Day 11

Another fantastic day in the city of Budapest.  This trip has been to relax, enjoy and tour at our leisure.  And today was no exception.  Being Saturday, we headed for the huge market at the bottom of the city....southern end.  The city is very easily walkable so getting there was a nice walk.  The place is 3 floors of everything one could imagine.  First the place was packed, locals and many many tourists.  The bottom floor (basement) is mainly fish, exotic meats and wine and pasteries. The main floor is fruit, veggies meat and candy and etc.  The top floor is crafts and souvenirs.  Of course we headed there first and D went crazy.  They had so many really wonderful things (not junk) besides the junk souvenirs, they had goregous leather things, linen sewn things, hats, scarfs and dolls and toys and etc. all very nice quality.  I actually found a very neat iinsect sculpture....that makes 4 that Ihave found on the trip.  All are quite interesting and different.  We also found a nice Xmas decoration for our tree.  The food was absolutely incredible...the visual was as delicious as the taste.  We did buy a couple stuffed peppers for our lunch and a cream puff....will tell about that alittle later.  It was just so much fun walking through the place.  After we headed for the river for our lunch.  We like to take some meat, cheese and fruit with us in a back pack and with the stuffed peppers and cream puff we had a fabulous lunch sitting on the wall over looking the river and city.  The cream push was huge and had white cream, chocolate cream and CAKE in the center of this soft and delicious puff.....itt was the size of a giant hot dog bun.....and oh the taste!!!!!

That done we headed along the river to find the entrance steps or street to the castle area on the hill which overlooks the city on the left side.  We found it and started climbing....when we hit the top....what a surprise but a huge carnival crafts and food exhibition on the grounds.  They had live music, food, drinks, and every kind of food imaginalble.  The place was packed!!!!  It was a photographer's paradise!!!!  We tookd hundreds of pics of the people, food, and being way up high we had some spectacular panaramic pics of the city across the river.  We spent all afternoon walking around, sampling food and like I said, taking tons of photos.  WE ended at the other end at a cafe for a nice beer and rest.  It was too early to head home so we walked on into the church area which was simply incredibly beautiful  So we too more pictures.  Again the place was packed with tourists but we did not care....the views were so perfect and the sun was at our back.....mmmMMM..

I must mention this now before I forget.  I have never seen as many Japanese (or Chinese) tourists EVER.  They are everywhere and not the huge old people tour groups as I have seen many times before, be young couples and young ttour groups.....they were everywhere here.

Like last night I will close now and fill you in again on our upcoming dinner.  I do hope it will be as memorable as last ngiths.  We have been so lucky because we seem to hit the right days for good weather and each city has its own type of beauty.....I still have a favorite, Prague, for its really gorgeous cityscapes.  But Budapest is gorgeous....along witth Vienna and Berlin.....each one has its own unique personality!!!

Will fill more in when we get back home and can describe and show pictures to show.  The slide show should be really good.