The Castle District

We resist the pull of a nap and set out walking. Our first stop is a cafe around the corner from the hotel, Cafe Soho, purportedly with internet access. A couple of cups of decent cappuccino and 30 minutes of frustration later, we leave. Their internet access does not work. We return later that night and only one computer is limping along-too slow to use. I do manage to squeeze off a single email via WiFi from the LD to my husband to let him know we are alive before it freezes up.

We walk in the direction of the Chain Bridge to the bottom of the hill below the Castle complex where there is a small funicular leading up to the top of the hill. The funicular dates back to 1870 and has two tracks with three wood paneled compartments each. It takes about a minute to get to the top and the views are breath taking.

After a couple of minutes on the palace side, we go min search of a restroom and spend about 10 minutes wandering in circles (soon to be a theme for us) before finding a public WC costing 70 ft. Mom declares after, "I would have paid $100 for that". Not because it was so nice (it wasn't) but because it was so needed.

On the way back up to the square, we pass two guys in medieval dress with birds of prey on their arms-one was a small falcon and the other was absolutely huge, over two feet tall and I have no idea what it was. We are walking in the other direction and I have to force myself not to turn on my heels and follow them. About 20 feet later, I regret my decision, and we go back down the hill to see what they're doing with the birds. They've vanished.

Next we continue walking, following along loosely with the Frommer's Budapest walking tour of the Castle District. It was cold and rainy, but still fun. Matthias church was beautiful, from the outside (we did not go in). Fisherman's Bastion is a structure built on the edge of the hill on the site of an old fish market. For the life of me I cannot figure out why there would have been a fish market that high up on the hill instead of down by the river, but it was lovely nonetheless. Amazing views of the entire Pest side of the river. From there, we walking in a zig zag patten among the old streets looking at the houses, some dating back to Medieval times.
By now, it's mid afternoon and we need food, or at least coffee, so we stop at Ruszwurm Cukraszda, at a tiny coffee house which has been here since 1827. We have tea and two different strudels, one apple and one cherry. They we just ok, not amazing. Fading fast, we go back to the hotel for rest.

For dinner, we want to try Hungarian food and go to a restaurant near hotel called Horgasztanya Vendeglo (Fo u. 27). Although it seems to have a seafood theme in it's decor, we gravitate toward heavier fare. For a starter we share a duck liver w/ onions and marjoram which looks a bit scary on the plate but tastes great. I have wild boar stewed in red wine for my entree and a side of "housemade gnocchi" which is a bit more like spatzle, but good. Mom has pork cutlets "bacony style" with paprika and mushroom cream sauce. With a glass of red wine and a beer dinner is 7000 ft incl tip.

Budapest, Friday March 2, 2007

$1= 191 Hungarian Forints (ft)

As we come in for a landing in Budapest, it's raining, but the countryside is oh so fertile and green. We exit the plane, again on the tarmac and are bussed to the terminal. Inside, it's only a matter of minutes to go through passport control, complete with the requisite post communist desk officials who are so disinterested in their jobs they would rather talk to each other than process us. Still, it's fairly quick and we do get our passports stamped.

The ATM machine is easy to find and I make a classic blunder in currency conversion and barely take out enough money to cover the cab ride and the rest of the day. Sure, it's easy to get more but why pay unneeded bank fees for extra transactions? Outside the terminal is a airport controlled taxi service where I buy a voucher with the name of the hotel on it. This means it's a fixed rate of 4200 ft to our destination (price determined by "zone/ distance from airport. Since we had no luggage to wait for, I think we are in the taxi within 20 minutes of landing.
The taxi driver is the long lost cousin of Mario Andretti and has us cringing and closing our eyes. Still, I wonder why it is that I almost never wear a seat belt in foreign taxis? Is it because they are rarely available in most of Asia, or am I afraid of "insulting" the driver? Nah, it's probably just an unrealistic assumption they know what they're doing and a refusal to accept that anything could go wrong.
The inside of the taxi has a sign in 4 languages reminding passengers the "tip is not included in price".

Hotel Victoria
We chose this hotel based on Tripadvisor.com reviews and the fact that it has a fantastic view from every single room. There are only 3 rooms per floor and 9 floors, so it's small.

The plusses: Our room is on the 8th floor and we have a corner room. This means we have two huge windows, giving us a panorama view from the Chain Bridge to Parliament (see photos below). The room itself is good sized, and pretty much looks exactly like the photos on the website (not quite as "nice" but still fine). Beds are decent, firm, but not plush and come with warm duvets. The bathroom is small, shower only, but has good water pressure. The tv has 12 or so channels, in English, 4 news and MTV, but we're not here to watch tv.

The minuses: The location, while close to the castle, is not exactly in the hub of things, so there aren't as many restaurant choices and transportation options. Our closest Metro stop is about 8 blocks away and is temporarily closed while we are here (more on that later). There are no amenities in the bathroom other than soap. There's no internet access, except ridiculously expensive WiFi, though they may offer it free soon.

seat 3k

IAD-Vienna

Warning: this is a highly detailed description of our flight experience because it was so freakin' impressive. If boring, skip to next entry.

As soon as we get on the plane we can see that we are in one of Austrian's brand new business class cabins. We are offered a glass of sparking wine (a nice prosecco), offered menus and asked to select our choices for breakfast. The cabin crew seems to be mostly male, and we nickname the two guys up front with us Dieter#1 and Dieter #2. They are both incredibly nice.

The seats are amazing with multiple electronic controls to rival the space shuttle. In fact, we are told by Dieter #1 that this is only the second trip this particular plane has made with the newly configured seats. He also warns us not to push too many of the buttons at once. Dieter #2, gives us a brochure which explains all the bells and gizmos of the seats, some really useful (like nooks for books and personal lights on bending arms) and some not so good (like a "massage" function in the back of the seat which does not much more than make the seat feel like it's "breathing" behind you). The seats are inside their own "shell" which is nice because then the person behind you is not pulling on your seat back when they are trying to get out. In general, these seats rock compared to United's business class. Austrian does not have 1st class, so this is as good as it gets here.

Food- I have to say this is probably the best meal I have ever had on a plane. I had read that each plane came with a personal chef, but was still shocked to see a short young man in a white chef's coat on our flight. Meals are served on real china, with glassware and multiple sets of silver. There is a separate wine list and I had a lovely 2004 Zantho Zweigelt red wine with my meal. Other options included a couple of Spanish, French and Italian wines.

For the food, we were offered a little amuse of proscuitto bruschetta, grilled zucchini rolled around goat cheese, and two nicoise olives. Next, came buffalo mozzarella with tomatoes and fresh basil and (gasp!) a soup course with a really, really good creamy pumpkin soup complete with a garnish of toasted pumpkin seeds. For the main course I selected the filet of beef with came a perfect medium rare (how did they do that??) with peppercorn sauce and a baked potato. Desserts were chose from a cart and included cheeses, crepes cheesecake or vanilla ice cream with berries. I wish I'd taken pictures of the meal.

We slept and watched movies for most of the flight. I have to admit, the seats were not as comfortable as I would have liked. The bottoms are really hard, and the "sleep" position is not really flat, but rather tilted down so it's a little hard to get comfortable. That said, they are still a million times better than coach and I think I'm spoiled for life.

On arrival in Vienna, it's clear we are in Europe because people are smoking in the restaurants inside the terminals near the gates. We have to go through security to get to our next gate and wonder why we do not have to remove our shoes. We're bussed out onto the tarmac to a tiny propeller plane and because we were still in business class (first 3 rows of seats) we were offered a snack meal on the 40 min flight. This time, I did take a photo, even though the food as not nearly as good.

Photos

We are here in Budapest!
I don't have it all written yet, but since I'm here in an internet cafe and can get online with access to my photos, I want to get some posted.
In short Austrian Airlines is fabulous (more on that later) and we arrived to Budapest in the rain. Spent the afternoon walking around the castle district, and had a yummy Hungarian meal in a local restaurant for dinner. More details to come tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are a few photos:

Our tiny plane from Vienna to Budapest.







Here's the view of the Hungarian Parliament Building from our hotel room window day, and night.

seat 12J

I'm up at 4:30 am, and it's too early to think.

By 5:30, we've picked up Mom and are driving to the airport. I'm well on my way to a full blown panic attack. As much as I love to travel, I'm really bad at it. Actually, the worst part is the trip to the airport.

By the time we get there, I'm ok. We check in, spend a little time in the united red carpet room and then head for the gate.

united LAX-IAD
It's been a long time since I've flown business class and I have to say, seat 12J is pretty darn nice. It's not often when you can't touch the seat in front of you (for those of us who are regularly back in coach). We're offered a pre-flight drink (water or OJ, hey,it's early!) and we take off. The flight is easy, we have a full breakfast of a pretty bad frittata, fruit, warm croissant and some scary sausage. I watch Marie Antoinette, and while I generally like Sophia Copola movies, I find it had to be sympathetic to this queen. After the movie, I sleep a bit and then suddenly, we're here.
Fortunately, we're on the same concourse and we have a couple of hours before our flight to Vienna on Austrian Airlines. Austrian doesn't have a business lounge here, so we head for the closest Red Carpet room which turns out to be (what feels like) a 3 mile hike away in the next terminal. "Oh, it's just through there"...20 minutes of walking and we are finally there. The lounge is packed and we and we find seats in a far corner. I'm hoping to get online and I think "score!", the DC airport has free WiFi. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to get it to connect to the internet. Everyone around me seems to be on their laptop, so it could just be me. Who knows? I hope this is not a preview of the rest of the trip.

On the way back to our departure gate we see the red carpet room in terminal D, right across from where we had deplaned. Boy, do we feel dumb. I guess it really was closer than we thought.