On Tuesday, I found out that I needed to go to Budapest for a meeting with a prospective client. I was pretty excited about this, as Budapest has always been a city I’ve wanted to visit. We had a meeting with Accenture scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, then a morning meeting planned with the customer on Thursday. I toyed with staying on (and maybe I should have…), but decided I needed to get back home.
After arriving in Budapest, we (I was traveling with a coworker, Eric) cabbed it to our hotel, which was right downtown on the banks of the Danube River. It was a great location, with an amazing view from my room out over the river, with the castle and the main cathedral all in view. After checking in, we had lunch on a patio on the edge of the river, then we headed off to our meeting.
A couple of views of "The Castle" from my hotel
Sadly, the meeting lasted all of the afternoon, and it was pretty late before we could head out to see the city a little bit, and have dinner. As a result, I only got to see a very small bit of the city – not nearly enough. First, we walked across the “Chain Bridge” to the other side of the river. The Castle (I’m sure it has a name, but I’m not sure what it is…) is the former Palace, and sits up on the hill. We took a funicular (there’s tons of these things in Europe!) up to the top of the hill, at the front of the Castle. By this time, the sun was setting, and there was a lot of time to see much.
The funicular up to the Castle
Houses of Parliament at sunset
Sunset over the hills of Budapest
We did walk down to the main cathedral, which is spectacular. I didn’t take any pictures, as the main spire is under restoration, and once again I am foiled by scaffolding! We had dinner at a nice, local restaurant, then called it a night. I did manage to get some not bad night shots. This is one beautiful city, and this short trip confirmed the need to come back and see it properly.
