Beautiful Budapest! We have had a lovely time visiting this amazing city although it has been so hot at 34 + degrees every day that it has been a struggle walking around trying to see everything. It is definitely a place we will come back to in the future to explore more.

We were lucky enough to stay on a campsite actually in Budapest (well just on the outer part of the city and just a short tram ride in from outside our campsite).

We bought 48-hour tickets for the open top tour bus so that we could get the lay of the land. This also included the night tour and a boat tour. We used the metro and the trams to get about after that which was very regular and the bonus with Ray being 65 was that he travelled around the city for free!

One of the most moving memorials we discovered while in Budapest was “The Shoes on the Danube Bank”. It is a memorial created to honour the people (mainly Budapest Jews) who were killed by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest in World War II. They were ordered to take off their shoes and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away.

The Memorial was created by sculptor Gyula Pauer and film director Can Togay. The display consist of 60 pairs of old-style boots and shoes in cast iron, tossed higgledy-piggledy on the bank of the river. I think the worst part for us was seeing the smaller shoes of children).

On Margaret’s Island, there is a water fountain which a lot of people were enjoying. Each hour on the hour various jets of the fountain are synced to classical music for approximately 15 minutes. There are chairs around so that you can sit in the sun and enjoy the show. It is similar, although on a smaller scale, to the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas. At night time it is done with lights

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