Sunday, August 24, 2025
Last day in Budapest. I would say this is my second (to London) favorite city I have visited.
We had nothing planned. After we checked out, we took an Uber to the Central Market. We’d seen the beautiful building and thought we could spend time looking through the shops on the second floor. Sadly, not really. On this entire trip, each place we visited, there were only a few shops and they were all souvenir places. Most importantly, and disappointingly, they all had the same thing. Central market was exactly the same – same thing over and over (lots of paprika in Hungary). We didn’t last long.
We walked along the river and enjoyed the beautiful view of the chain bridge and Matthias church. The bridge was sunk and the church mostly blown up during WWII, so it is amazing that they have been rebuilt for us to enjoy today. (It has been really strange to hear all the war and destruction stories when Hungary was allied with Germany. We are not used to hearing from the other side. Also, the other side was the Red Army, so it is equally hard to grasp they were on our side).
We walked down a beautiful street toward the Parliament building. We took a lot of pictures, but had yet to be up close to it. As we walked in the cool, sunny weather (wonderful!!) I mentioned I was surprised Keith hadn’t mentioned going back to Fisherman’s Bastion (area around the beautiful Matthias church) to shop in the cool store we saw yesterday. He said he was waiting for me to mention it. I said I thought we had enough stuff in our house and we should economize and he said, “Uber will take us there (up up up the hill) for $7 and there are 4 of them parked right there.” (Ubers here are bright yellow taxis and they are EVERYWHERE). Off we went.
The store was even more fun inside than it was from the window. We bought the ceramic bowl/canoe and we’re super happy to have an art from Budapest.
These art women captured my attention.
We finally had a chimney cake. They have been everywhere, but we have not been hungry. They wrap dough around a cylinder on a stake and then they roll over a coal fire. They cover them in sugar or other flavors and you pull and unravel it. We ordered a small one with ice cream and pistachio cream. A tasty funtivity for sure.
Our hotel room for tonight is at CitizenM by the airport. Last time we were here, our room was quite different – with the shower and toilet in room behind screens. Now we have a separate room for them ( with glowing purple walls). Our next flight is in 11 hours – which seems pretty perfect.
We arrived at the airport 3 hours before our flight. We tried to check in, but you cannot until 2 hours before your flight. Luckily we scored two of the dozen chairs this side of security.
We got sandwiches from Upper Crust, and a Coke zero from the lounge, then we were on the plane. The plane with no entertainment whatsoever. Even my library book on my phone stopped working after 30 pages. Thankfully the trip is only 1 hour 50 minutes.
