Nic and Sue’s Euro River Cruise and some bits on the side. Autumn 2026. Day 5 Budapest.

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Sleeping with views over the River Danube – not a bad way to travel!

Breaky was a vast spread – as is customary for these big multi national brand hotels. A very nice pot of earl grey tea and a Hungarian omelette were the stand out for me this morning.

We have a day to ourselves today, with a plan but without tours to have to be at. The plan is to head over to the Buda side of the river.

We booked an Uber up to Fisherman’s Bastion and St Matthias Church, also the Town Hall.

Firstly the church -Matthias Church- the exterior was incredible and I was very taken by the tiled roof – it looks like Lego – I learnt that it’s been recently renovated with tiles by the original manufacturer, Zsolnay Factory in Pècs, hence they are so shiny.

The inside was another level of ornate – mostly fresco painting which is preferable to lots of dark statues etc. Lots of photos to share and probably way too much info.

Outside into the light we passed the statue of St Stephen.

We had a short wander around the Fisherman’s Bastion and took in some spectacular views across to the Pest side with views up and down the Danube River.

Off to visit the Buda Castle – with a long awaited stop for a traditional HUNGARIAN Chimney cake.

We opted for plain cinnamon, it was cooked while we waited 6-7minutes and it came out hot and steaming like a Chimney. Hopefully the video shows it.

While sitting on the window sill to eat our Chimney Cake we were admiring some of the buildings.

Turns out there is a massive long term project, The National Hauszmann Program, underway since 2014 to reconstruct the many demolished buildings that make up the Buda Castle precinct. The one we were looking at was the National Defence Headquarters and we discovered many more as the day went by.

Last night I was complaining about the cranes spoiling the views, but today I saw what they were working on and it’s nothing short of amazing. The Buda Castle has been through the wars figuratively and literally. It was most recently (in a long history of wars) left in ruins after World War Two and to look at pictures of it with 65% of buildings annihilated is heartbreaking. Several structures including the Riding Hall, The Guardhouse and others have been rebuilt from scratch to original plans and using artisan craftsmanship to do so. There were lots of workers constructing new buildings using old and new technologies. The attention to detail is incredible. I have found no indication of the cost. Work has also been done and still being done to restore fountains and statues as well.

We were lucky to stumble across my favourite palace/castle activity – changing of the guards. Low key and not mentioned in anything I’ve read. Made my morning. we watched two guards march about a bit, then round at the front entrance to the Office of the President there was a small changing of guard ceremony. Nice small crowd too.

One of the statues, the Turul statue, survived the Second World War with relatively minor damage, but had severely deteriorated over time and was fully restored in 2021 .
The bronze statue has been cleaned, repaired, and its internal steel frame strengthened and has been returned to its original place. Pretty amazing looking bird.

Moving inside we were able to visit the St Stephen’s Hall recreation. This is the first interior room to be rebuilt in line with original plans and drawings, historic photographs, and a small number of surviving objects. The reconstruction of the ceremonial hall began in 2014.
In total, the recreation of St Stephen’s Hall took seven years. The present hall was opened on St Stephen’s Day, 20 August 2021, and while it was small, the attention to detail and opulence of it all was breathtaking.
The finished Hall is a testimony to workmanship and skill of the celebrated craftsmen and artisans of the past and at the same time, it proves that even today master craftspeople still remain who are capable of recreating such magnificent historic interiors.

After spending some time in the hall we then had four floors of museum to explore. It was dense with information and history. Several components of the exhibition were displays of artefacts that had been found by archeological digs through the grounds of the Castle which has been oft times destroyed since the 13th and 14th centuries.
Some stand outs include the Tapestry with the Hungarian Angevin Coat of Arms. The tapestry was found in the form of a mud ball at a depth of about 10 m in the Castle well together with a number of other silk finds. The mud conserved the material although the pigments of the dyes have deteriorated. The tapestry illustrates the red-silver (white) coat-of-arms of the Árpád dynasty and the Angevin coat-of-arms of golden lilies on a blue field in lozenge shields. A three-forked floating label depicting a letter ‘E’ lying flat can be seen above the lilies in the Angevin shield, this phenomenon, called cadency in herald-ry, links the find to the Angevin royal house of Naples.

It took quite some time to get around the extensive exhibits and displays.

After a drink and a little snack at the Museum Cafe, we headed out to walk along the top of the Castle wall – with yet more great views over Budapest and the Danube.

We concluded with a walk across the Chain Bridge back to Pest.

Shared a club sandwich and a drink at Gerbaud Cafe, before returning to the Hotel for a bit of downtime before dinner time.

Sitting in the room, there was a sudden heavy shower, then it was out for Italian for Dinner at Vapiana – my bacon gnocchi was delicious.
Home via a bit of a shopping strip, with a little pamper by a young fella from Emyla – turns out he had worked in Noosa and lived in Sydney for a bit. So we had a bit of treatment and then it was home to bed. A busy last full day in Budapest tomorrow.