Budapest; Sunday, 20 December, 2015

In the morning I was feeling quite a bit better, with just some bruising on my arm, but it was pretty clear when I went to sit down for breakfast that I’d bruised that area, as it was quite uncomfortable to sit down – which made it all the more irritating as I’d mostly planned to spend the day seeing the sights from a hop-on-hop-off bus.

I decided to risk it anyway, and with some careful and occasionally tender corrections to seating style I was able to do the buses without too much pain.

Given the weather forecast for the rest of my time in Budapest I’d decided to use the cheaper of the multitude of companies that offer hop-on-hop-off tours. They are cheaper because they don’t have open-top buses, unlike much of the rest of the competition, which in summer probably hurts their business, but looking at the bedraggled and soaked occupants of some of the open-top buses going round town, I was quite glad for the sealed roof and dry seats.

The tour I booked onto had two routes and I did one full circuit of their Red line, before swapping onto the Yellow line to do that.

Several hours later, back at Elizabeth square, I grabbed a bite to eat and a quick coffee, before hoping back on a red route bus to take it round the city at sunset (or murk darkening as it was again given the day’s weather).

After having done much of the tour the bus was heading towards the final couple of stops when it became clear that the Sunday evening traffic in Budapest was not good, so the driver took a free-style route, skipping out the last two stops but ensuring we made it back to the centre of town without getting stuck in too many traffic jams. It did mean that we went sailing past my hotel and I then had to track back there to drop stuff off and freshen up before heading back out for dinner.

Back up into the castle area for dinner again, at a different restaurant, this time one on the level with only a single step up into it so no risk of further injury.

After a very nice dinner, if very quiet as I was the only diner in the restaurant, I had a little bit of a wander around the castle before catching the bus and tram back to the hotel and a good night’s sleep

Weather

Misty Misty
AM PM
Mild (0-10C, 32-50F)
6ºC/43ºF