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After waking at 12 and staying awake until about 3 I finally fell back to sleep and didn’t see the light of day until 8:30. Since breakfast is included with our hotel stay we had to scurry to make sure we got there before 10 when the buffet would close.

Once fed and watered we headed out. Having our hotel right in the middle, in fact one of the views on the walking tour, it was rather nice. I had copied a few pages from the Lonely Planet book so off we went for a good 3plus hours of walking.

The sun was shining with a lovely fall temperature which didn’t require jackets. The first place we went was right beside the hotel which is the Matthias church we discovered was used mainly by the Germans. You will note from the pictures it has been recently sand blasted making it look almost fairytale like. In fact the whole of Old Town is undergoing upgrades which made many of the buildings look too clean.
We walked the streets looking at all the old homes and many little squares, really very lovely. We did notice on our ride in from the airport last night that most people live in gray brick apartment building, very little colour. The exception of some of the fronts painted in pale greens, terra cotta and maize in this area, I would think for the tourists.
The Mary Magdalene Tower is one end of a church that was used by the locals but was struck in an air raid in 1944. The stain glass window wall without the window is still standing at the other end of the bombed out foundation. At one point in its history it was also used as a mosque.
We meandered the streets down to the palace at the other end of the hill. There were some spectacular views out over the Danube River with one of the many bridges in every picture I took. The Chain Bridge which is one of the more famous bridges was very picturesque and as you will see the lions that grace the end of the bridge are very similar to the ones at the end of the Lion’s Gate Bridge.
We stopped to pick up a sandwich and some water and headed back to the hotel to rest our feet for a future walk later in the afternoon.
There are a few more pictures on facebook if you would like to see some more from our morning travels.