Budapest is another excellent city. Another highly recommended Airbnb apartment hosted by Barbara https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1481796. Many beautiful old buildings, particularly Budavari Palota (Buda) castle overlooking the Danube river, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. Also great ‘ruin’ bars, which are rough and tumble old buildings that have been converted into bars. Budapest is a very interesting city as part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. We visited the Terror Museum which was quite harrowing. It gave the impression that the Hungarian people suffered at least as much under Soviet rule as the Nazi occupation. Disappearances, mock trials, and even today many of the old people are very distrusting of their surroundings. We also visited a museum of an underground hospital, (hospital in the rock) used during the world wars http://visitbudapest.travel/arts-entertainment/budapest-museums/hospital-in-the-rock-museum/.

The Széchenyi baths were lovely to visit; two huge outdoor pools, many indoor pools with different temperatures http://www.budapestbaths.net/szechenyi-bath. There were also very hot saunas accompanied by very cold pools. It was so invigorating jumping into the cold pool after roasting in the sauna.