Budapest

We flew in and out of Budapest for our conference because really how could we not when it cost only 250 euros for our entire family of FIVE! Isn't that crazy-wonderful?! Anyway, after our conference concluded we drove back to Budapest where we spent the night before flying out the next day.  We basically just had a few hours on Friday evening to sightsee as it turned out. The kids were beyond exhausted after the week and were not exactly in the mood for traipsing around the city.  At one point I had two kids in tears on top of Castle Hill because of a sore foot and the other one was missing her new friends and bawling.  We had hoped to see more, but for the sanity of our family we called it quits after seeing St. Stephen's Basilica, Chain Bridge, Castle Hill and dinner.  We will just have to return maybe another time to explore more of what looks like a fabulous city. 

 St. Stephen's Basilica

 Walking along the Danube River on the Pest side

 Ready to walk across the Chain Bridge to reach the Buda side of the city

 View of Buda Castle

 View of the Hungarian Parliament building from Castle Hill

We hiked up the side of the hill in the dark to reach the top of Castle Hill, thus explaining and probably justifying the child melt downs. But the view was totally worth it!

We were surprised by a cultural experience that made the city appear very dirty and literally, trashy. Throughout the city on just about every block there were these huge piles of trash dumped on the streets with homeless digging through the piles. It was dark and very unnerving for Emma--she was not impressed at all with Budapest! We later found out that each city district, not only in Budapest but throughout Hungary has an annual dump your trash day where the city will remove your trash for free. It must be expensive to dump trash because the entire city seemed to have exploded. Guess we hit the special night!

Street performers were out as well and we were particularly impressed with this man playing water glasses.

The metro ride at the end of the night...need I say more about their tiredness?!