Eastern Danube, Day 10: Budapest tour

Monday, August 3, 2026

The day started with a buffet breakfast in the hotel. We saw several people from our cruise and wished them well as they were mostly departing today.

It was very hot today, with a high in the upper 90s (about 37 C). We began by taking a “hop-on hop-off” city tour on one of those double-decker buses, which fortunately had a canopy over the top level so we weren’t sitting in the sun. We did most of one circuit of the tour without hopping off, which gave us a good overview of the city, including both Buda (the hilly city across the river from our hotel and Pest (where we spent most of our time). Throughout the tour, I was impressed by the architecture in Budapest. It seemed like every building had very detailed carving, often accompanied by statuary.

We got off the bus near the Chain Bridge, the oldest of Budapest’s bridges spanning the Danube. We walked across the bridge to the “0 km” marker, got overpriced Coke Zeros from a stand there, and walked back, getting a good view of Hungary’s Parliament buildings.

Kenna got us tickets to a 3:00 tour of the opera house, so we walked in that direction. A little short on time, we stopped for a quick late lunch of pizza nearby. The opera house itself was impressive. Apparently the architects were told by Franz Joseph, the Austro-Hungarian emperor, that it could not be larger than the opera house in Vienna. They complied with that but made up for it in decor. It seemed like every possible surface was decorated in some manner. Supposedly the emperor realized that he had specified the size but not the grandeur of the building. The tour ended with a short performance by two of the opera performers, which was amazing both musically and in volume.

After the opera, we made our way (through the heat) to a market building. Although many of the vendor stalls were closing, the food offerings there reflected the local cuisine. Hungarian food uses quite a bit of pepper, and red peppers reminiscent of New Mexico were prominently displayed.

We returned to the hotel to cool off a bit, then ventured out nearby and found a restaurant that offered Hungarian cuisine. Kenna had chicken paprika, and I had beef goulash. Both were quite good.

This article is part of a series about our recent trip to the Eastern Danube. To see the introductory article in the series, click here.