Day 2

We commenced the day with a breakfast consisting of a fabulous display of Hungarian breakfast foods - from a choice of cereal and yoghurts to sausages encased in rasher, scrambled and boiled eggs, cheese and smoked salmon together with a great variety of breads and a glass of bubbly to wash it all down!! 

We crossed the river and spotted the Gellert hotel where the famous baths are situated - on our itinerary Saturday or Sunday!! 

Opposite the hotel stood the Cave Church hewn out of the rock of Gellery Hill by the Pauline Order in 1926. 

It was closed during the Communist era, when in 1951 the Hungarian Secret Police arrested and imprisoned  the monks. The church was reopened in 1989. 

From here we took a tram along the Danube, alighting at the Chain Bridge- the first Bridge to link Buda and Pest. From here we took the funicular Railway up to Royal Palace, 

arriving just in time to see the changing of the Guard. 

This Palace now encompasses the Hungarian History Museum  and the Hungarian National Gallery

The Gallery is spectacular in layout.  I visited the Paintings of the School of London, comprising among others Bacon  and Freud - no photographs permitted!! 

Quitting the Royal Palace, we crossed the Chain Bridge 

and made our way to the Gerbeaud Cafe, 

established 1858 

where I partook of a piece of  a chocolate cake, specially commissioned for the 160th  anniversary of its foundation. 

Outside the cafe, the X-mas markets  were in full swing. We encountered an unusual bread among its offerings. 

We walked up Fashion Street and took a Metro to Keleti Railway Station (where we were to have been dropped off last night!) to purchase tickets for tomorrow’s trip to Bratislava. 

Tonight we are dining in the New York Cafe es Etterem. It’s ornate ceiling, delicate gold furniture and expensive food belie it’s origin as a cafe for impoverished writers!!