Tourist in your own city | The boat trip that didn't happen | Budapest

Yesterday we thought let's go on a boat trip on the Danube river

Because we still need to see so many spots in Budapest, we thought today the sun is shining and let's have some family time. A boat trip didn't happen yet, and it's quite cheap too. Especially when you have a monthly travel card like my boyfriend (for traveling to work every day) then it's free. For others it's only about 3 euro (about 900 Hungarian Forint) they told us. The little girl is free as she is only two years old. That's a cheap and nice thing to do, because you get to see many beautiful spots to make pictures while you are on the Danube river. Perfect right?

But the Danube river is big, and we did not really know where to start the trip

Normally we go in the direction of the Margret-Sziget spot, because we see hop on- hop off stops for the boats crossing the river. But my boyfriend had a wonderful idea, let's take the tram to the Buda side, and hop on a boat there, to end at the Margret-Sziget island and go back home from there. I thought, fine by me, let's do it. So off we went to Buda. Once we crossed the bridge of the river we were not sure on which side we had to be to start the boat trip, as there are boat on both sides. We thought we were on the wrong side, so back on the tram to go to the other side. After we had been standing in the bloody hot sun for 15 minutes, the tram arrived (normally they come more often, guess it was delayed).

Well we saw many boats, so which one will it be?

Good question! That was not clear to us either.. So we decided to just walk aside the Danube river, and the first option to start a boat trip, there was no boat, so we started walking again. And first we saw some big cruise ships, most of them were getting supplies on board. But those ships are big! And the next ones were even bigger. None of them seemed to be the one that we were looking for. And after 45 minutes of walking in the bloody sun (I was burning) we decided this is a never ending walk, so we skip the trip for today, took a few pictures of the stunning view across the river, and walked up to get in the centre again. We were thirsty!

One of the bridges you will find in Budapest crossing the Buda to Pest side. Behind the bridge you see a mountain with cave in it.. I took a picture, but it isn't as good as I hoped it would be. But here it is anyway:

Hopefully next time I will get a better shot, because it looks so nice...

So of we went in the center, now let's find an empty table

That was difficult because it was filled with tourists (mainly the cruise ship tourists I think because the average age was above 60 lol). I thought to walk in a bakery, but the cheapest thing they had (normal croissant without even cheese or so) was about 4,50 in euros well, next. Eventually we found this cafe that still was too expensive to eat, so we decided to have a drink only. The banana milkshake at the top of the post looks stunning right? It tasted good too, but it was half shake half foam so in about 6 sips it was gone. Still thirsty after this, so we decided hop in the burger king to get a cheaper drink, as we were surrounded by restaurants that looked even more expensive. And no supermarket in the area around us, so got to make the best choice we can.

When we walked in the Burger King it was still bloody hot

It was good to come inside the BK to feel the air conditioning, what a relief that was. We sat there waiting for our daughter to finish her sunday icecream. It took a while.. And then we looked outside, and saw it was pouring! My gosh I don't think I've seen it rain that hard since we arrived in Budapest. All of us in summer cloths, of course no coats with us, as it was about 29 degrees when we left .. We waited a bit, but nothing changed, so we concurred the massive rain, to cross the street, we were soaking wet! So decided to hide under a building, before walking any further.
After this we made one wrong decision on what tram to catch after the other, and it took about an hour and a half to get home..

My lesson learned was

That I should not be doing these kind of things unprepared again. I mean it's nice to do something spontaneously, don't get me wrong! But I mean, when there are soooo many options when it comes to catching a boat, tram, bus, metro etc you better prepare before leaving so I know how to get somewhere the fastest way possible. I hate waiting in the pouring rain, with a two year old, getting soaking wet for way too long to catch a bus or tram that doesn't even come close to a point where we need to hop on another. Bad idea, sorry boyfriend, next try we do it my way..
The plan was to try again today, but the weather is not as nice as I hoped it would be, so today it's clean up the house time instead of doing fun stuff. Next week, new attempt to be a tourist in our 'home' city Budapest.
Budapest keeps amazing us by the way, these places we saw yesterday we haven't been before. There seems to be an endless list of spots here filled with touristic places and things to see. The shops are endless too. Now I understand a bit better why it's always packed with tourists here, no exceptions.