I love, love, love, love, LOVE Budapest!  What an amazing city.  Budapest is two cities in one.  Buda on one side of the Danube and Pest on the other, (united in mid 1800's me thinks).  Buda is in the hills and has a gorgeous old walled center built around an enormous castle overlooking the river and Pest on the opposite bank.  Pest has a huge pedestrian walking area with markets and outside food vendors and entertainment.  There were tons of people out and about though it was early January and the festivities were over, plus the fact it was flipping FREEZING.  The city has some incredible architecture, particularly the parliament building and it's bridges.  At night everything is lit up like Vegas.

looking from Buda to Pest

It was cold

The skating and Castle in City Park

Food vendors

These gorgeous things are called Kurtos Kalacs and they are a traditional rolled sweet bread that you find in Hungary, the Czech Republic and there about.  They toast them on open fires and then roll them in cinnamon sugar, nuts, coconut etc.  Grace and I first discovered them in Prague and then had them again in Budapest.  So yummy and wonderfully warming, wrapped in paper, and steaming from the fire.  Our second day in Budapest, I ate one the size of a baseball bat.  I skipped dinner that night.  Except for a beer.  The only beverage one could buy in our little family run hotel.  I love Budapest.  Did I mention that?  It is beautiful.  The food it great.  The people friendly and helpful.  And it still hasn't quite figured out this "tourism thing" and thinks it's stuck behind the iron curtain.  In fact once you step out of the public/tourist areas there is no English and people tend to be wary and taciturn.  They remind me of "country folk" in the deep south.  Just dressed warmer.

Anywho.  This is definitely the place to come back to some day when I have more time to really explore.  I would say in Spring though as there are so many wonderful parks and gardens and the ice might be melted from the fountains by then....  Still more to come.  xxoo me