Our arrival in Budapest

Our train trip from Prague to Budapest took up most of the day on August 22. Arriving late at the Kelete train station, we cabbed-it to our hotel. Now, please keep in mind that I did my due diligence in selecting the best possible hotels for this vacation marathon. The cabby dropped us off about a block from our hotel address, explaining that we just needed to go up the street a short way to find the front entry. We made our way along the street, discovering a large locked door at the hotel's address. To the right was a buzzer, with one of the buttons indicating the Budapest Panorama Hotel. We buzzed-up and the door unlocked. As the door opened we peered into a dark hallway with a dim light near a very small and disgustingly dirty elevator. The song "Welcome to Hotel California" played in my head as we road up in the smelly, grinding elevator to our hotel on the third floor. The elevator door opened... for a moment there was total darkness... then the motion sensor triggered the lights. As it turns out, our hotel is a beautiful little oasis within the walls of an historic rundown six-story building. The hotel location is excellent and we are settled in for our five day stay.

Our first day was spent visiting St. Stephan's Basilica, the Hungarian Parliament. We then strolled down the famous Vaci Street with hundreds of locals and tourists. We had dinner at a restaurant along the Danube (Donau) tonight, and as Ron put it, "Life doesn't get any better than this." 

Our hotel

St. Stephan's Basilica

Hungarian Parliament