We disembarked today and took a taxi to our hotel, since we will spend a few more days in Budapest. We considered walking – it was only 15-20 minutes to the hotel, but we had our luggage, and we thought there might be cobblestones, which can complicate things. Bad call. The taxi took us on a very scenic (and by “scenic” I mean long and roundabout) route to the hotel. In the end, what should have been a 5 minute taxi ride was more like 15-20 minutes. A lesson for next time. It was before noon and our room wasn’t ready yet, so we left our luggage and went for a walk around Margaret Island in the middle of the Danube.

Our guide yesterday told us that locals measure their fitness by how many times they run around Margaret Island – rather than kilometers they use “Margarets”. We completed one lap – almost 6 km. By the time we finished, our room was ready. We unpacked, and then went for lunch at a lovely Belgian pub just around the corner from our hotel.

After a short afternoon rest we went for a walk past the parliament buildings.

Yesterday I showed a picture of the Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial, but I missed this plaque providing more context.

The buildings in this part of the city aren’t as pretty as some of the areas we saw yesterday, but there are some interesting examples, though they do seem to be a mix of architectural styles.

It was rainy and cold for much of our river cruise, but today was sunny and hot. Our hotel has air conditioning, but we discovered that it hasn’t been turned on because it isn’t hot enough yet. Some of us beg to differ, but there isn’t much we can do other than open the hotel window (fortunately that was possible). We had eaten far too much on the cruise, so we had a light snack and wine in our room, looking out at the architecture on the Pest side of the city.

We also had a view of a theatre just down the street from our hotel, and as it grew darker, the scene was quite grand.