Our flight out to Vienna was an uneventful one. It was a late running flight and we got to Vienna with no daylight left whatsoever.
We had a not so fun time trying to find the car rental place. We finally found it and set the sat nav to the hotel. We got to the hotel and did our obligatory relaxing. Jamie decided that she would stay in for the night and I went out on the tram to try and find where the central station was to pick up our tickets for Budapest.
Now we’re on to Tuesday and a very early morning. We had an early morning train. It was about 7:40 that the train left. We had a fun (if you will) time at the station trying to find some breakfast and an ATM and then the platforms.
We finally did all that and got on the train. It was great. We had a 4 seats and a table to ourselves. We enjoyed that. All that room without having to sit next to anyone we didn’t know.
For most of the journey we could’ve been mistaken for thinking we were still in the Fens. It was flat and full of fields. It was quite apparent that we had crossed the border from Austria into Hungary. You could tell from the buildings. They looked similar to what we experienced in St Petersburg.
We finally got to the station and headed out to find the pick up point for the city sightseeing buses. The stop was outside the Grand Hotel Hungaria – a quite impressive building.
It was really cold and we were glad when the bus turned up – although it was an open top one. I wanted to sit upstairs so I could get some good pictures. Jamie was on the right side of the bus for pictures. It was just too cold to sit up there and take pictures. We did it for about 45 minutes before we got too cold.
We decided we would get off at the first stop – St Stephens Basilica as we saw a Christmas market there – our main reason for coming here.
There were a lot of huts and they were slightly different from others we have been to – we always find there are slight differences between each market we go to.
We decided to go for a walk as we had seen another market a little further down the street from where we got off. We ventured on to Vörösmarty tér and some other huts. It was all very festive. We then decided to head down to the Danube and sat there for a few minutes enjoying the scenery around.
We then headed back down towards the Basilica to get on the bus. As we were on the bus to head back towards the station, we came across the synagogue. Jamie wanted to go in but because I got the time wrong for the train, we didn’t end up going – even though we had the time (Sorry Jamie).
We got back to Vienna and decided to go straight to the hotel as it had been a long day. Below are some of the pictures we took whilst on our visit.
You can view the rest of our pictures here