Better than expected
St. Stephen Cathedral (Szent István Bazilika). Very impressive church. Also the views from the top of Gellert Hill were better than expected.

Worth Seeing, Not worth going to see
Váci utca. Considering it’s the capital main street there’s not a lot there apart from suspicious looking touts, over priced looking restaurants and not many shops. Theres much nicer districts a little further away from the centre.

Favourite Bar
Didn’t really have a favourite, but we found some nice establishments in between the Opera House and the Octagon.

Most Bizarre
St Stephens 1000 year old black hand.
A real Relic or a shame?

Worth Mentioning
Once again listening to the tourist info got us into all sorts of confusion. When trying to visit Memento Park, the guide gave us a completely different set of instructions which were wrong! The back of the leaflet pointed us back in the right direction.

Price of Beer
Supermarkets – 500ml was around 40-60p + 8p tax
Bars – Ranged from 1.30p to 2.50p

NB
Hungarian looks a hard language. Im sure if you understand the accents you’d be alright, but its on a par with Polish for me!

Lookout for
Tourist traps. Prices of things fluctuant dramatically depending where abouts in the city you buy them. Anything near Váci utca. Is usually expensive. The touts around the aforementioned street can be a little annoying at night.

The 09.52 OBB Express was heading for Belgrade, although we would only be doing 3 hours of the scheduled 11, as our final destination was Budapest. €34.20 bought us a unreserved seat and our passage into Hungary. Having found a seat next to a window which wasn’t covered in condensation, we relaxed and took in the border country scenery. In fact it was hard to distinguish where the actual border was, as it only became apparent we had left the country when the soviet style prefabs appeared again. The journey took us through Hegyeshalom and Gyor before finally pulling into Budapest Keleti at 13.03.

Keleti station worried me from the outset. I remember reading it was the only place in the world Michael Palin had been robbed, which did little to enthuse confidence in me. No sooner than we had disembarked the train, obliging Taxi Drivers offered their services at “very good rates”. We declined their advances and made our way outside quickly. The outside seemed to be no safe haven though, as people and hands milled around us in every direction. To say I felt uncomfortable was mild understatement. We headed away from the station as fast as we could, heading for the City Centre on foot.