This morning I woke up and pleasantly surprised that my luggage was delivered last night.
Due to a couple of days with less than optimal sleep I started the day a bit later than I wanted. I had breakfast inside the hotel (a room of the amazing New York Cafe).
I took the metro and bus up Castle Hill to Matthias Church and Fishermen’s Bastion. I didn’t realize that Fishermen’s Bastion was simply a lookout over Pest. I was able to save the 1,000 HUF and found a couple of viewpoints that didn’t require purchasing a ticket.
Since the sun was still in the wrong direction I took the bus back down to the chain bridge and took some pictures of the Buda side (Buda Castle, Matthias Church, Fishermen’s Bastion).
I returned to Castle Hill by bus (I’m not crazy enough to hike up the hill). I justified purchasing the 1,800 HUF ticket to climb the Matthias Church tower by saving the 1,000 HUF by skipping the Fishermen’s Bastion. The tower had 197 steps – I didn’t count, but someone did and even labeled a few points in the small circular staircase. There was one small room on the way up with some artifacts and two other levels with bells. The view of Parliament was very good from the tower, although it isn’t bad from the river either.
After climbing down the tower staircase I went inside the church. It was dark, but very nicely decorated.
I decided to walk over towards the Palace… and actually walked down the hill to catch a bus to the Opera house. Unfortunately the Opera house is undergoing a massive renovation so the main auditorium was closed and the entire facade was covered with scaffold. The tour went to a few rooms, the buffet and the smoking section (sectioned off to protect the paintings in the buffet, not to protect humans from the smoke).
After the tour of the Opera house it started to rain, unfortunately I didn’t take my rain jacket with me in the morning. I then took the metro to St Stephen’s basilica. I went up to the lookout, it stopped raining briefly while I was outside taking pictures. The inside of the church (free) is amazing, but there was a mass going on when I was visiting, so I didn’t take any photos, I’ll have to go back.
I watched the sunset from the Pest side of the Danube.
I tried a Hungarian food… fried bread with sour cream and cheese. It was good, but not something I will crave in the future like the roasted bone marrow I had in France.