Day 14 Mon July 23

The morning started with a line to get a ticket for  a guided tour of the National Parliament Building.  It was quite a impressive structure from the outside.. That's because I never made it inside.  I was about to encounter my first real taste of Soviet style nonsense.  To get a ticket for a tour which was later in the day, you queued up in a roped area about 100 M from "Door X" the ticket office.  Now there was 2 official looking people that were about half way into "no-mans" land that regulated the flow.  So they let one person march across no mans land to door X. and in about 3 minutes out they came.  But the next person could not enter no mans land until the exiting person had completely exited.  This resulted in about 1 ticket q 4-5 minutes.  There were already about 75 people in line when I got there at 10.  So I blew that off and jumped on the first tram I saw.  The famous #2 which tours the Pest side of the Danube.  I rode this a while and then decided it was time for my first Budapest Baths.  These medicinal baths are quite the rage in Buda.  The one I found was the biggest.  It was inside glorious building in city park.  The water was full of sulfur so you can imagine how it smelled.  But after an hour in 36 C bath.  I was pretty relaxed and my foot didn't bother me any longer. That evening I found the Deak area and had a nice dinner of Beef Tartare at fantastic outdoor cafe.  Not only was the food and weather nice; but all the escorts for the High End Hotels came walking by.  It was better that a runway seat at the Miss Universe pageant.

PHOTOS HERE