Bratislava to Budapest

Woke up to a dusting of snow, which quickly melted. After breakfast we walked around a bit and then had coffee to kill some time until the 2:00 train.  Here are a few more scenes from Bratislava.

This is called the UFO bridge. 

About to leave Bratislava

St. Istvan (Stephen) Basillica in Budapest

Our hotel is 1/2 block from this church. Better pictures tomorrow. Istvan was the King and he realized that if his people didn't become Christian they would be driven out of Europe. So he ordered his people to convert. Well, ordering people to believe in something doesn't usually work too well, so as an incentive he told his people if they didn't convert he would chop off their heads. And to bring home the point he had his uncle chopped into 4 pieces and sent the pieces to the 4 corners of the realm to demonstrate that he meant business. So Hungary became Christian, and Istvan got made a saint. I guess I missed the page in the Bible where Jesus said "believe in me or I'll kill you".  Or how dicing up your uncle qualifies you for sainthood.

Travel tip - if you are ever in Vienna and looking for a day-trip, we would definitely recommend Salzburg over Bratislava. There is a boat that runs on the Danube between Vienna and Bratislava during the warmer months that might make that trip more interesting, but as far as the cities themselves, Salzburg is better. Thanks again, Herta, for suggesting we go there.

We've had to switch currencies every few days on this trip - Euros in Vienna, Crowns in Prague, Euros in Slovakia and now Florints in Hungary. We were able to spend our Vienna leftover Euros in Slovakia, and used up all our Crowns for lunch on the train. But it gets confusing trying to figure out how much something costs. There are roughly 240 Florints per dollar, which is hard to calculate mentally. In Prague, it was about 20 to 1, so we just moved the decimal one place to the left and divided by 2. We'll figure it out. Anyway, I'm in charge of the sightseeing plan and Armando's in charge of the money because I can't do math in my head.   But at least for a few days, we are millionaires when we see our bank balance on the ATM receipt!

Did you know that Buda and Pest are two different cities? Buda, with its hills, its castle and its Beverly Hills neighborhoods, is on the west side of the Danube and flat, lively, commercial Pest is on the east. I didn't know that until about a year ago when I started doing research for this trip. We're staying in Pest, 1/2 block from the basilica and about 3 blocks from the river. Right smack in the middle of everything.