Saturday morning in Budapest which appears to be emerging into a beautiful day – sunny and high of 74 ºF.  Doing laundry this morning at our apartment before exploring this afternoon so taking time now to post some observations about Budapest.

First of all we love our apartment and its location.  We are on the Pest side of Budapest and very close to the Elizabeth Bridge and the Central Market for those that have been here before.  If you zoom out a little from the Google map, you will get a better feel for where we are calling home for the next month.

Below if a photo of the Elizabeth Bridge in the background and a statue of the former Queen of Hungary, Erzsebet. This was taken on our walking journey Friday which totaled over 21K steps (approx. 9 ½ miles).  We rode on the Metro for the first time from Pest over to the end of the line in Buda and walked back to Pest.  Wonderful stroll through parks, saw numerous interesting statues, and had lunch at an outdoor restaurant.  Spotting the bridge, we knew our long journey back to Pest was over.  Exhausting & exhilarating at the same time.

The price of everything appears to be much lower than the U.S.  We bought a Metro pass yesterday for $35.00/each which is good for 30 days!  We have a couple of local pubs near our apartment where beer was only $1.85 for a pint of beer!  We were a little surprised that in some tourist pubs it was about $4.00/pint so we are sticking to local places for beer or wine.

Another observation is that one can still see the Russian influence from post WWII days.  On Monday we plan to go to see the Russian statues at Memento Park.  There are numerous statues from the years of Communist control here (1949-1989).  Just strolling through a major street near us you see stalls full of Russian hats and paraphernalia.

More later – hopefully from Clay too!

Maggie