Esztergom and Visegrad
We decided to make a trip up to the town of Esztergom, which is on the west side of the Danube bend. I wasn’t sure how to get here, so I looked up bus and train schedules and found that the bus went up to Esztergom every hour or so. I had planned to take the bus up to Esztergom, then over to Visegrad, then down to Szentendre. However, we got a late start to the day and then things didn’t go exactly as I had expected.
After our late start, we had to wait for the 10:40 bus. Unfortunately, this is when we found out that when Ronin complains that his tummy hurts when on the bus, he really means it. We were almost to Esztergom when he threw up. We had a bag, but it didn’t hold and broke with the liquid, getting throw up all over the floor of the bus. The bus driver was so mad at us. After we got off the bus he felt perfectly fine, but the bus driver wouldn’t let us stay on the bus to go all the way in to town. So we had a 40 minute walk through the outskirts of Esztergom to get to the town center.
We walked to Széchenyi tér, which is a square and pedestrian walkway with sculptures and monuments. We got some gelato for the kids, and sat in the square for a few minutes enjoying the morning.
Walking from Széchenyi tér, we went to the waterfront of a small river that eventually leads out to the Danube. It was actually really pretty. We walked by several unique buildings, including one that was multicolored (looked like they started to whitewash it but then forgot to finish it), one that was covered in ivy, and a completely empty street with old colorful buildings.
We walked by St. Ignatius church, which was pretty even though we didn’t go in.
The Esztergomi vár is an old castle on the hill overlooking the town and the Danube. We walked up a million steps and had panoramic views looking out once we got to the top. We thought there were going to be ruins sort of like when we went to the castle ruins in Lichtenstein, but it was more like a museum. There was a huge well, and although it was covered the kids thought it was really cool that this was probably where everyone in the castle got their water.
Right around the corner from the castle was the Basilica of Esztergom, which is the largest church and the tallest building in Hungary, built in the 1850s. Going up one of the towers is an exhibit of church treasures, including lots of cups, outfits, and jewels. The kids liked walking through this area and looking at all the shiny things. When we went through the actual church there was a wedding going on! The wedding party and guests were all up on the raised portion of the church, while tourists could still walk through the rest of the church. Everyone was very quiet and respectful, and it was super cool to be a tourist while there was a wedding going on right there.
I think we went through the exhibits backwards since we came around from the back side of the basilica. There was a guy dressed up playing the recorder, and he would sometimes play two or even three recorders at once. Of course Willow had to do some dancing, and we put some coins in his hat. Especially from far away the basilica does look rather imposing.
Although we could have spent several more hours in Esztergom, we wanted to catch the bus to go to Visegrad. We had 45 minutes before the next bus came (we just missed the last one), and didn’t want to feed Ronin just in case he threw up again. So the girls ate some crackers we had packed in our backpack and the kids got to play on a playground that was near the bus stop while we waited. There was a cat there that liked to be pet, and of course he got lots of attention from the kids!
Since we had already been to Visegrad, there was really only one thing we wanted to do—the bobsleds/alpine coaster. There is only a bus from Visegrad proper to the bobsleds a few times a day, and there were supposed to be five minutes between when our bus from Esztergom dropped us off and the next bus came. Well, of course our bus was late and we missed the bus to the bobsleds.
I had no idea what to do, so I went into a store and asked them how to get to the bobsleds. Thankfully the owner spoke English, and said the Hop-On Hop-Off Big Red Bus stopped right here and would take us right up to the bobsleds. Well, those are usually expensive, but I talked with the driver and they made a deal with us since it was late in the day and we didn’t really want to do everything just go one place. They took us up to the bobsleds and said they would be back at 6:15, but that was the last loop for the day so we needed to make sure we were there in time! The kids were so excited to ride the red bus because it has an open roof and we got to sit right up front. Here is Ronin ‘driving’ the bus, and as a bonus he didn’t get sick!
This activity was super fun and I am so glad we made it here! There were two tracks—one was a bobsled that was a curved metal track where your cart rode inside, and the other was the alpine coaster where your cart rode on top of the rails. We bought 6-ride tickets for each of us and ended up doing the bobsled twice and the coaster four times. The coaster was much faster, but also had a longer line. Everyone had a great time! We ate dinner there at their snack bar, which had giant burgers, nuggets, fries, and hotdogs. The big red bus picked us up right at 6:15, and we rode on the top again until we got to the end of the loop around the town. The driver knew we were going back to Budapest, so instead of us having to arrange to take the bus or train and somehow get back home, he said that for $17 they would just take us back on their bus since they drop it off in Budapest every night anyway. It would have taken us over two hours to get back to Budapest taking regular transportation; this bus got us there in 45 minutes. It was so worth it!
