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We flew to Budapest for a jam packed couple of days on our way to Athens. The ease of making our way around and level of organisation at airport and metro along with the general friendliness & helpfulness of the locals was a huge (positive) improvement from Croatia!! It was also interesting to note such a marked difference in the architecture and general vibe of the city from the more latin influenced cities we have visited in France & Spain etc.
We took in some of the key touristy sites like Castle Hill, St Stephens Bascilica and enjoyed the view from the fishermans bastille and walked around the city crossing the bridges over the Danube from Buda to Pest. We had some delicious goulash, a hot chocolate that was the consistency of custard ( so yum) and went to the gellert thermal turkish baths for a swim and alternate soak in temperatures from 8 to 38 degrees!
The highlight for Kate was going to the ballet at the Hungarian Opera House to see Gizelle. The building is just so beautiful inside, and I had great seats at the front row of the 1st tier dress circle. There was such an impressive range of operas being performed there that month so it seems to be a very popular past time for people in Budapest, but unfortunately we missed Mozart's Marriage of Figaro by one night! The audience got so into it, there was cheering and clapping all the way through and each sololist would take a bow after their performance, the leads and conductor must have taken about 6 bows and by the end the audience were all clapping in time to bring the leads out for one last bow. I loved observing the audience in the intermission go into the hall for glasses of wine and big baked pretzals, the night was such a great experience.
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