Saturday, 2 September 2017
Apart from Stockholm and Helsinki, Budapest was the only city on our trip in which we would be spending more than three days. That was due both to thinking the city had a lot to offer and also that we felt we would be rather tired by the time to this point.
The second of these was certainly true so we were glad we had our last full day in Budapest touring around the countryside and getting a couple of hours floating down the Danube via the "
Danube Bend Day Trip from Budapest".
We got picked up from the apartment by taxi early and, Robyn being who she is, managed to get the best seat on the bus - directly behind the driver.
A short tour through the outskirts of Budapest and an hour or so later we were in
Esztergom, a city about 50 kilometers outside Budapest, and the site of the largest
cathedral in Hungary.
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| Cathedral facade |
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| Vaulted ceiling |
Once the capital of the country, the city sits overlooking the Danube and towards Slovakia on the other bank.
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| View of the Danube and Slovakia |
And sometimes it's good to get a reverse angle.
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| View of the cathedral from the Slovakian bank |
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Lunch followed with an excellent chat with a group of Israeli medicos who were attending a conference in Budapest over the coming few days. And then it was on to the artists' village of
Szentendre. Full of little cobble-stoned streets, small shops and a market, it is a bit of a tourist trap but wasn't overly crowded, and we ran into a couple of Americans who had been with us on our walking tour of Vilnius a few weeks before.
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| Szentendre main square |
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| Tiny street between houses |
We picked up the boat from the town and then floated back down the Danube to Budapest over the next hour and a half. Coming into the city in this way gives you a taste of the sights that the river cruise boats get and you can see why these are becoming so popular.
We hadn't done a lot this day but it was a good way to end up the trip in a relaxing manner. We splurged a bit on dinner that night.
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