July 11, 2013 - Eger, Hungary

This morning Roger, Amanda & I had to be at the travel agency by 9 for our tour to Eger.  Even with stopping at the pastry shop we got there a half hour early.

It ended up just being the tour guide and us.  It took about 90 minutes to drive to Eger.  I do not know how people can afford to drive in Europe. Gas is about $8.00 a gallon and you have to pay for parking no matter where you go.

After parking the car we walked up to the castle.

They were the first to defeat the Turks due to this fortress.

We waited with all the school children that were here for a field trip, while our tour guide paid the entrance fee.

There was a little old Hungarian woman selling some items.

Our guide (don't ask what his name is because I couldn't tell you, although he did say it was a Turkish name) gave us a history lesson while taking advantage of the shade.











There were very good views from up here of the city below.












The people of Eger after their occupation from the Huns realized they needed to build a fortress out of stone and up on a hill.
Which is what helped them defeat the Turks the first time, but they were not so lucky the second time.














We could see people walking on a tiny balcony of the Minaret. It is 130' tall.  The cross on top represents the Christian victory over the Ottoman's.

 He then took us on a walk through the city.



















Dobo Square

He gave us the history of the Minorite Church.

He wanted to show us the gates at the entrance to the County Hall but they had been removed and this is all that was left.

 Although they did have other iron gates for the side entry.

E in Eger Cathedral is the 2nd largest church in Hungary.

The organ pipes for all the churches we have been in are like pieces of art.

When you walk out of the cathedral you are facing the Lyceum (Liceum), which was built in the 18th century and was the most impressive teacher-training college on the planet.  It had the best books and astronomical equipment money could buy.  It is still a college for teachers today.

After that we headed for lunch.

We started off with a rose' wine and a bowl of soup.

Then came the main course which was really good. It was chicken wrapped in bacon, rice and a salad, which they paired with a red wine.

The last wine was a white dessert wine.












Dessert was a light rum soaked cake with a vanilla cream sauce covered in dry cocoa on top of a chocolate sauce with a side of whipped cream.

With full tummies we headed back to Budapest. You could see the wine cellars that were against the hill.

July 9, 2013 - Hop-On Hop-Off Bus Budapest

This is Erzsebet Square

This morning Roger and I walked over to what I thought was Erzsebet Square but was not.  I had wanted to try to book a tour to Eger that I had seen online but could not book it online since I could not print vouchers.  This is another reason to book stuff ahead of time at home.  But on our way back we found some people selling Hop-On Hop-Off bus tours.  We picked up the information and took it back to the apartment.  We all agreed that this is what we should do so that we could get a better idea of what we wanted to see and where things were.  Well when we went back to the people we talked to, which was two different companies they got into a bidding war and we went with the Red Bus, which the nice thing about them is that their buses had a cover over the top so you weren't sitting in the sun all day but I think the better deal would have been the Blue Bus and later we also saw that there was a Green & Pink bus also.

If you can look past the grit and grim of the big city you can see some beautiful old buildings.









But they are doing a lot of road work all over the Pest side.

The Parliament building, looking from the Buda side is absolutely beautiful.

But not so much from the Pest side.

We look forward to going to the castle tomorrow.  This is the front view of the Fishermen's Bastion and Matthias Church.

Well when we got back to where we started on the first bus, we went back to the apartment to use the facilities and refill our water bottles.  On our way to catch the other bus we stopped and had lunch at Burger King.  We walked a few more blocks to catch the other bus line.

 This tour went more along the Danube.


















 So we got more views of the bridges.

Then we took a boat ride, which was really a waste of time.











It was hot and crowded and didn't really show you anything that you hadn't seen from the bus.

When we got off we walked all the way back to the apartment.


I have to say the people here will go out of their way to help you.  We had two older women try to help us find things today or give us suggestions of things to see or do.  They were very sweet.

July 10th - Budapest Castle Hill, Citadella & Ice

This morning Roger asked me " should I go get fresh pastries for breakfast"?  What kind of question is that????   "Of course you should," was my reply.  Sorry no pictures, they were gobbled up with no thought of pictures.  He is already planning to get some tomorrow so maybe I will take some then.  But I will say they were still warm.  Is it breakfast yet?  

We decided to head up to the castle hill this morning.  So we walked down to try to catch the first Hop-On Hop-Off bus but it was full.  People were yelling at the poor girl because they couldn't get on the bus.  I had asked her if it would be better to walk down to the next stop and she had told me yes.  Well it would have been much better for us to have stayed there, as the area in front of the New York Cafe was at least shady.  But we did get on the next bus at the other stop.

 Matthias Church (Matyas-Templom) is up there.  We did not go in because it does cost money to go in and we felt that we had seen the inside of enough churches that it wasn't worth paying to go in.

As a side note though after we got home I read that it is very nice and holds a lot of history inside.  If we had known that we would have gone in.

This statue is between the church and the Fishermen's Bastion (Halazbastya)

 

This guy had a fierce looking eagle that you could pay to take pictures with.  

 The Fishermen's Bastion looks like it is right out of a fairy tale.

You can pay to go to go up on the top.  But there are plenty of good view points  that are free.

We even saw a young couple taking their wedding pictures. She looked like a princess in her castle court.

We did walk through some of the shops, but we didn't find anything.











 Then we walked over to the castle.  Roger was telling Fred that this is where they grow rocks.  They just put sand in here and add some water and then they grow into rocks.  But really this is the remains of a medieval monastery & church.








 They are excavating the Jewish Quarter area.

We did watch the guards do a little switch of positions but we missed the changing of the guards.


















The Turul Bird is a mythical bird that is part of the Hungarian history folktales.

 Walking down into the castle courtyard we had a good view of the Chain Bridge.

The views of Budapest from up here were amazing.  There are over 2,000,000 people who live here.

We just missed the bus, but at least we could sit while we waited for the next bus to show up.  We then took it over to the Citadella.  There is nothing really over there except booths were people are selling things.  Luckily the bus took a 10 minute break so we were able to hop right back on.  We then took it down to the Erzsebet Square.  Where Roger, Amanda & I were able to purchase tickets for the tour to Eger tomorrow.  It would have saved us money to have booked them ahead of time online from Expedia.com.

Then we walked over to St. Istvan's Basilica (Szent Istvan Bazilika).

Fred, Elaine & Roger went inside but Amanda and I waited outside for them because again they charged a donation to go in.  This one actually wasn't that much but we didn't feel the need to go in.

We had planned to go to dinner at a place that was recommended to us.  We were told the prices were reasonable.  Well we didn't fee that $20 a person was reasonable especially since we didn't even know what we would have been ordering.  So after a search around the area we ended up at KFC.  The best thing about this was we got ICE!!!!  They had the ice machine out were you could fill your cup up with ice and get your own soda.  Since we haven't had ice in almost a month this was like heaven.  We even refilled our cups with just ice and brought it back to the apartment and put the cups in the freezer.

 The couple sitting at the other table against the wall laughed when they saw me take a picture of the ice and bring out the ketchup bottle for the fries.  I know that sounds bad but to have to buy ketchup at crazy prices  for your fries is ridiculous.








This was our bill for dinner.  I bet you never thought you would spend 3.850, for dinner at KFC.  Which comes out to about $17.00.