Tuesday, 10 May, 2016 – Bucharest to Budapest
Well, it is a sad day as we must leave Romania and our fantastic tour guide Alexandra. She picks us up from our Hotel and drives us to the airport.
When we get into the airport, our flight is not yet open for check in. Aftter a while it finally opens and we say final goodbyes to Alexandra, who we would highly recommend.
Check in goes smoothly enough albeit no one was serving the priority check in initially. We are flying Tarom, a new first. There is a business class lounge which is OK but has no hot food, not much other than potato chips.
When we board the plane, we discover we are on a bus out to the Tarmac. Further, we discover that we are flying a prop plane. Finally, we board the plane from the rear and climb the length of the plane to arrive in Business Class. Let’s just say it was less extravagant than any we have ever been on. The meal similar. There is an interesting aspect to the plane, there is a cabinet near the pilots door out from which slides a seat for the Stewardess for takeoff and landing.
Finally, we arrive in Budapest. It has been a smooth flight and a smooth landing. We are last off of the plane, of course, but it does not really matter as there is another bus trip and it is a short ride to the terminal. Although we are in the back of the crush, there is no problem at immigration as we find an All Passports area which is virtually empty so straight through. At baggage, our two suitcases are the first off as we are the only business class passengers and our priority baggage tags work this time, unlike at Bucharest.
We find our driver who seems to be a very nice guy – thanks Andrew and Julia. It is about a 40 minute drive from the airport, through Budapest, to the Spa Island and our Hotel Danubius Health Spa. This is to be our home for the next 4 days.
We check in and are shown to our room. It is a very old Hotel but the insides have been completely renovated recently – there is the smell of new carpet in the hallways.
Julie has booked a massage to which she goes. She also uses the Spa pools, what this place is famous for. Myself, Blog work and nap as per normal. As the afternoon goes on, I discover that the wireless response times in the room are poor or worse. I move down to the lobby where they are very good. I did take some photos from the balcony of our room.
As we are a fair way from civilisation, we decide to eat in the Hotel. We are advised that the restaurant is in the Grand Hotel which is attached to our Hotel by a tunnel. We make our way over there with the usual collection of stairways, elevators, angled passageways until we finally reach the Grand and then the restaurant. Just what one would expect for a Hotel circa 1870.
The restaurant looks like it is just a smorgasboard, and that is what most of the customers choose, but there is menu food too and we select a table, a wine (Bikaver) and food courses.
Julie ordered a smoked salmon salad for a starter but the photo did not turn out (see tomorrow’s Post).
There was a band playing – a guy and his son on Violins etc. They visited our table and tried to sell us their CD but we did not buy. Off to the room and then to bed after another Bikaver.