather devalued, especially by people taking off their flip-flops to photograph them along side the bronze cast shoes. It didn’t photograph too well so we walked on towards some other sites. It was baking so we stopped at a little cafe with interesting cameras on display and tried our first Hungarian lemonade - mine was strawberry favoured with fresh fruit and Colin went for mixed berry - delicious.
Out into the heat again to see the statue of Ronald Reagan - very accurate although apparently he did not actually visit Budapest… towards St Stephens church which was not as old as I had expected so we didn’t bother going in, past a statue of a Victorian policeman nicknamed Uncle Karl who has his stomach rubbed for good luck and apparently exertion from any weight due to Hungarian food?! We were definitely flagging now so we started to head back to the apartment via the large synagogue. The building was very impressive but at nearly thirty pounds each to go in, we declined and continued the walk back for an afternoon siesta.
The only downside of the apartment is that the air-con is not very efficient but other than that it is lovely, massive and very comfortable.
Later in the day we headed out again to the metro, this time venturing onto the Buda side of the river for the first time as we had a dinner reservation at the famous Kasca (duck restaurant) kindly made for us by our host when I asked him. I found this restaurant months ago when I first thought of Budapest as a birthday destination for Colin until I discovered that the weather was mostly cold rain in November!
The sun was starting to set and the Parliament building looked really impressive from this side of the river.
We easily found the restaurant and headed in a little early but our table was waiting. The meal was excellent and I had to go for an avocado starter followed by the roast duck with a sour cherry sauce while Colin went for the wild duck and a warning to look out for any shot (luckily there wasn’t any!). The food was excellent and for most of the evening we were accompanied by a pianist and violinist who were also very good and cam to take requests at the table. It was a memorable meal and a second good meal in the city. The temperature was still in the mid twenties as we caught the metro home again.
It was dark when we finally left and the views of the parliament building across the river were stunning and to add to the magic, there was a large flock of what I think are seagulls circling in the thermals above the building - it is a classy view of the city and made todays photo!
