Budapest, Day 2

Today, we got up and ate breakfast, as usual. Then, it was time for the zoo. Normally, the zoo is one of the last things we do in a city, so Em will have something to look forward to, but she really wanted it to be in the beginning this time.  So, zoo it was. The matro stop where all the lines meet is pretty close to our hotel, so we walked there. It was a straight shot on the orange line to the zoo. It’s in a huge park area in the eastern part of the city. The map in my guidebook made it look like it was all walking paths, but we followed the sign that we saw when we got off the metro, and it led us straight to a big road!  The metro stop wasn’t on the map, so I wasn’t sure where we were on the map. I was so confused. There was a huge building next to us, but it didn’t look right on the map. We wandered all over the place before we finally found it. Ah, well, it was a nice walk.

The zoo was pretty nice.  Most of it was the same old animals we see all the time, but some were new, or ones we don’t get to see very often. The zoo buildings were really pretty, though, so that was good. 

These guys froze like this when we walked up

Fennec Fox

We had read on Trip Advisor that you could feed hippos and touch sloths, so we were pretty excited. There was a lot of construction, and the hippos were unavailable for feeding, but Em did get to touch a sloth. 

After the zoo, we had some lunch at a little place outside the zoo. I had onion soup, which was very yummy, but it came with a slice of American cheese food on top, which confused me greatly. I don’t even know where they got it, since I haven’t seen American cheese anywhere in Europe besides the commissary. 

We had some time, so we went up to do a few things on Castle Hill. We took the metro back to the main station, and then found the bus that took us up the hill. I was pretty proud of finding the right bus. Luckily, a bus went straight from the station to the hill. We saw the Mathais Church first. It cost money to go inside it, and we had seen enough churches to last a while, so we didn’t go in. The outside was what I really wanted to see, anyway. 

Next to the church is Fisherman’s Bastion. It’s a viewing terrace. It was named after the guild of fishermen that was responsible for defending this stretch of the Danube during the Middle Ages. It has 7 towers to represent the 7 Magyar tribes that settled the area. My favorite was the big one. It looks like a sandcastle.

We went to go see the labyrinth under Castle Hill next. We wandered, because our two maps gave two different locations for it. When we finally did find it, it was closed. L Technical difficulties, it said, and it is closed indefinitely. I was sad, because I think Em would have really enjoyed it. Since we then had more time, we went to the other side of Castle Hill. We get into the Budapest History Museum for free with our Budapest Card, so we went there. Parts of it were quite interesting, but it was a small museum, and it didn’t take long.

The funicular down wasn’t included in our Budapest Card, so we decided to just walk back to the hotel, instead of try to find which busses we would need to take. It wasn’t that far.  The rest of the evening was uneventful. Blog writing, email checking, FB catching up – that sort of thing. :)

Emma says – Zoo!!! OMG, the zoo was awesome! There was a tiny baby chick, and it was so cute, and it was so soft, and I got to touch it. Before we got yelled at, I also got to touch a sloth. There were a million guinea pigs in a room. The otters were meowing at us.

Guinea pigs