22/6/19 Buda Castle, Hospital in the rock, tour on the Danube and a new tour group

Today we had a day to ourselves in Budapest.

We had a morning walk to the hop on bus stop. The first bus to come along was the "shopping bus" which stops only at shopping areas.  We hopped on here and took one stop.

A short time later the red bus came along and we hopped on- for one stop.

Now we were at the chain bridge, so we walked across here to the Buda side of the city (across the Danube).   On the way we checked whether the lions did, indeed, have tongues.  We could not see into their mouths,  but we also couldn't see any tongues

chain bridge

you can see the bike chain effect in this picture. 

one of the river boats that cruise along the Danube just passing under the bridge

the furnicular going up the hill on the Buda side 

The Castle seen from the bridge

One of the lions - it is a long way up to check for tongues.

In the square on the far side it was very busy. We were met by a sales person selling tickets to catch  a bus up and around the hill.  Some of our tour group had decided that this was a good way to go the previous day, so we agreed to buy tickets for this.  When the expected bus came along we went to get on, and were told that this was not our bus- we needed to wait for longer!  It turned out that there were at least 3 types of bus doing this route (all very similarly named) and we had bought from one of the "other" firms.

We took our bus (more an elongated electric  large golf cart) to the first stop and got off at the square. As our planned tour did not start until on the hour, we decided to go for a stroll, and walked along the terraces, admiring the view down over the Pest side of the river.
Gardens and terraces cascade down the hill to the river on this side and you could take paths all day and never take the same one.  It  would be fantastic for an orienteering sprint event, with many blind corners, different levels and spectacular as well.

Guards at the Preesdient's place

views form the terraces

Ancient ruins- ? from the Ottoman Empire times

The president lives in this area but basically the castle now holds a museum (as so many seem to) and "the castle" is actually spread across the hill and includes a number of buildings.
There are ruins here as well - rows of stones,  obviously the walls of ancient buildings, - we couldn't figure out exactly what - but maybe from the times of the Ottoman invasion and occupation.



We walked our way around to the hospital in the rock, which was our main goal here, with Trevor managing to identify the small stairway that we needed to take to another level of the hill to find the doorway into the hill which is the entrance to the hospital.  They told us that they were not running tours on the hour, but were waiting for enough people to accumulate for the English language tour and then taking it.  If we waited we could then  be invited to come inside and pay our money, so we found a patch of shade in the hot sun and waited and waited.  It took about half an hour for 20 or so English speakers to build up.  When we did go to pay we found that the price was reduced today because there was some special museum day on - all museums open for free or very cheap until into the night.  We bought an orange arm band and this gave us access to other places which were to be open from about 4pm with this special deal.

The Hospital in the Rock was initially built during the cold war due to the fear of nuclear fall out. Using the natural cave network in this hill (which is extensive) they prepared a whole hospital area which could be used. Later it was used briefly during the 50s and again in 1991 when the city was under siege. (being a little more expanded by then).  At that stage they had 600 people crammed in the musty rooms, ran out of water and started washing out bandages due to lack of stock - causing huge spread of infection.  Bunks were pushed together and 3 people "top and tailed" to keep warm and fit them all in.  We were also shown information about Hiroshima and Nagasaki with chilling reminders of what a nuclear bomb can do - and the ones we have now are  much much larger.

After this chilling tour we walked back out into the hot sunshine, and  to the intricate church on the hill (St Matthias) were we saw one in a long line of brides waiting outside of the doors of the church to be married.  We saw at least 3 but possibly more brides near this church in the hour or so that we were here, so they must have been really pushing them through at a high rate.

We have seen flowers on the bonnet for weddings and for birthdays on this trip

The Fishermans Bastion

Beside a giant chess set you could be challenged to a game by this chess whiz. 

Instead of attending a wedding we ate icecream and looked out over the terraces to the views of Budapest, and watched the old man challenge all comers to chess games and dispense with them within a few moves each time.. Not sure if this was some scam he was working or just a friendly thing to pass the time of day

Since we were unable to locate a green "bus" to take us down again we decided to walk down through the gardens to the chain bridge, and along the bank of the river to the dock for the boat ride which we had bought with our hop on bus tickets (we were eligible to use 2 boat tours) .

houses of parliament from the river

down the ramp

and in she goes

all in a day's sailing

 We caught the 4pm boat and took a ride up and down the river, past the island in the middle.  We saw the water bus take off for a tourist trip, and some of the less central city areas this way.
When the boat docked , we walked home to the hotel and arrived just in time to have a quick wash up before heading out to dinner with out tour group.

We ate at the same restaurant that we had used the previous night, and our old tour leader was there also with his new group.  The service was just as slow.

When we emerged from the restaurant it was raining, so we decided not to go on to see some of the museums, but to go home to bed instead.