Budapest of Baths, Squares and Piers

We had breakfast at our apartment with the full fledged kitchen. After a long debate as to how to start the day we decided to the Szeneychi baths first. We had already purchased one cabin and three locker tickets at 5% discount from the reception yesterday. The cost was 16000HUF, the towels rent was 700HUF for 3 towels. We again purchased the family day metro card and reached the baths. The cabin room was at the ground floor and all four of us could use it. We went to both the heated pools one by one. It was great to lie in the warm water. With great difficulty I persuaded them to one out of the water at 12noon. 

Outside the baths we had some snacks from a vendor. Bread with cream and cheese. Coke potato wedges, some sandwiches.

Then we walked towards the Heroes square.

Then we walked down the Andrassy avenue towards the House of Terror. Though they were great exhibitions, but not in English and mainly concerning the history of Hungary we could have given it a miss. We were looking for a book cafe, which we did not find, meanwhile Soumya realized that she had dropped her jacket in the House of terror. My phone got discharged, which was a big setback as we were mainly navigating with my phone through trip advisor's city guide, which did not need an Internet connection. Walking on Andrassy avenue was lovely almost like the Champs Élysées in Paris, but we were all tired, so we took the metro back to the apartment. The apartment we had in Budapest was the best accomodation so far. It was almost as big as home. After resting for a while we again ventured out and decided to do some shopping too. We bought some ties from Kaczan ties, did a bit of souvenir shopping, then decided to go to castle hill.

As we were dead tired we decided to take a taxi.

He dropped us at castle hill. There were very few shops which were open. We sat in a cafe.  

Debated about going to Mathias Church. It seemed along walk, but we decided to go and it was well worth it. The Fisherman's Bastion was especially great and not at all to be missed.

The Fisherman's Bastion

The view from Fisherman's Bastion

The Mathias Church

The Buda Castle

The Mathias church was also worth visiting and the choir was singing in the church. A gentleman atthe door told us that if you go inside the church then you must stay till the end. After leaving the church, we decided to go down using the funicular, which was a waste as the tickets had to be bought separately and they were not included in the day pass.

 At the bottom of the Funicular.

Then we took the bus to Deak Ferenc ter and the metro from there

Claustrophilia - the Room Escape Game in Budapest

We reached our hotel and put our luggage in the room next to the reception. We would only get our room at 2pm. Meanwhile we had to reach by 11:30am to the venue of our Room Escape game "claustrophilia",which we had booked on internet, while planning the trip in India. Payment was to be made after the game. With the help of the Trip Advisor City Guide on my phone, we were able to find our way in Budapest and reach the building which housed Claustrophilia.

A dental clinic on the way to the metro station

We walked from our hotel to Deak ferenc ter, the main metro station and bought a family card for 3300  HUF. We reached the building where the room escape game was to be played 10minutes before time, and spoke to a lady at no 10.on speaker phone. The door was open for us and when we went inside and shut the door we were locked inside and had to search for clues and with their help locate the key to the door and hence escape from the locked room. It was one fun filled hour, we did not know when the time passed, it was an interesting game, full of surprises. We were being watched on CCTV and the lady concerned gave us hints at two major places, we were able to get out of the room in 1hr and 5mins. It was a great fun activity for us as a team and as a family. The cost was 5000 forins.

Then we went to The Dohany street Synagogue which was just nearby, world's second largest synagogue, the first being The Dohany street Synagogue in New York. We took a ticket for the synagogue and museum both and both were guided english tours.

       The tree of life at the Synagogue.

After that we made our way back via the metro to our apartment.

The Gozsdu court apartments were really comfortable. In the evening we had booked a dinner & show cruise on the Danube from 8pm. We planned to reach there at least half an hour before time. The operettaship left from pier 8A. We crossed three ships to reach our ship. We had a really wonderful evening that day. The cost was 39000 HUF.

At the metro station

The dinner was great, the ambience good. And performance was excellent. The view was simply amazing.

Krakow Glowny to Budapest keleti - by sleeper train.

These two journeys, to and fro from Krakow, I have deliberately put on the blog, because we had a tough time getting these tickets and that too, was through a third party, Czech-Transport.com, not the official railway website itself.

These were the tickets which had been the most difficult to purchase. Quite a bit of time which we spent planning, was devoted to this leg of the journey, and these were the costliest tickets too. Contrary to the impression which one gets through reviews on the internet, the station in Krakow was good. The best part was that there was a lift direct from the parking to the platform. As we already had the ticket with us we went to our designated platform and there was hardly any walking involved with the luggage. We went down the escalator from the platform to confirm our train number as the number on the ticket and that on the display board was not matching.

Our ticket this time was in couchette(equivalent to sleeper in India). It was a compartment of six berths but had been given to us as four berths. We had the compartment to ourselves and the water closet was outside. It was cramped after all our luggage came in. As there were heaters installed below the berths there was not enough space for the luggage. The compartment was not air conditioned and neither did it have any fans. It was a little stuffy initially but as the train started it became pleasant.

Budapest Keleti. 

Once reaching Budapest, we had to buy tickets to Vienna, as it was not possible to purchase them on the net. At the international ticket counter. There were small boxes from where you could get a token number, and the number was displayed on the counter where you were supposed to go. 

The clerk was helpful because she asked us if we were traveling as a family and advised us to take a return ticket, instead of one way, to Vienna, because it worked out to be cheaper, as then  our 13yr old would travel free. We had asked us for the 5am tickets but she said that as maintenance work was going on, the train is usually late, so better to go for the 6:30am one. We were more than happy that she had taken the pains to help us.

Just outside the station towards the left was the taxi stand, from where we took the taxi to our apartment.