Aside from being flat but very pretty, the rural route from Vienna to Budapest is fairly indistinct. There are green fields with tall tree breaks and occasional hamlets of fewer than 20 houses in the community. Not all residents are farmers; we passed large heavily populated commuter parking lots at several of the small town train stations. The trip via train from Vienna to Budapest took roughly two hours. I must say, train travel is such a civilized way to travel. There are no baggage checks and no security checks. Travelers merely arrive at the train station, check the monitor to find out which on which platform the destination train will be arriving. They get on the train at the established boarding time. At the departure time, the doors to the train close and away they go! If a traveler is late or somehow misses is train, too bad. The seats are large and comfy. They have electrical outlets for charging phones and computers, and nice panoramic windows for viewing the scenery. Meals and drinks can be purchased and will be served by a professional train attendant.

Okaaaaaay. . . we popped out of Budapest Central Train station, Keleti Palyaudvar, knowing our apartment was just across the street and just a short walk away; next door to the Golden Park Hotel. Oh boy, things didn't look so good. It reminded me of popping out of the train station in Venice, Italy . . . at 6:30 in the morning when we had not enjoyed a minute of sleep all night to be greeted by throngs of people, see nothing but weather/time-worn buildings and hit by a wall of noise!! It was much the same here. This particular part of Budapest is shabby. The main entrance to the train station is truly elegant but the rest . . .

We found our apartment building and I have to tell you, it looked scary. Our host met us and we began climbing the stairs up to the second floor. Our apartment building is a typical European building. Picture a big, square doughnut or maybe a fort. The apartments line the outside walls and the doughnut hole is a central courtyard in the middle of the square. We walked in the entrance way to the building and got acquainted with our dilapidated courtyard. The marble steps going up to the second floor were warped into a curve from the years and years of wear. Actually in our way of thinking our second floor is in fact the third floor. Europeans count floors, i.e., Ground, First, then Second. When we reached our floor, we stepped out on to an interior wrought iron and stone walkway which looked saggy and certainly much more worn than some of the older bridges and overpasses we all worry about at home. Our host opened the door and voila! The apartment is brand new. Gorgeous! It's modern, pristine, well-equipped, well-maintained, and well-decorated. It's like black and white; night and day, a marked contrast going from outside to inside our apartment. I guess that may be the way it is in many palces we see here. The buildings look old and ill-cared for on the outside but interiors have been updated, refurbished and re-decorated into fine hotels, cool shops, restaurants, bars and nice apartment chambers.

We unpacked and examined all our touristy literature to get our bearings and decide what to do. Bridges over the Danube River are very important here. They are lighted at night and are must-do; must-see sights for locals and tourists alike, especially on a Friday night, and they connect Pest to Buda.

Before we started our sight-seeing adventure we shopped for a few kitchen essentials - our routine has been to make a healthy breakfast at home, have a late lunch out then have a light snack of cheese and bread or a salad late evening. There are a multitude of shops near us so that was easy. Then we found a 5-star restaurant just around the corner from us and had wonderful meal. All the good restaurants are featuring fresh asparagus right now. Stan had chicken with roasted potatoes and asparagus; I had roasted duck breast with pearl barley risotto and asparagus. The duck tasted like fillet mignon and the asparagus was the best I have ever had. I think it may have been fully peeled. . . tender and full of flavor.

We walked almost 2 miles down our street to the Elizabeth Bridge. We watched as all the lights came on lighting up the Elizabeth Bridge, the Castle, Parliament and the Szecheny Ianchid (Chain Bridge). It was pure magic! We walked the entire length of the Elizabeth Bridge and took the underground pedestrian walkway to reach the other side - the bridge carries 6 lanes of very fast moving automobile traffic so off-street pedestrian walkways are vital! As we walked back across the bridge over the Danube toward our apartment we stopped to watch the boats on the river below and took photos of the nighttime famous spots on the east and west sides of the River. In earlier days the west side of the Danube was called Buda or Obuda and the east side was called Pest. With the unification of Buda and Pest, the city became known as Budapest in 1873.

The air was cool and quite breezy but this was by far the most pleasant night-time weather we have seen on out entire trip and the amazing sights were well-worth our venture.

A few blocks past the Elizabeth Bridge, we caught the Underground and made it back to our apartment in just minutes. Not ready to go in quite yet, we stopped at the little bar in the Golden Park Hotel for Martini's. Wouldn't you know, we met a batch of young Scots on holiday from Aberdeen. They heard Stan try to ask the young lady bartender if she had olives for our drinks. They jumped in and tried to help, describing what an olive might be - seems Hungarians don't or at least this one didn't know olives . Their Martinis are pure vodka. Lemon is available if you ask. Of course, the young men asked if we were from the States - which started it all! They loved Stan's stories about his being in Scotland when he was in the Navy. You know the story when the tipsy train station master advises Stan, "ah ya don't want to be goin' to Dundee. It's known for the three P's - plague, pox and poverty." The guys laughed and said it's still that way!!! They told us great stories of their haps and mishaps during their young, life-long friendships; they made us laugh until we cried. We did not stay out late. We left the guys getting ready to leave for their 10 pm booze cruise down the Danube. We exchanged email addresses and hope to see them again before they return home on Sunday. It was one of those very special days for us that seem uneventful and may be even a little worrisome and then turns out to be a gift - one that is very, very special and could not happen again with the best of plans.

Now Saturday, we got out about noon via underground and bus headed toward Castle Hill on which sits the Royal Palace. But first, our normal routine is to visit the Tourist information office - this is where we get the lay of the land not only from the employees there but also inevitably from other vistors we happen to chat with and who have traveled here before us. Always well-worth the visit.

With new info in hand, we arrived at the base of Castle Hill. We stood in queue for a while to buy tickets for the brief but scenic ride on the Funicular Rail up the hill to the Palace grounds. At the top we strolled around a bit and then met a young man looking for tourists who might want a guided walking tour. We took him up on it and so did two young ladies from Great Britain, and lucky us, he was an excellent guide and historian.

How do I succinctly explain all the Hungarian history we learned today in just a sentence or two??? Hungary was settled in the third or fourth century by nomads of Asian descent, maybe early Mongols. They were warriors. They did not farm and they did not build settled communities. They may have been mercenaries hired by their neighbors to wage war. Later history finds Hungary more civilized but then overtaken by their very own Mongol relative descendants who burned to the ground anything they could not take. The survivors rebuilt and later were overtaken again and ruled by the Turkey for 140 years. Then the Habsburgs, the Austrian family we learned about at Schonbrunn just a couple of day ago, ran the Turks out. They ruled Hujgary from 1526 until 1867. Wow! My head is swimming! Scroll forward only about 75 years. Hungary just happened to sit in the path of the Soviets in their march to Berlin in World War II. The Hungarian folk, once they gave up their mercenary ways many centuries ago, have been warred upon, shot at, cannoned and bombed off and on from the 1800s until the end of World War II. This war-torn country appears to be still recovering to this very day. And there seems to be a raw sense of wound and immense desire for recovery today. Bullet holes still are visible in older fortresses. Shards of 17th century buildings destroyed in wars still lie about. There seems to be a real conflict of ideas here. This country has been occupied by one country or another until 1991 when Soviet troops finally withdrew from Hungary. Today's people seem to be debating just who they are; which idealogy of the past should be revered. Some monuments here were built by communist Russia; some monuments celebrate Hungary's past prior to World War II.

Enough of this piece-part history - please do not accept this as fact. It is merely a collection of our observations and musings of a local well-educated tour guide whose only compensation is tips paid by those who follow his tour and listen.

Before leaving the Castle Hill, we had lunch of hearty goulash soup, bread, salad and studel at an outdoor cafe on the grounds. I could eat these foods every day and we almost do. Have I mentioned that traveling here is a bargain??? After the exorbitantly high prices of everything throughout Scandinavia, we are shocked, literally shocked at the reasonable prices for virtually everything here. Woo-hoo!!

We took the path down Castle Hill to the river and walked along the Danube until we caught a tram and ultimately a bus to the Citadel, a fort built on Gellert Hill, the highest hill in Buda on the Danube. The fort was designed to defend the castle and the river. The ancient walls bear the wounds of gunfire and cannons. At the top of the Citadel is a monument, Lady Liberty. This, the freedom statue, was built in 1947 in remembrance of the Soviet liberation of Hungary. Toward the bottom of the hill is a statue and memorial to St. Gerard who is attributed to converting the Hungarian paeans to Christianity.