Arriving Hungary

We left Austria for Budapest in Hungary, where we would spend only one night, and most of the following day.

Unfortunately when we arrived at the Budapest train station we were almost totally preoccupied with something unrelated to sightseeing. Tom’s suitcase. We weren’t sure if it was going to make it, or whether it would die a horrible death on the footpath somewhere.

This is what it looked like on the train platform.

See those poor little wheels, bending under the pressure?

To get to our hotel, we needed to switch to the underground railway, and then walk a relatively short distance from there. We seriously considered a cab, but decided to give it a shot, risktakers that we are.

Here’s Tom stressing on the underground.

And carrying the giant heavy thing up the stairs.

And then when we were about six metres from the door of our hotel, this happened.

Considering the timing, we were pretty lucky. At least it didn't happen half way through a 1km walk from train station to hotel.

I’m afraid our suitcase dramas flew from my mind the minute I entered the doors of our hotel, though.

Because our hotel was bee-yuu-tiful!!

Here I am sitting on that gorgeous chair taking advantage of the free cable Internet.

Once I had oohed and aahed at our hotel enough to annoy anyone, even someone with Tom’s patience for my decorating exuberance, we went out and started seeing what Budapest had to offer.

We couldn’t figure out what this fountain would do next, so to avoid a complete drenching, Tom chickened out of leaping over the water this time around, unlike in Salzburg.

Here’s another gorgeous tiled roof.

We thought the sight of these two pigeons kissing was adorable. Well, we decided that even if that wasn’t really what they were doing, at sunset, on the banks of the Danube, they would be kissing in our minds.

How’s this for a juxtaposition of old and new?

We spent a bit of time wandering down the main shopping street (at least the main one for tourists)

We found some more hats to try on.

What do you think?

This one's definitely the winner, in my view.

We eventually moved on and went in search of a more practical kind of product – dinner!

Here’s a goulash soup…

And then paprika chicken…

And mine is some kind of paprika veal, I think. They like their paprika in Hungary.

We even splurged a bit and ordered a dessert crepe, as night fell.

And then we went a’wandering again.

We had grand plans to see more of Budapest from a different angle at nightfall, so started investigating our options. More to come on that subject very soon!