Friday, July 10th - Istanbul to Budapest

Up, packed and down to breakfast around 8 to leave for airport at 8:30.  My other stop was at the laundry but it wasn't open yet.  We had laundry done the other day and I was short two pairs of socks when it came back.  They supposedly open at 6:30 a.m. so I had plenty of opportunity to get it from them but alas, they were not open so I am now without some socks.  

Another hot day in Istanbul.  The taxi took us on the highway along the water and it was a great view.  The trip to the airport was less than 30 minutes though so now we have 3 hours to kill before our flight leaves, and this airport does not appear to have a lot of seating in the waiting areas.  Now that I'm seated, I may not get up until we're boarding.

Istanbul was great and yet when you really think about it, we basically only saw the old city (except for the boat cruise).  The city is huge with over 21 million people so I doubt we saw even 1/100th of it and what we saw was definitely the historic tourist portion.  There is a lot more to be seen so I guess another trip will be required.  Of the 21 million people, 16 million live in Europe and 5 million live in Asia.

We arrived in Budapest and went directly to our hotel.  It is fantastic.  We have a two-bedroom apartment with a large common area.  After dinner we went to the local grocery store - a large one in the bottom of the shopping centre that is right next door.  Crackers, cheese, bread, peanut butter, eggs, bananas, apples, coffee, beer, pop, munchies - it was quite an interesting grocery list but at least we will have breakfasts for a while.  

We are on the Pest side of the city.  The Danube divides the two former cities of Buda and Pest but they are now joined as one city.  We are not in any real tourist area but we are close to the metro, tram and bus lines so we will be fine.  

We asked the front desk person for her recommendation for a dinner place and walked to it.  We were the only ones there when we went in but we were still on Turkey time and we were hungry.  The meals were okay but they were more expensive than we are used to.  I don't think we'll be going back there any time soon.

The weather here is much cooler than in Turkey and we actually had to take jackets/sweaters with us to dinner.  It's also very windy which makes it seem even cooler.  Two days ago they had a really bad storm with high winds and hail.  There were a lot of big trees and branches down as we drove n from the airport.  Hopefully there won't be any of that while we are here.

Once we got back after dinner and grocery shopping we basically just called it a night. One hour doesn't seem like a big time change but when your travelling, it really seems to make a difference.  Tomorrow we start our real touring of Budapest.