We took a train from Prague to Budapest and checked into a great hotel that David had picked out. We got a good laugh out after we scammed the taxi scammer. The taxi driver at the bus station told us it was a fixed price in zone 1 of 45 euros. I was a little skeptical about the price, especially when I realized how close the hotel was. As soon as we pulled up to the hotel I ran in and got the clerk from the front desk. We paid him about 7 euros instead of 45! Boy was he annoyed.
We spent the evening just exploring Budapest starting with a few minutes at the Saturday service at the Catholic church across from the hotel. On the next corner we were pulled into another church by some young adults to offer prayers on bits of paper. Mine were for Shaun’s recovery as they were all across Europe.
We ate dinner at The Museum, a fine dining establishment near the hotel. We went looking for the ruin pubs neighborhood in the Jewish Quarter. We peeked in a few and thought our kids would love to spend a Saturday night here.
It was very helpful to have the data plan on our phones and access to Google maps.
While we were having fun in Budapest we worried about hurricane Irma which was turning into a ferocious storm.
The Gellert Baths
On Sunday, before we checked into the river cruise, we had a quintessential Budapest experience, the thermal baths. We could go either to the ones in City Park where Judy and I went in 2015 or to the Gellert Hotel which was a short walk from our hotel across the “green bridge”. We rousted Pat and David out of their room for a hotel breakfast and then we all went to Gellert Baths. It was a lovely experience for all of us. We went back and forth between the hot and cold pools outside. The cold pool becomes a wave pool every hour. These spas were built in 1918 on the Buda side of the Danube River and is famous for its Art Nouveau style.
