IDEAS v. DETAILS
Once we decided on a side-trip
to Budapest Hungary after the Christmas holidays in England I got out of the
way. Janet willingly and with great expertise handled every detail of the trip
from Nantwich to Budapest.
She made all the difficult
travel arrangements with Ryanair, the low-cost British carrier, and navigated
through their unwieldy requirements for baggage weights and paying for the
extra bags we wanted to take. She arranged for all the airport transfers through
Ryanair as well.
She chose the hotel,
conveniently located across the street from the Hungarian Opera, noting that
K+K Hotel Opera had some of the largest hotel rooms in Budapest and a very nice
breakfast.
K+K HOTEL OPERA
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| A night at the Opera |
She bought Opera
Tickets for a performance of Die Fledermaus Operetta by Strauss. We were fortunate the performance was held while we were visiting Budapest and she managed to get second row seats as well!
She researched the Szechenyi
Thermal Baths, like costs and the best place to enter. On the far side near the
zoo the entrance to the baths is dramatic with marbled columns and a grand view
of the outdoor pools. Szechenyi is one of several such thermal baths located in
Budapest, but this facility had a number of outdoor naturally heated pools along
with a sprawling complex of indoor pools.
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| SZECHENYL BATHS |
She arranged for Andrea,
a highly regarded personal guide for 1 ½ days, a van included on the first day,
a walking tour for the second, to show us this beautiful, vibrant, lovely and historic
city, trading countless emails in the process.
Enthusiastic, engaging,
thoughtful and knowledgeable Andrea made our tour of Budapest fun as well as informative. Some of the sights were touring Gellert Hill and St. Matthias Church in the Buda section of town, the Dohany Street Synagogue in Pest, and the collection of Soviet-era statues at Memento Park, just on the outskirts of Budapest.
PRIVATE GUIDE BUDAPEST
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| MEMENTO PARK |
Not that this is an
issue, but Andrea required we pay her in Euros and not in Hungarian Florin and
because Janet wasn’t sure if we could withdraw Euros from an ATM in Hungary, she
made arrangements with a bank at home to have the necessary Euros sent to the
house before we left for England for Christmas.
Speaking of British Pounds,
when that currency tanked a few months ago and was just $1.09 USD to the Pound she
sent her daughter money to buy some Pounds at that great exchange rate.
Janet laid out the entire
itinerary for our 5-day trip to Hungary including restaurants like Menza, and visits
to historic buildings like St. Stephen’s Basilica or the Parliament Building.
She also researched and decided that we should visit the historic Café Gerbeaud,
which was very popular with aristocrats in the 19th Century.
She also researched the
Ruin Bars, which during WWII were the Jewish Ghetto was located and hundreds of thousands
of Jews were sent from here to Auschwitz, but now is a sprawling warren of “hip”
bars and eateries. She made note of Szimpla Kert and made sure we visited that
one first.
By the end of our visit
to Budapest, we will have done everything Janet wanted to do. Everything, every
detail of our trip was planned by Janet, except one.
I learned how to
negotiate the hotel room in the middle of the night to find the bathroom.
Thanks for reading
Love Janet and greg
© 2023 by Gregory Dunaj
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