{"id":4242,"date":"2024-05-24T21:51:27","date_gmt":"2024-05-25T01:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/?p=4242"},"modified":"2024-07-18T21:56:58","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T01:56:58","slug":"friday-may-24-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/friday-may-24-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday, May 24, 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ok, going back to my previous update from Veroce. We took a stroll after dinner to see the Danube.
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Next day we made the last leg to Budapest. Saw God on the way.
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The biking into Budapest was at first boring (ugly buildings), then at times harrowing when I lost the bike path and got into traffic. Oops. But Rick blocked the traffic, and we made it back to the path.
\nBut we got to the pretty part. Got an apartment in a great location! Budapest is actually 2 cities, Buda and Pest. Buda is on the west side of the Danube with steep hills right close to the river. Pest is on the east side, which is relatively flat, so that part has expanded kind of endlessly out. There are a couple of islands in the middle of the river. We stayed in Pest, close to Magrit (Margaret) Island.<\/p>\n

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Above is a view we got from a hill on the Buda side. (Buda on the left, Pest on the right.) Way off you can just see Magrit Island in the middle. We hiked WAY up before we got to a sign saying the ruins of the old castle were under renovation. So, at that point we just kept going.
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Oh, just saying, Hungarians are fond of the letter Z.
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Here is the Orszaghaz, the Parliament building.
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We went up to the old part of Buda on a funicular. Here is a view from that ride.
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You can see one of the bridges across the river that ends at Parliament. Apparently, the cultures of Buda and Pest were pretty distinct for a long time, as there were no bridges across until the 1800s!
\nWe watched the changing of the guards at the palace, then later the full inspection of the guards. Pretty cool!<\/p>\n

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Enjoyed a garden.
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In the evening, we walked over to Magrit Island to watch a wonderful fountain show of music and lights! They would play a song (varying between rock and classical) and the water would dance to the music in all different colors.
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Then we walked back across the bridge and got to see the Parliament and other buildings all lit up.
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If you are curious about the currency here, the Forint\u2026\"\"<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s about $50.<\/p>\n

So, then we reached the half way point of the trip. Next morning Rick and I each picked out what things we wouldn\u2019t need for the rest of the time, and I took that stuff to Mailboxes Etc. and shipped it back to the US. That significantly lightened my load! Which is good, because I\u2019ll need to be able to wrestle the bike into trains by myself mostly. So Rick headed out by bike to the lakes that are southwest of Budapest. I, on the other hand, checked into a spa hotel and signed up for badly needed massages!\"\"<\/p>\n

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The thermal water here is supposed to be quite healthy.
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\nBut it smells a bit of sulfur (holding nose).<\/p>\n

What was the final biking distance? About 380 miles because we took a train for part of it. Would have been closer to 540 miles otherwise. There will be more bike-riding, but the 20-40 miles in a day part is probably done.<\/p>\n

Rick, on the other hand, will be going much longer distances each day, with lots of hills\/mountains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ok, going back to my previous update from Veroce. We took a stroll after dinner to see the Danube. Next day we made the last leg to Budapest. Saw God on the way. The biking into Budapest was at first boring (ugly buildings), then at times harrowing when I lost the bike path and got … Continue reading “Friday, May 24, 2024”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4266,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242\/revisions\/4266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irelandbybicycle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}