A Kid-Friendly Day

Yesterday was tough on everyone but especially for the children in the sense that they have little control over what comes next on the itinerary, and if there is a difficult couple of hours to endure, it is never their decisions that made the hours difficult. Today wasn't exactly meant to be payback for all that, but it turned out that way.

The day started with our obsessively controlling B&B hosts hand-serving us breakfast as if they were running a tiny cafe and we were the only customers. Hardly 30 seconds went by without something else being passed to us or suggested to us. To be fair, though, it was a very large and tasty breakfast out on the balcony, so otherwise quite pleasant.

Then we all walked the short distance up the castle hill behind us to check out what little is left there. Like virtually every major European city, there was once a castle on this hill, which was destroyed, built again, destroyed again, and so on. The same story for major churches. In Budapest's case, there is virtually nothing left of the original castle but the hill it stood on. There are a few streets worth of housing c.1700-1880 (with some very unfortunate 1960's buildings sprinkled in), a rather large but uninteresting palace/government office building, and several projects from Hungary's 1000-year celebration in 1896 (just think of that - 114 years ago [old in America] they celebrated their 1000-year birthday!). The most photogenic of those projects is the fisherman's Bastion - a Disney-esque rendering of fairytale turrets and decorations (bottom photo). But we also did the "labyrinth" tour, which took some of the miles of tunnels under the hill once used to hide from invaders centuries ago, and turned them into a spooky cave of mysteries sort of thing. It was incredibly cheesy, but fun, too.

After a quick light lunch back at our B&B (groceries purchased the night before) we set off for what is likely the #1 tourist attraction in Budapest - the Szechenyi Baths (middle photo). Much of Hungary sits on a thin part of the earth's crust, so in many places hot water bubbles up from springs. Budapest has more than a dozen baths, but these - a large complex located in the city park - are the centerpiece. There are several small but classy looking indoor baths of varying temperatures and mineral levels, but all the action is in the three outdoor pools. In the center there is a traditional lap pool with cool water. On one side, a very warm thermal pool. And on the other side, a middle-temperature pool which was quite comfortable. That pool also had a collection of fountains and jets that cycled on an off every few minutes. There was a donut-shaped area in the center, perhaps 40' in diameter, that had many water jets all pointing in one direction. So the effect was to create a strong current that swept you around and around. That was a hit with everyone!

We stayed there until our wrinkles developed wrinkles and then headed for home, seeing the other park attractions along the way, including a just-for-fun castle in the park and Heroes Square (top photo) where the heroes of Hungary's history are honored...