In Budapest: Up and down the Danube

September 25, 2023

Barry simplified matters this morning. We had a morning tour of the Buda side of the river, an afternoon ride, and an evening boat trip on the River Danube. I was trying to figure out the timing to get back to the hotel between the tour and the bike rental and maybe again before the boat. He saw no need for any extra laps to the hotel. Why not just bring along everything we need for the day? He's right of course. I complicate things, he makes them easier.

After a sturdy breakfast at the Hotel Museum, we met our group and caught the bus over the river to the Buda side of the city, with Eszter Bokros as our guide. She cheered our attempts at Hungarian, acknowledging that it's "a really weird language," distantly related to Finnish, Estonian and not much else.

Transit lessons, part 2. We're squeezing out a lot of travel on that 72 hour pass.

Eszter describes Buda as a many-layered lasagne. A massive limestone cave system is topped by a layer of wells, then wine cllars, then rubble from castle ruins over hundreds of years, with cobblestones as the parmesan cheese.

We spent some time in Matthias Church, named for the medieval king Matthias Corvinus. He rebuilt the southwest bell tower, considered one of the finest pieces of Gothic architecture in Hungary.

Inside Eszter introduced us to St. Margaret, the youngest daughter of the 13th century King Bela IV. The king had made a solemn pledge to dedicate his next child to God if Hungary was liberated from the Mongols and made good on it, for awhile. From the age of nine until her death at age 28 Margaret lived in a monastery on what is now called Margaret Island where she was credited with 74 miracle cures of the sick. The king later tried to reneg on the deal and marry her off to the king of Bohemia, but she evaded his attempts with the old consecration of virgins maneuver. I guess you can't mess with the vows once you've reached that point.

We took a break at a coffeeshop where I walked off without my phone, leaving it on the table. Fortunately the server picked it up and gave it to Peter, disaster averted. I'll have to step up my security game.

There were more stops at the royal palace, where Eszter had nothing good to say about the Prime Minister, Victor Orban. I didn't retain much of the details as we were antsy to get started on our ride.

We took our leave of the group and made our way to Best Bike Tours Budapest. There we rented a couple of fine trekking bikes at a total of $22 for both and started off toward the river. Crossing over the Liberty bridge to Buda we rode north on the bike path. The path along the Danube jumps around with lots of turns and transitions but felt less congested on the Buda side than in Pest, and it offers wonderful views across the river.

A friendly Quebecois took this for us by the Liberty Bridge

North of the Arpad we rode through some pleasant neighborhoods and found a great sandwich shop. The bike path started up again as we approached the Megyeri Bridge, taking us across the bridge and south on the Pest side of the river.

I love the graceful form of these soaring cable-stayed bridges.

Margaret Island was the star attraction of the ride. Known as the green heart of Budapest, it was full of people on foot and bicycle. Cars can park on either end but can't drive through.

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We got through the last few miles back through the busy city streets to the bike shop unscathed. It was more stressful than Paris or Amsterdam, the other big European cities we have experienced. I just hope that Barcelona, Valencia, Sevilla and Madrid will be more cycle-friendly.

We returned the bikes with 20 minutes to spare to meet the group at the dock near the Elizabeth Bridge for our evening boat trip. It's a great time to see the skyline and beautiful bridges of Budapest, even with the distraction of the two Instagram princesses posing in the seat ahead of us.

The towers of the Greek Orthodox Church of Our Lady

I had been craving a lighter meal with more green things and found it at Vigvaru near Vorosmarty Square. A great finish to our day on the Danube.

Today: 29 miles, 1011' ascent
For the tour: 89 miles, 3974' ascent

Today's ride: 29 miles (47 km)
Total: 89 miles (143 km)

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