Hungary 02: Danube Bend Tour

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Thinh and I had to get up at 07:30 today so we could get ready for an all-day tour that we had booked before leaving Vietnam. We took the metro over to the tour company’s office, where the tour would be departing. We were worried that we would be the only people on the tour, but three more people eventually showed up (a Spanish couple and a man from Mexico).

At 09:00 our guide arrived and we set off on the tour. He was a very friendly man and fluent in several languages, so we conducted the tour in both English and Spanish. My Spanish is very rusty, but I was able to mostly follow what he was saying. Today’s tour would take us through the Danube Bend, located to the north of Budapest, where we would visit a few different small towns.

After about an hour of driving, we arrived in the town of Szentendre for the first stop. Our guide took us on a walk throughout the town, which didn’t take too long. It was a sleepy, charming town with cobblestone streets and old European buildings. Many shops were just starting to open when we arrived and our guide told us that the town is packed with tourists during the summer. Thinh and I were both enjoying the walk – everywhere we walked we found some new charming building or square.

The final stop of the walking tour of Szentendre was in a small square at the top of a hill which let us look over the entire town. We could see a couple of churches in town, nestled in among the homes of the locals. We then walked down to the main square of the town and visited a marzipan shop. Thinh had never heard of marzipan before and we were given small samples to taste. We were given about an hour of free time, which we could use to tour the marzipan factory, but Thinh and I decided to walk around a bit instead. We walked down one of the main streets and then returned to the square, where we went to a small café to get some coffee and sweets. I got a marzipan sweet so Thinh could get a better taste of it, which he liked.

The group reconvened back at the tour bus and we set off for our next destination: Esztergom. Before visiting the town itself, we drove across the Danube to Slovakia where we made a short stop to view the city from across the river. From there we could see the majestic Basilica of Esztergom, which stop atop a small hill in the town. The stop was just a quick one for photos and we soon drove back across the river so we could visit the basilica.

Esztergom itself is another small town along the Danube which served as the capital of Hungary from the 10th to 13th centuries, before being moved to Buda. Our main focus on our visit to Esztergom was to see the basilica. The current site of the church had hosted several churches over the years, with the first one being built by Stephen I in the early 11th century. The current church was built in the mid-1800s and was consecrated by Emperor Franz Jospeh. It is an imposing building, with a tall colonnade along the front and a massive dome over the central part of the church. Extensive refurbishments were being done on the interior of the building, so we were not able to truly appreciate the interior. Nevertheless, we could still see the main altar and several of the paintings.

Leaving Esztergom behind, we drove to the third and final stop of the tour in the town of Visegrad. We drove to Visegrad Castle, where we had a short tour around inside before being given free time to explore on our own. The castle was built to defend against the Mongol invasions and was heavily rebuilt from the 13th to 16th centuries. It also served as a royal residence for the kings of Hungary starting in the 14th century. After it was captured by the Turks in the late 1500s, it was severely damaged and never used as a castle again after it was recaptured.

It was a small castle and we had more than enough time to explore the entire complex during our free time. Thinh and I went into every room that was open, where mannequins had been put on display to show was the place would have looked like during its heyday. I always find it a bit odd when I see mannequins displayed like that because it just seems so… fake and tacky (perhaps due to the fact that the museums I visited in the States growing up never had such displays). We climbed up to the uppermost part of the castle, where we could see the entire town of Visegrad below us, along with the Danube snaking around nearby.

When the group met back up a short time later, the guide walked us around the exterior of the castle as we made our way back to the bus. We got to see more of the ruins of the building, and a large modern statue that was meant to resemble a Roman soldier (though we couldn’t make it out until the guide explained it to us). The weather had gotten markedly colder as we toured the castle and we were glad to be heading back to the bus. The tour of the castle was the final sightseeing stop of the day and now it was time for lunch.

Lunch was not included with the tour, but we drove to a fancy restaurant in Visegrad for a meal break. There wasn’t much else in the area that appeared open, and the guide raved about the food at the restaurant (including about how cheap it was), so we decided to eat there. Thinh and I grabbed a table to ourselves and perused the menu in search of something to eat. Despite the guide claiming the food was cheap, it was actually rather expensive! We decided to just have a soup starter for lunch, which would tide us over until we got back to Budapest. The lunch break lasted about 90 minutes, which was a bit too long for most of us (we could see the Spanish couple sitting at their table, obviously wanting to leave earlier).

We returned to Budapest at 17:00 and were dropped off at St Stephen’s Basilica. Thinh and I had not visited the church yesterday during our time exploring the city, so it was nice to have time to see it this evening. It was very pretty illuminated at night. We considered going inside, but once we saw that there was an entrance fee, we skipped it (I refuse to pay entrance fees at churches).

Thinh and I both felt like having Vietnamese food again tonight, so we returned to the Pho-Astoria Bistro restaurant. The owner remembered us from the day before and was happy to see us again. We both ordered the bun cha for dinner – it was so damn good! After dinner, we returned to the hotel to relax. It had been a long day of touring and we were both happy to stretch out in bed and surf the Internet on our phones for the rest of the night.