The drive from Debrecen to Budapest was pretty uneventful and for the most part boring. Not much to see and you know the old saying, it is so flat you can watch your dog run away for days. We made a couple of pit stops along the way most notably the Castle Godollo. This is another definite miss, the ticket price is $11 per person plus parking, little to no furniture, 3/4 of the place is not accessible and no photos. I found it very boring and after looking on line, it did not even make the list of the top 15 castles in Hungary. Worst of all, I parked the car under a cherry tree for some shade in the 30C/90F heat only to come back and find the vehicle splattered in cherry guts. The drive to Budapest from Godollo was about 30 minutes and we decided to stop at an OMV Gas Station to clean the cherry mess of the windshield. I thought to be fair, I should get the fuel topped up even though we had over 3/4 of a tank. The attendant started to fill the car while washing the crap off the window. I happened to glance at the nozzle and noticed diesel fuel spilling from the tank at $2.50/litre. I got the response "oh well, shit happens", paid an extra $10-15 for the fill and went on our merry way. As we entered Budapest from the south, it was not very impressive and sure didn't measure up to the reports we had gotten. As we approached the city center things began to improve. Then we crossed the bridge towards our apartment in Buda (two districts, Buda & Pest) things began to improve. We checked into the apartment, had some dinner and decided to take a stroll around the neighbourhood. There were some massive houses and a beautiful park the led us to the Citadella. It was spectacular, all lit up at night with an amazing view to the city and river below. There were hundreds of people milling around, taking photos and drinking beer (must be the thing to do at the Citadel). After a couple of hours we walked back to the apartment and decided to end an interesting day with a good nights sleep. The apartment is quite nice but like many things we have found in Eastern Europe, not everything is fully functional. The air conditioning makes a noise but that is as far as it goes. All it is doing in recirculation room temp air which does not help a lot. I guess that is why I am up at 5:30 am writing a blog rather than sleeping. Oh well, shit happens!
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