Budapest - Glance through visited places

Date of visit: 10th April 2014

Matthias Church in Buda Hill

After we have secured the train tickets to Vienna and Salzburg via Railjet, we were looking for a Budapest Metro station which just beneath the arrival hall, i.e. only 1 level down. The ticketing office and the metro are seated on the same floor. Unable to look for any sign of lift, we had to use the staircase down. To bring down all our luggage using a steep old stairs were a real challenge. We managed it somehow, but, I was dreaming for a porter and a helper that could do that for me, my son perhaps. Thereafter, we bought a 24hours metro passes to be use until the following day. The railjet train was scheduled to depart at Budapest Keleti at around 2pm.

Exploring the coronation hall inside Matthias Church during rain

Utilizing the metro passes, we took the underground metro to K9 Residence, an accommodation that we book through booking.com website. According to the map direction provided by booking.com, we should be stopping somewhere near lTitiz Cafe @ Astoria M Station. It further stated that, it shall take only about 4 minutes walk to reach the hotel from Astoria metro station. I somehow disagreed as it was like a real long time (with the luggages of course, that now becoming a heavy burden to us) to reach the apartment. While waiting for Anne to check-in, I went to grocery store to buy some vegetables so that I can cook the hot vegetable soup. The grocery store just around the corner of the K9 apartment, facing the main street.

Fisherman's Bastion

Once inside the apartment, we were overjoyed as K9 Residence has given us a 2 bedroom apartment with proper kitchen, utensils and everything that we required to cook our meal. For the first time since many days away from home, we had a real proper Malaysian meals. I would like to recommend for you to check out their website, http://www.k9residence.com and see whether you are agreeable with my opinion. In addition, their staff are all indeed very friendly and helpful.

Buda Castle

For some reason, our places of interest proposed visit differs slightly from our original proposed itinerary. There were due to many reasons. After a week, we were exhausted with the unpack and packing back the luggage to catch up with our tight stay in each destination. It was one of the reasons beside the lack of stamina. Not forgotten that we did not prepared physically for the walk, too much walking for the pampered women's who had almost everything at their door step.

Chain Bridge

Just to share below our itinerary in Budapest to see how tight our group had to catch-up with all those places to visit in less than 24 hours available time. It was somehow amazing that we managed to achieve quite many places within limited time.

8.50 am	Arrive Budapest Keleti Station
9.15 - 10.30	Brunch
11.00 pm	*Early Check in K9 Residence (exclude breakfast) / left luggage
11.30am - 1.00 pm	Hungarian Parliament Building (English Tour guide 10am, 12pm, 1pm, 1.45pm, 3pm)
1.30 pm - 2.30 pm	Budapest's Chain Bridge and Castle Hill
3.00pm-4.00pm	Back to Hotel for rest
4.30 - 5.45 pm	Royal Palace (Buda Castle)
6.00 pm - 6.45 pm	Visit Mosque & *Peform Solat (Iszlam Egyhaz Darusszalam Mecset) (Quick!)
7.00 - 8.00 pm	Citadel for sunset
8.30 -	Dine & Sight seeing @ Vaci Street (option)
7.30 - 9.00 am	Breakfast
9.00 - 10.30 am	Heroes' Square
11.30 noon	Hotel check out
12.00 pm	Arrive Kelati Station / lunch & pack some foods
1.10 pm	Depart for Vienna via Railjet Train

Danube River Boat Cruise

What we have covered on the 1st (10th day of April) and 2nd day (11th day April) can be seen from the photos that I'm sharing in this entry. I was somehow grateful to the old gentleman that I had conversation with in the bus taking us up from "Pest" to "Buda @ Castle Hill". Instead of watching sunset at Citadel, we followed his advice to spent an evening taking a boat cruise along Danube River. Due to boat time selected, we managed to capture when the sun was about to set, simultaneously when the 2 sides of the city being illuminated. It was an awesome view to witness the illumination of the old and new city from the Danube river. We are indebted to him for given us such a valuable piece of advice.

Exploring Vaci Utca

The next day, after breakfast and a last minutes shopping at Fashion Street which is within a short walking distance from the apartment. After the coffee break at Starbucks, we straightway took a final ride in Budapest underground Metro heading to Heroe's Square. The blue sky weather that day was cheering my photo shots quality. Will share more in the next coming entry.

Hero's Square on day 2

Deep inside our heart, we (Anne and I) pray to return 1 day to the most cleanest city among all other 8 cities that we covered in our 2nd leg of the train rides.