Thursday 11th June

Today we explored the medieval town of Buda which was developed around the 13th century castle. The castle was built on an escarpment that rises to 170 metres above the Danube.

Along the foot of this are the spas and bathing houses where the water naturally issued from the cliffs. Today we see the 19th century Imperial style of building, in particular, the Royal Palace, which was originally built in the 18th century but restored after World War II. To get there we used the funicular near the Chain Bridge which provides great views of Pest.

To complete the day we ate at the Pampas Argentine steakhouse where the meat and the wine were as good as what we sampled in Argentina. The wine was a most pleasant Merlot from Patagonia at 39 degrees south.