Arrived by bus Thursday late afternoon, it was long and fairly uncomfortable and to make things so much better with some women yelling at her phone (on speaker no less) most of the 4.5 hour ride.   When you’re 6’5″ tall riding the bus truly sucks..
Took a Tram most of the way to the apartment then hopped on a bus right there that took us to within ~100 feet of our apartment doorway.  Little did I know then that there was a bus stop right in front of our door to the building. We figured that out the next day.
We went out for dinner that first night and found Kismezo right around the corner. I had a great Goulash that was more like soup than what I was used to. But it was great.
Friday morning we had tickets for a guided tour of the Hungarian Parliament building. Wow was that a nice building.  It was a great tour.
Then we headed over to the Funicular to see the city from higher up and check out the castle that is there.  Long line for the Funicular, and its a short ride up. And it was about ~$30 for the 2 of us. Not exactly a bargain for a few minute ride. Especially considering folks over 60 ride all public transit for Free in Budapest! The funicular isn’t public transit apparently.
After the funicular we took a tram over to a Goulash restaurant that had a lot of good reviews. It wasn’t nearly as good as the prior evenings Goulash.  There was way more potato than there was meat in it.
That evening we headed over to the Ruin Bars for a drink then walked back toward the apartment looking for a place to eat. Quite an interesting joint those ruin bars.  I thought it was a bunch of bars in the area, but instead ita a bunch of bars inside a bombed out building.  We had a beer and a Aperol Spritz. We ended up at a Greek joint on the walk home, I had a Giro Plate and Kathy got a Falafal Plate.   After we finished we walked the rest of the way back to the apartment which was just a couple more blocks.
We ended up back at Kismezo for lunch on Saturday. Kathy had a burger and I had the goulash again.
Saturday evening we booked an after sunset one hour cruise on the Danube to view the city lights after dark.  It did not disappoint!  The skyline at night is gorgeous and the Parliament building is the gemstone on the river.
We found that Taxi’s here in Budapest are pretty cheap.  Only cost us $8 from the waterfront to our apartment. And it was the same rate for any size vehicle including a 6 passenger van. The app to use here is called Bolt. Uber is quite a bit more expensive to use here than bolt we stuck with that while in Budapest. They probably just mark up the regular rate that bolt charges for their cut.
