Wednesday, September 30, 2015
I was up first today at about 20 of 7am! Breakfast buffet
was about the same. We were out on the street again around 9am. No HOHO bus
today. We are finished with our 48 hour tickets. So, we walked around the
corner and about a half block to go downstairs to Keleti Metro Red 2 line. We
took it over to Deak Ferenc station to change to Metro 1 Yellow line. I think
Yellow 1 line is a lot older than the other lines! We took Metro 1 out to Hosok
tere or Heros’ Square. We had missed this part of town using the HOHO Big Bus.
After walking around, we found a bus stop for bus 105 to get back down by the
Danube. I wanted to see Andrassy Street since it supposed to be Budapest’s Champs
Ellyses. Unfortunately, the bus was crammed full and we couldn’t see anything
between the low leafy trees and the people standing and sitting in the bus. Oh,
well we tried. We went down to the river embankment to walk between the Chain
Bridge and Parliament to look for the Holocaust Memorial of bronze shoes along
the river embankment. It was very moving. Near the end of the war, the Nazis
lined up Jews and tied them together with ropes, then to save bullets they
would shot one and when he fell in the Danube and was swept away, the others would
be dragged along and drowned. This also spared disposing of bodies. It was an
awful time and this is to remember. We walked around Parliament and took the 2
tram back and forth along the waterfront before taking the Metro back to Deak
Ference ter. to look for lunch. Nothing opened until noon. We weren’t all that
hungry yet, but our 3-hour Segway tour started at 12:30pm and ended at 3:30pm
so we knew we needed to eat something now. We found a street stall place with
some seating on Vorosmarty ter. and ordered ribs and fries for Clay and a sour
cream & cheese langos. This is a big round flat piece of salty fried bread
dough. It was interesting and certainly was filling. We arrived at Segway Tours
Budapest a bit early. They had us sign waivers and then gear up. They loaned us
helmets and quilted vests. We would spend quite a bit of time near or crossing
the Danube and the wind was strong and chilly. They told us it was supposed to
be about 23C here again by the weekend! You couldn’t tell it by the
temperatures for the past couple of days in the teens C. Anyway, we were joined
by a father and 2 kids for the first hour. The father was very uncomfortable with
the Segway and his kids were a menace racing around in circles. The last 2
hours was just us and the guide, Zoltan. It was quite pleasant and informative.
We crossed the Chain Bridge over to Buda and toured the Castle district (those
cobblestones were much easier on our big wheeled Segways than on foot
yesterday!) and then crossed back over to Pest via the Elizabeth Bridge. It was
a good tour. We saw a lot on both sides that we had not previously seen. We saw
the last Communist monument left in the city and right near it, the US Embassy.
After the tour ended, we walked back to Zoltan’s favorite chimney cake place that
he had pointed out to us. Cafe Molnar’s Kurtoskalacs. We had a great view of
them making them, rolling out the dough, cutting it into strips, buttering the wood
dowel, wrapping the dough, flattening it out then buttering in and rolling it
in sugar, putting the dough-covered spits in the special ovens to spin and
bake, then pressing them in the various flavors. They re-bake the almond ones
to toast the nuts! It was also a tastier cake than the street stands we
thought. They cut it in half and served it on a plate unlike on the street
where you just unwind the cylinder to eat it. Here you just eat little half
circles at a time. Now for the big reveal! We took the Metro to the 2 tram and went
out to Mahart 8 on the Danube to look for Amadeus Silver II which should have
arrived this afternoon. We had been by the docking spot in the morning and it
was empty. When we got back this evening there were actually 2 Amadeus boats
docked there and one in front of them. We were so relieved. Fingers crossed that
we are breaking our river cruising curse! We have yet to sail the Danube, but
at least tomorrow when we arrive there will be a boat there and that puts us
ahead of where we usually start out on river cruises! For dinner, we walked
back to Basilika where we had soup with bread on top 2 days ago for lunch. We
really liked it and wanted another bowl each so that is what we did. It was
especially good since it was so cold and blustery today.
We got new 24 hour transit passes so we are set for getting
around before we take a cab down to Mahart 8 from Royal Park Boutique Hotel
tomorrow at 2pm.
