After Budapest, we still had a few days holiday left so we decided to have a night in London. We travelled down on the Thursday and arrived at Kings Cross about 1330. From there, we went straight to Leicester Square by tube to buy tickets for the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s “The Bible” from the half price Tckts booth.

Our purchase made, we looked around for somewhere for lunch and ended up at the Mediterranean Kitchen on St Martin’s Terrace – we picked there because they used a nice clean, simple font on their signs/menus (I wish I was kidding about this; I’m a sucker for nice clean fonts). The lunch was very nice: we had a meze selection to share to start and then I had a tuna nicoise salad for my main course and John had a goats cheese and roast vegetables in filo pastry thing. The service was excellent even though we looked like scruffy bums with our backpacks and it cost about the same as it would up here.
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We had to be back at the hotel at 1330 for the minibus back to the airport so after breakfast, we decided we only had time for a quick trip up to Margit Island – the biggest island in the middle of the Danube.

We got the HEV from Batthyany metro stop up to Arhad Pad station (on the Buda side) then walked for an eternity across the scorchingly hot bridge. There probably was a better way to the island with buses and stuff but trains are easier… Anyway, the sprinklers were most welcome when we got there and we walked around in the shade of the trees for a while. We headed to the old water tower and were most amused/shocked to discover an orchestra and choir practising behind a curtain. On the way back to the station, we met a tabby cat who was very friendly. :)
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We made it up in time for breakfast on the Monday and it was very nice: we sat in the conservatory part of the breakfast room and the buffet selection was good. Unbelievably full yet again, we went up to the Royal Palace on the Funicular (near the Buda side of the Chain Bridge). The Funicular was more fun that the Royal Palace – which was a lot less impressive up close than it had been by night from near the river.
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On Sunday, we decided to continue a tradition we started the year before in Prague: namely, oversleeping because we forgot to adjust the time on my phone which we used as an alarm clock. We missed breakfast but it wasn’t a big deal because we were still digesting the big meal from the night before.

We set off on our explorations by heading up Bem Rakpart, away from Chain Bridge, towards the Batthyany metro stop (our “home” metro”) and stocked up on water at the Spar there. We bought excellent value three day tourist passes for the metro, buses, trams and the HEV (urban railway) for 1600HUF (about £4.50) each then took the metro up to the West End Mall. John was suffering sore feet issues too so we set about trying to find him some new trainers/inner soles.
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We had a decent flight out of Leeds Bradford – departing at 1030 so not a hideously early morning – and arrived in Budapest (via Amsterdam) at about 1600. I had already researched the different transport options into the city and we decided to use the airport minibus service. It was cheap (about £7 return each), convenient (no need to book journey into the city and easy to book the return journey) and quick: we only had a wait a few minutes until a minibus turned up and it took us straight into the city. We stopped at perhaps one or two hotels for other people before we got to ours but that was hardly a hardship – we got to see our first glimpses of the city. I would certainly recommend using the service.
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After going to Prague in July 2003, John and I decided to scratch another city out of our “I-Spy Eastern Europe Capital Cities” handbook and trekked to Budapest for my 25th birthday in July 2004.

We flew out with KLM from Leeds Bradford on the Saturday (17th) and returned on Tuesday (20th – my birthday itself, because I’ve always said, birthdays are best spent in airports), and stayed at the ArtOtel on the Buda side of the Danube.

Day-by-day journal:

• Saturday 17th July
• Sunday 18th July
• Monday 19th July
• Tuesday 20th July

– written up from notes, August 2004