Final word from Budapest. Really a lovely city, but like the three cities of this trip Warsaw/Krakow, Sarajevo and Budapest, they all have complex and compelling histories that require an effort to understand which, in fact, makes visiting them intriguing with lots to learn.
Today, I wasn’t going to do much, it gets a bit exhausting, and it seems to have heated up here in the last few days. So I started meandering around the shops but the shops didn’t have much to interest me…it seems to me that there is little you can’t buy anywhere in the world so I have bought very little on this trip (heads up!!).
Then I decided to go to the Palace District. Another area full of gorgeous buildings, many of which are old palaces. First stop was the National Museum, one of those grand colonnaded buildings that don’t inspire much interest in me. I didn’t go in, the thought of another Museum just doesn’t grab me. The totally hopeless little Budapest book I bought (and it is hopeless…I’m back to my LPG in future) recommended a restaurant that oozed the ‘belle epoque”… well the dish I ordered, veal something or other, seemed to me to have been cooked in the Belle Epoque..it was so tough I almost dislocated my jaw to be able to swallow it. It was next to the Museum and it did have a gorgeous interior but that’s about all.
I wandered around the area looking at some lovely examples of art deco buildings but once again I was walking down beautiful streets that were being dug up and looking at beautiful buildings (The Museum of Applied Arts) that were behind hoarding and all you could see was the glorious green tiled roofing above the hoarding. Such a shame. But lovely squares to rest in. After I finished walking I jumped on a tram and a bus and had a good sense of where I was heading so got back to the hotel very efficiently albeit, again, very hot and sweaty.
I’d had some cheese left over from dinner last night which I asked them to pack up for me so I bought a bottle of wine and haven’t descended for dinner tonight as I start to get organised and packed up to go to the airport in the morning. I’ve worked out the public bus that goes to the airport so should be able to manage that. Tomorrow Roma. I think Chris is picking me up from the airport although I have told her I don’t need the service, but having said that it’s always nice.
As I said,it’s been great but with only a week left my thoughts are increasingly turning to getting home.