Hong Kong and Eastern Europe Day 5

September 2009

Day 5

We grabbed a quick breakfast of pastries before heading off to the meeting point for our Budapest walking tour. It's often the best way to see the city, and will often help you narrow the long list of possible activities that you can prepared with! This tour covered Hero's square, Vajdahunyad castle, the Szechenyi bath area, St Stephen's Basilica, the Great Synagogue (with it's beautiful memorial left), a trip on the third oldest metro in the world (the 1st on mainland Europe), the opera house, Deak Square, the Chain bridge, a step walk up to the Castle district and finishing off at Fisherman's Bastian (right). While the Pest side is flat and lovely for even those of us that aren't too fit, the walk up the Buda side was another mater, the view however was definitely worth it.

We left our group and after lunch from a local supermarket, we headed back down the hill to go and visit the Terror Museum, which documents Budapest's history during WWII and the Soviet occupation. While I learnt a fair amount, I felt they tried to make it to dramatic and too high tech which took away from the essence of what they were trying to convey, if anyone has visited what the Vietnamese use to call the "American War Museum" in Ho Chi Minh City, the Hungarians could learn a bit about the horrors of war and occupation speaking for themselves.

That night we headed out to dinner at the M Restaurant, a small, quaint Transylvania place, where the walls, lamps, tables and pipework are covered in brown paper! We had a lovely meal, before heading back to our hotel, looking forward to our next days adventure in Budapest.