In the Budapest

Howdy kids. We spent the day walking around Budapest, the Buda side, checking out Castle Hill and Gellert Hill, where we unsuccessfully searched for an elusive underground resevoir, and stopping by the Central Market on the way to this little Internet Cafe with the world's slowest computer. Okay, not the slowest. But maybe the most annoying.

Anyway. We have more pictures for you, and commentary!

This was our first of two ferry crossings two days ago, from just outside Esztergom to the town of Szob. Good view of the hills that Hungary seems to have a lot of around the Duna "knee." Good view of Erin, too.

Very nice path out of Szob, with the river on our right. We were certainly impressed by the bike paths during the whole trip. Only those few gravel patches in Slovakia and a few road stretches in Hungary; the vast majority was path for the whole 180 miles or so.

Well labeled, but in Hungarian.

Two nights ago we stayed in Szentendre, just a twenty minute drive from Budapest (the ride took us a little longer). When we arrived the place was crawling with tourists and there were cheap trinket shops everywhere. Kind of crazy. Definitely very different from all the towns we had been to so far. At about 5 all the tourists got on their buses back to Budapest, the trinket shops closed, and Szentendre became a nice, quiet little town. We watched France v. Portugal in a little local bar/cafe and had a dinner of chicken stroganoff, with mushrooms and pickles. Hmm. Yum!

Even as we entered the big city, there were nice, mostly well-marked paths. Even designated sidewalk space for bikes. As we made our way to our hostel we made an obligatory stop across from the impressive Parliament building. Pretty much one of the coolest looking buildings I've ever seen. We'll check it out up close tomorrow, when we explore the Pest side of the river.

Another shot of Parliament, from the Fisherman's Bastion, on top of Castle Hill.

Another of the sights on Castle Hill. Some of the buildings had colored ceramic roof tiles. Very nice touch, you Hungarians.

We spent about 2 hours at the train station yesterday, trying to figure out how to get to Slovenia on Sunday. "Bicycles very difficult," the information lady informed us. It took the ticket lady forever to figure out how we were getting where, and what it would cost. We finally got tickets through Salzburg, 17(!) hours just to get to our relatively close destination. Of course, 6 hours of that is in Salzburg, from 3-9 am. We're planning to ride out and catch the sunrise somewhere over the mountains before we have to catch our train. Maybe some breakfast, too.

Time for a shower and siesta. Both of us have sun rashes (dang NW sun doesn't give us any level of tolerance), and are constantly sweaty sticky. But oh well! We're having fun!