Budapest, Hungary, Driving through Slovakia, Ezstergom Cathedral and Visegrad Castle ruins

From Prague we rented a car and drove through Slovakia to Budapest, Hungary. I was so glad that we did this. I was wavering on it and hadn't even looked into what Budapest was like, but it exceeded my expectations by far. It was an incredible city with a Castle and beautiful views just like Prague. The main difference is that Prague has around 500,000 people and Budapest has 2 million. It was a much larger city. Otherwise it was very similar. It was a little cheaper too although even Prague wasn't that expensive.

Driving through Slovakia was a pleasant experience. It took us about 5 hours to get from Prague to Budapest

The countryside was beautiful

We rented a midsize BMW. It wasn't all that great but good enough

Our GPS was a life saver

We had to change money in Prague and Budapest

We stopped and ate a Slavakian lunch near Bratislava but a little village called Lamac. This was probably the  only restaurant there but it was easy to find even though it was tucked up in the residential part of town. Well, it all seemed residential

Parliament in Budapest. The first thing we did was walk from our K and K hotel to the waterfront and walked across the main bridge of the city. It had incredible views

Castle district

The fanciest Burger King I have ever seen!

We took a dinner cruise on the Danube and got some great night shots

It was a great taste of real Hungarian food 

St Stephen's Basilica

Parliament

The Castle district and the bridge

A nice Hungarian woman let me take her picture

Heroes Square

We took a hop/on hop/off tour of the city the last day we were there. I love taking these

We stopped at the to off the Citadel that has a view of the Castle district and the Danube

We ate at nice Hungarian restaurants every night. There were a lot of Americans there. I was surprised

They have a funnicula that goes up to the Castle District

The main bridge empties to this round about

The view out of our hotel window

Ezstergom's Cathedral

We climbed to the top and saw some amazing views

The Danube

Looking down on some old ruins from the Cathedral

After I bought a nice scarf from these ladies

There is nothing like driving the back roads of a new country

Visegrad Castle ruin entrance

Visegrad Castle

Rather than give you the history of the Castle, you can read about part of it here

Flowers growing on the Castle floor

A real gallows

Part of the Castle fortress lower down on the hill

We stopped to buy some Hungarian fruit

We bought some snacks for the trip back