Day 22 - Saturday 2nd July

Weather - Drizzle, cool, but not unpleasantly. Nice to have a day off from the heat actually. 20 degrees.

Today we got off to an early start (beat the tourists, and most of the shops for that matter) and headed for the Budapest Castle. We managed to find a 'tradesmans entrance'... "Trust me..." Cory kept saying... and found our way in. There were plenty of well dressed people there, and we felt rather ratty in our clothes, thinking you must have to dress up to go there. We then discovered that there was some kind of procession or perhaps inauguration of police or army as there were many in full regalia, some on horseback, and the military/police (?) brass band.

The castle area is quite large and we spent all morning looking around the bulidings, churches, statues, streets as well as under them, in the catacombs. VERY scary - like something out of Indiana Jones.

Then it was over to Pest to do what all good Budapestians would do on a drizzly day - we went to the Turkish Baths. We took the underground train up to the north of the city. We chose the city park ones, as there were a very large array to choose from, but also more importantly, they were for both genders. (The all-male ones are tradtionally a nude affair, which now means the domain of gay men trying to pick up). There were many many different pools with different temperatures, levels of salt and different medicinal purposes. Of course we had no idea what those purposes were, so we thought it best to try them all just in case. There were also steam rooms and saunas which Cory tried, but Nai thought they looked too much like bad swedish porn-style ads so gave them a miss.

After the baths, it was off to the "House of Terror". This was a real Nazi, then Soviet strong-hold/headquarters for over 40 years, which has now been converted into a museum/experiencial space to remind people of the occupation. Although it was very depressing, it gave you a very accurate idea of what it must have been like for the people of Hungary (that is, the ones they didn't take off to the Gulags). Budapest has come a very long way in 15 yrs or so.

After that it was time for a quick bite to eat before heading off for an early night, as it was a big day of driving the next day. I think this day was the 2nd most we walked - eclipsed only by day 2 in NYC where we went to Brooklyn. We didn't have the pedometer that day, but today it read 27.5km.