The next morning in Budapest, we woke up bright and early for our tour called, "Breathtaking Budapest", and we knew we had another full day ahead of us!
Our first stop was up to the lookout point from the Citadel on
Gellert Hill on the Buda side of the river.
The views were amazing!
In front of the citadel building stands Hungary's "Statue of Liberty", which commemorates Hungary's liberation from the Nazi rule after World War II.
We had many opportunities to view the
Hungarian Parliament Building, since we walked by it many times, and it was the beautiful view from our hotel room!
Our last church visit of the trip was walking by the beautiful neoclassic
St Stephen's Basilica. It's height matches the parliament building and is meant to represent the balance of church and state in Hungary.
As part of our walking tour, we were given a sampling of Hungary's famous
Chimney Cake. It was fun to sample a few different kinds, but our favorite one was still the hot, fresh one we had in Prague.
After heading back to the ship for a quick buffet lunch, we went back out with part of our group on our afternoon excursion to the Hungarian countryside. We went to two family-run wineries in the
Etyek Wine Regions and sampled 4 wines from each.
Our first stop was a very small family run winery that rents a cellar on "Wine Row" and makes only about 7,000 bottles of wine each season. The experience of tasting different wines inside his wine cellar and getting a tour of how he bottles, ages, and stores his wine was a wonderfully authentic experience.
The second winery,
Hernyak, was a larger family business, as they produce over 30,000 bottles each year, and have even moved on to producing their own gin. They have a beautiful spot and are often chosen as a venue for weddings in the area.
We headed back to the ship, tipsy on the 8 wines we tasted, and arrived just in time for our cocktail hour, farewell toast with champagne, and dinner with free-flowing wine. It's no wonder we declined to go out on the last excursion to see Budapest from the river. Thankfully, we had one more full day in the city to explore, and we eventually got our night out that we wanted!
We enjoyed our last dinner conversation with one of the many groups of people we got to know well on our journey. We wish them all well, and we hope to stay in touch!
On our final morning, we said goodbye to the crew and our wonderful cruise director, Alison, and disembarked our second and final Avalon ship. They brought us to our hotel,
The Intercontinental, for the extra night we had chosen to stay. Somehow, we scored an amazing suite for the night (much better than the handicapped room in Prague), overlooking the Danube river, the bridges, the citadel we had visited, and Buda Castle. It was hard to leave the views to go exploring, but we were quickly off and running one more time.
We decided to venture onto Budapest's subway system, and I think it was the easiest & cleanest public transportation I've ever been on! Each station was immaculate, and the mahogany doors and detailed tile work at each stop was definitely unexpected!
We finally made it to our destination for the afternoon- the popular
Szechenyi Thermal Bath House. I didn't bring my phone in while we were relaxing, but check out the link above to see how beautiful it was! Unfortunately, the large pool was under a week of renovations, and we didn't love the indoor pools, but the experience in the outdoor pool we tried was wonderful (despite the MANY people there)! At least we can now say that we got to experience the thermal baths!
We truly loved our time in each city we visited, but Budapest was near the top of my list!
On our very last evening out, we enjoyed another stroll around downtown, stopped at the Four Seasons for cocktails, and then headed out for tapas at the highly rated restaurant,
Tapassio.
After dinner, we took our final nighttime stroll across the
Szechenyi Chain Bridge, which gave us absolutely amazing views of the Danube River, riverside musicians, Buda Castle, Fisherman's Bastion in the Castle District of Budapest, and the iconic Hungarian Parliament Building. It was a perfect evening for seeing our last bits of Budapest, and was the perfect ending to a wonderful trip!
What an amazing time we had together these past two weeks, and I know Brian had an unforgettable trip celebrating his upcoming birthday! I can't wait to keep traveling together for 50 more! Happy Birthday!
