Theme: Water in Budapest, May 10

Today was definitely a water day.  We took the public transport upstream boat for over an hour. The boat was rather old and smelly, but it was quite a unique experience.  The river is wide and incredibly swift.  The boat chugged away until we turned for the return.  The banks were full of fishermen and sunbathers.  Margrit Island, a huge island park is well used as we saw many bikers and joggers.  Budapest seems a very people oriented city with bike paths and excellent public transport.

We took a tram to Troffu Restaurant, a buffet. We generally avoid buffets as we eat to much of the wrong food, but this was highly recommended as a place of good Hungarian food at a fair price.  It was expensive by Hungarian standards, but not by ours. It was about $15.00 each!  Besides the standard fare you would expect, they had an amazing grill with fresh fish, veggies and meats.  We had paprika sauces, of course.  And goulash.  And there were unlimited drinks, including wine, beer and champagne.  We stuck to iced tea and water as we definitely do not drink at lunch!  We did try a taste of Hungarian white wine.  (Which did not make us want any more, to be honest)

Then, in late afternoon we headed for St Lukacs Medicinal Baths.  Wow!  What an experience.  Budapest is famous for its thermal waters, going back to the Romans.  In th 12th century, various orders of monks and knights ran hospitals here around them.  This particular thermal spring was used by the Turks, but for gunpowder  production.  The amazing building we were in was build in the 1880s.  There are three large outdoor pools, two smaller inside thermal pools, a very hot dry sauna, loads of dressing rooms.  There are rehab services, massages etc.  it was pretty crowded with Hungarian regulars relaxing after a week's work, as well as a few tourists like us.  We sat with 27 year old Ian, for East London, alone visiting the city.

We sat in the big warm pool with jets and a bench.  The jets alternated with a fast outer circular part, so, when the jets in the inner ring subsided, jets in the outer ring zipped you around in a fast, fun stream, my favorite!  We also went into a dark, vaulted ceiling area of the two hot and hotter thermal pools, probably Mark's favorite.  The atmosphere was hushed and meditational.  We also trid the dry sauna to dry off as we did not have towels and did not have enough change to rent them.  (We carry minimal cash when we go out). Anyhow, it was amazing!

We had a few transportation blips going there.  (The tram we though went along the Buda waterfront, didn't, so we ended up doing quite a bit of walking, but the spa was open an hour later than we thought, so it was okay that it took so long to get there.). Then, we had another blip coming home!  The number 2 tram tracks are under reconstruction and we had to walk all the way around Parliament, the largest building in the country, to find its first stop.  Ah, the vagaries of travel, especially in a totally foreign language where we can't really decipher any words.
 

On a totally different note, Jecca wrote that my mother was in the hospital briefly, possibly with a stroke.  We began to look at flights home, but later messages for her and also via my friend, Kathy, we are told she is stable and back home, so to stay our course for the time being.