It was a holiday weekend, Columbus Day to be exact, and in typical Fitter Family fashion, Matt and Mary decided to go away for the weekend on Thursday. We had actually been talking about hitting another country since we will be leaving Germany next summer and there are still a few places we want to see. Budapest, Hungary was on the list. So on Thursday, we went to expedia.com, booked a five star hotel, loaded up the mini-cooper on Friday morning and headed out of town.
It was a very easy seven hour drive. The Fall colors are out which made for some delightful scenery. And believe it or not, the roads in Hungary are actually much better than the roads in Austria.
We stayed at the Ramada Plaza hotel situated right on the Danube and across from Margerit Island. The hotel was quite posh but not close enough to all of the sightseeing we wanted to do. But the high speed internet connection, the fabulous three pools of varying temperatures and the most modern exercise room that we have ever seen in a hotel (as if we actually used it) more than made up for the small inconvenience.
Tips before going to Budapest: Study about this city because I was certainly overwhelmed at the size, 2 million people and all the places we wanted to see. We started out by booking the hop-on, hop-off bus. In most cities, when you do these kinds of tours, that usually means you can hop-off the bus, explore the area and take pictures and then hop back on the next bus thirty minutes later. Not so in Budapest. Hop-off means they are stopping for five or ten minutes to take pictures and they will hold your seats. If you are trying to get back onto another bus, you could be out of luck! We barely made it onto another bus! With the purchase of our tour, we also got a free one hour Danube River Cruise.
I've posted some pictures below of this amazing city. And if you are counting, Mary and MK have now been to 24 countries since moving to Germany! Of course, Matt has a few more countries courtesy of the United States Army.
It was a very easy seven hour drive. The Fall colors are out which made for some delightful scenery. And believe it or not, the roads in Hungary are actually much better than the roads in Austria.
We stayed at the Ramada Plaza hotel situated right on the Danube and across from Margerit Island. The hotel was quite posh but not close enough to all of the sightseeing we wanted to do. But the high speed internet connection, the fabulous three pools of varying temperatures and the most modern exercise room that we have ever seen in a hotel (as if we actually used it) more than made up for the small inconvenience.
Tips before going to Budapest: Study about this city because I was certainly overwhelmed at the size, 2 million people and all the places we wanted to see. We started out by booking the hop-on, hop-off bus. In most cities, when you do these kinds of tours, that usually means you can hop-off the bus, explore the area and take pictures and then hop back on the next bus thirty minutes later. Not so in Budapest. Hop-off means they are stopping for five or ten minutes to take pictures and they will hold your seats. If you are trying to get back onto another bus, you could be out of luck! We barely made it onto another bus! With the purchase of our tour, we also got a free one hour Danube River Cruise.
I've posted some pictures below of this amazing city. And if you are counting, Mary and MK have now been to 24 countries since moving to Germany! Of course, Matt has a few more countries courtesy of the United States Army.
When you go to a Oktoberfest, you must enjoy one of these giant pretzels, or brezens in German. They take the edge off your hunger while you are waiting for your food to arrive!
This is Aloisius. He is an angel sent to Munich on an errand from God. The legend was that Aloisius was a train porter in Munich. When he died and went to heaven, he was very disappointed that there was no beer or snuff in heaven. God got tired of all of his complaining and sent him back to Munich to be an emissary between heaven and the government. When he got to Munich, he made a beeline to Oktoberfest and there he stayed, drinking beer and enjoying his snuff! Aloisius hangs from the middle of the tent and as the Fest goes on, somehow becomes covered in underwear! We didn't see any underwear this trip. However, we did hear that if you are seated under Aloisius, you may get sprayed with beer!
On the way home, everyone is pooped! We had so much fun this Oktoberfest! We would really like to go back to Oktoberfest one more time before it is over.
