Day 22 – Saturday 30 May

Transfer to the airport at 140nzd, which seems a lot, however it is about 50 minutes to airport in good traffic, and at our age now we have decided to pay for little conveniences to enhance our trip where necessary. I have already written about instances where despite all precautions, things can go ‘wrong’ when you are exiting a country from an airport, and the best insurance is plenty of time to allow for this. We do not consider less than 3 hours for an international flight unless you are literally across the road from the airport at a hotel, then 2 hours is the minimum.

We booked our shuttle transfer via hotel reception two nights ago, and were assured of the good service. There are literally hundreds of options, and we could have got cheaper doing it ourselves, however, again we do not mind paying a premium for assurance we are not going to be lost in the big jostle for the tourist money and not end up getting an easy and efficient transfer.

As it happened there was a slight delay and the hotel quickly hurried and got is sorted with finesse. We still got to the airport with plenty of time in a very comfortable black modern people mover all to ourselves, including the velvet roof lining with multiple little coloured led lights (party moonscape lights). It was so nice to ease into the busy big airport knowing we did not have to rush to check our bags or reach our flight.

We had a little look at duty free, but the prices were not that appealing so unfortunately no souvenirs from Türkiye. As we went very light on breakfast, I scanned the options for a snack. There was a Sushi train at 11 euro a plate $22 nzd. I kid you not! Obviously we chose to fast till the plane and hoped that it was not the horrid cheese and tomato roll we had already had on 3 Turkish air flights.

The flight was good, but of course in small sized planes, compared to our international planes. The good news was we actually got a nice sandwich, salad, and cake. The sandwich had Turkey, salad and mayo, and the salad was real mozzarella and tomato. The cake was simple, and I normally pass, but it was actually edible. We also got offered wine, which of course I enjoyed, along with coffee, tea and juice.

One hour and 50 minutes later we arrived at Budapest so friendly staff. One thing I have noticed at European airports is that on the arrivals side there is no duty free, this is including CDG in Paris. So if you are planning any shopping do it on the way out!

Vern had worked out our airport bus, which was a single ticket and very easy to find the booths, attendants and bus stands. The 100e is the express to take you to town for 6euro. We also bought a seperate 72 hour transport card each, which you do not have to validate, and it gives you free bus, metro and subway all around the city.

The 100e takes you to a central place, and from there is was a couple of minutes walk to the metro which would take us near to our hotel. A further 1km from there on flat easy paths got us to our hotel.

The metro subway line near our accommodation is an old one, with lovely restored stations. Our first impressions of Budapest is how clean, tidy and open it is. We also noticed quite a few merry people around, and I was reminded that the big soccer cup was on, and thus the reason for difficulty in finding reasonably priced accommodation when I was booking.

The hotel we are at is a bit out from the major sights than we would normally choose, albeit quite accessible. The other advantage is it is about 10 minute walk from our hotel to the major Railway station where we will exit from later this week.

Check in went quite well, with everything explained and an offer of a schnapps or bubbles to celebrate the games. The schnapps came at either 38 or 50% – I chose the lighter. Plum based, smooth, but still ‘fire-water’. Vern choose the complimentary bubbly rose, which was actually not pleasant to our palate. They have a little courtyard with a pond and residential little turtles, so we sat there in the peace and enjoyed our drinkies.

We asked our host for a dinner recommendation and she directed us to her favourite place – a mere 15 minute walk away called Paprika. Apparently it is good, homely and authentic food.

Apple Maps said it was 25 minute walk, so we set off and admired the lovely boulevard at the end of our block, lined with 19th century buildings, and the tree lined streets. At the end of the boulevard the road was blocked off and a huge screen was showing a game in progress. There were many very happy spectators about, beers in hand, all having a great time by the appearance.

About half an hour later we arrived at our dinner place which has decor like a traditional house. the meal did not disappoint at all, even with me accidentally ordering the wrong dish. It was by numbers aside a multilingual menu. Instead of the goose leg with foie gras, I ordered foie gras. The other dish was beef goulash with little dumplings – or spatzle. It had nothing to do with the nice Czech beers that were quenching our thirsts or the schnapps chaser we were encouraged to have.

As some may be aware, we love foie gras, and the dish served on fried and baked apple rings was amazing. Happy campers we were. The goulash was good, and the spatzle nice, but not as good as mine! Beers are very nice, we had a pilsner and a dark. The portions were massive and we did not make it to dessert which was a shame, but we decided we would come back.

Full as can be, we wandered slowly the 2.6km home in the street light. We paused at a mulberry tree and had a bit of a snack.

Initial impressions of Budapest are it is friendly, very clean, and rather beautiful. We love the flat and smooth lay out and green spaces. A very big contrast to Istanbul.