Eastern Europe: Budapest Day #3

So who is this big tour group in our hotel?  Turns out it’s Rick Steves “Best of Eastern Europe”.  We’ve been using Rick Steves guide books for almost a month now.

What do the retired people do in Budapest?  It looks like they all go to “the baths”.  There were hundreds of them at just one bath this morning, Szechenyi.  Although Rick Steves highly recommends the baths and so does my cycling and blogger friend Bob Lynn, I didn’t see much value in sitting in a luke-warm pool with a bunch of really old people. (Can a 75 year old really say that?) Sure, there were some young people but all on vacation.

For lunch, we had ice cream and coffee at the New York Cafe, “The most beautiful cafe in the world”.  And who can argue?  With live classical music, Starbucks this is not.  However Starbucks cappuccino is much better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the mid 1800’s when Franz Josef ruled the Austro-Hungarian empire, he donated $2,000,000 (well two million of something) toward building the Budapest Opera house on the condition that it be smaller than the Vienna Opera house.  But when he arrived for the first concert, he was pissed because the Budapest Opera House was much more ornate and better decorated than the one in Vienna.  Allegedly, he never returned to the Budapest Opera (although his wife did).

Tonight we’re celebrating the end of the trip with a night cruise on the Danube.