Last day, Budapest

We wanted a slow last day so we took a metro across the river to the Cave Church. It's my third time there and I was shocked by how touristy it's become even though I had read some bad reviews on TripAdvisor. First, there is now a gift shop where you have to buy a ticket. They give you an audio guide but the information is boring since there's not a lot to say about the church. They've added lights so you don't even get the feeling of being in a cave. The small sanctuary is the same as always except they've added more chairs. A large tour group was sitting in the chairs when we were there.

From the history that's known about the cave, during the Middle Ages, it was once home to a hermit who provided healing with the thermal waters. The church part was consecrated in 1926 and expanded in 1930 to house 16 monks coming back from Poland. During WWII, it was used to house refugees and civilians. The Soviets built a concrete wall to block the entrance in 1960 and it was removed when they left in 1989. It's maintained by Pauline monks and there's still a daily mass and other events. 

Below is a statue of St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary. It's outside the cave church.

After that, we had a nice walk along the river on the Buda side. The weather is great. Much warmer than we expected. Both Salzburg and Vienna are going to be warm too, in the 70s. That forecast has changed in the last few days.  We expected temperatures in the high 50s. 

From there we took a tram up a hill just to see the sites. The sites turned out not to be interesting; we thought we were going to a park but Savoya Park turned out to be the name of a shopping center. We took the tram back down. 

It was lunch time so we took a metro back to the pedestrian area around St. Stephen. We ate hamburgers outside with the rest of the Americans. They were surprisingly good. 

We packed in the afternoon and then walked to a close by pedestrian area with several restaurants.  The restaurants had blankets sitting on the chairs but they were unnecessary considering it was 68 degrees at 7:00. The restaurants look like bars but I had roasted duck breast and Lola had roasted chicken. Both had interesting sauces. There seemed to be one waiter and probably one chef but the menu is extensive and it was getting crowded by the time we left.

After dinner, walked to another pedestrian square.  And that's when I got my wings.