In transit

Thursday, May 19 Rome to Budapest

We spent the day in transit.  Our trip to Rome’s airport by taxi was nothing short of a wild ride at Disneyland.  The good news is that our driver didn’t run anyone down and we made it out of Rome will all our luggage and wallets intact.  The wallets were much lighter, due to Rome’s high prices, though. 

Since we couldn’t find a direct flight to Budapest that would work for us, we had to change planes in Frankfurt.  Our Lufthansa flight gave as a wonderful view of the snowcapped Alps, a first for both of us.  It was raining quite a bit in Frankfurt, but we made our connection on time. 

We landed in Budapest airport at about 7:00 pm and finally got a cab and took a long taxi ride to our hotel, the Hilton.  Fortunately, traffic here does not approach the frenetic level of activity of Rome!

Budapest is divided into two parts by the Danube, Pest, in the east and Buda, in the west.  We stayed in classy Buda in a location nicknamed the castle.  We were quite surprised at the view from our window on the 4^th floor of the hotel.  There was a magnificent view in Budapest at sundown.

The Buda Hilton is typical of so many luxury hotels nowadays.  It the rooms and views are quite nice, but they really hit you up at the little things, including internet, which is usually free at even cheap motels nowadays.

Rule #7:  The more you pay for your room, the more luxury hotels stick it to you for the other things that cheaper hotels give away.

Photo: view from our hotel room at sunset