It felt like I’d barely slept last night, but was still up at 06:10 to get ready for a run. I started off by running to Gellért Hill, but rather than run up it I decided to walk most of it. There’s a waterfall there, but it’s turned off at this time of day, and further up there’s a statue of St. Gerard Sagredo, an 11th century monk.

It’s good for a couple of viewpoints as well, but when I reached the top I was hoping to look around the Habsburg Citadel, but found this was fenced off due to a refurbishment program. It looked like part of the wall at the liberty statue had been pulled down as part of this, or had crumbled. This statue was added to the citadel by the Soviets after the second world war.

It may have been closed, but it didn’t feel like a waste of time as I could see a tiny bit of it from the fence. By the time I’d run back to the bottom I’d finished listening to the Noble Blood podcast, and was now onto some music as I ran along the Danube to Margaret Island. I got as far as a LEGO lion, but the musical fountain wasn’t yet on, and I’d run out of time so turned around and started running back.

I weaved through different roads whilst finding my way back to the apartment, and saw the military walking towards the parliament. I realised they must be part of the National Day celebrations. Sure enough the square was guarded, and people were lining the square ready for something to happen. I took a couple of photographs and headed back to the apartment for a shower, and breakfast.

We headed over to the Eurostars Danube hotel which would be our pick-up point for today’s tour. It was the nearest I could find to where we were staying and was only a few minutes walk away fortunately. My sister was anxious, I think it was because she thought we’d be on a big tour bus, and she might get travel sickness if she found herself sitting in the back like she had on the first bus in Croatia.

As it got close to the pick-up time we waited outside and looked around. After ten minutes I was starting to think that our driver might not appear as they were running quite late. Five minutes later though, a car turned up and Sophia introduced herself as our tour guide for the day. Thankfully the car had air conditioning.

Eighty minutes later we were in Štúrovo, Slovakia. That had come as a surprise as we hadn’t expected to be visiting an additional country during this trip to Hungary. Crossing the bridge from Esztergom was purely as a viewpoint for the Basilica though, and it’s not a bad view across the river. We stayed on that side long enough to have a wander around, and for Sophia to get a cup of coffee.

We then drove back into Hungary, having the old huts used for visa checks pointed out to us. These were apparently used during Soviet times, so have been abandoned for quite some time. We then parked up next to the cathedral, and entered via a wine cellar, taking a lift up to the same level as the entrance to the basilica. Sophia guided us around to a couple of viewpoints and then the entrance. We were told that as mass was longer today due to it being National Day it’d be a fifteen minute wait, and we were asked what we wanted to do. Wait to go in, obviously.

Whilst we waited we got an ice cream, and had a quick look around the outside. The entrance to the basilica is free, but I’d hoped to buy a ticket to go around the cupola. Unfortunately whilst we’d been waiting I’d missed the 11:30 tour, and the next one was at 16:00 - no chance to go up there now. The tour inside was pretty quick, and we were on our way again by 12:15 after she’d stopped to talk to a couple of people she knew. Sophia said she hoped we’d had a big breakfast as our lunch wouldn’t be until 14:00 - some pre-warning would have been nice!

Thirty minutes down the road we arrived at Visegrad Citadel, the summer residence of King Matthias. Our guide led us up to a viewpoint for the Danube, which wasn’t really that different to the view from Esztergom. The guide had decided her and my sister weren’t going up into the castle, so they waited out in the midday sun without shade, whilst I headed up the stairs to the castle. The entry was free today due to it being National Day.

I felt that as they were waiting out in the sun I should be as quick as possible, and dashed around the castle, barely pausing when I didn’t have to. Part of the way around I got a message to say they’d gone back to the car to wait, so I picked up my pace. Although we’d got ninety minutes to spend here according to the tour listing, we were there for thirty minutes. At the pace I was going at, it was enough though, as I suposed there wasn't a great deal to see.

It was 34C by the time we were on the road again, but I’d got a chilled Coke Zero to have whilst we drove to Szentendre. There was one brief pause though as we spotted a stork nesting on top of a light. I didn't even have to ask to stop, our guide just correctly assumed we'd want to see it.

In Szentendre the guide pointed out a paprika shop, and said that is where we would be meeting later, and pointed at the river and said that is where we would be catching our boat from. She then led us on a short walk up the hill to a small restaurant. Our lunch was three courses, starting with a beef goulash soup containing mushroom, carrot and potato. This was followed by grilled chicken with potatoes, rice, and a large dollop of tomato ketchup. The dessert was a breaded apple with some vanilla custard. It also included a soft drink and water, which was nice.

Before we left, the guide got me to photograph our boarding pass for the boat for later, I guess to make the boarding easier, or in case we lost her. For the next fifteen to twenty minutes was our walking tour of the artists town. She led us around to different stores where she knows the owners, and would stop to talk to each one. This even included visiting some craft stalls where it almost seemed like she was there to browse for her own interests. We’d have been happy to have gone off on our own and to leave her to it. My sister waited in the shade of an alleyway in protest whilst the guide looked around the craft stalls. When the guide left us, there wasn’t really much around that my sister would have been happy to do - things meant either going into the sun, or going up some stairs. She wasn’t keen on either.

My sister went looking for dresses for a while, and the rest of the time was spent sitting in various places until it was time to meet Sophia at the paprika shop. We were there plenty of time before, but she walked straight past us a few minutes after that and seemed confused that we weren't waiting at the boat. When she saw us walking towards her, she then hurried us along towards the boat and asked that we let her know when we’ve boarded by giving her a thumbs up. I tried to, but she was too busy talking to other guides, until she wandered off.

It was too hot to be in the sun for the hour-long cruise from Szentendre back to Budapest. I’d explained to my sister which side would be best, but she thought it’d be the other as she’d not understood which way we would be travelling. I didn’t want to argue though, and just accepted it. She did however swap places with me after a while as she didn’t mind the sun. I did think though that after how much time she'd spent in it today, she might regret it later.

As we passed the Parliament building everyone rushed to the right-hand side, and then fewer went to the left as we got close to the buildings of Castle Hill. There were small rafts of fireworks lined up along the Danube, and we had to go past this long line to then come back on ourselves on the other side of them. I wondered if there would still be any night cruises this evening, as they could offer some good views of the show.

We disembarked on the Pest side, and walked back to the apartment. There were lots of people heading towards the Danube ready for the fireworks later, and someone was randomly walking around with a live snake on his shoulders. I think my sister would have run if she could have. We also saw a stall selling balls of flavoured marzipan, but at Ft4,000 per 100g it seemed very overpriced. I was tempted until I used my phone to do the conversion into sterling.

Somewhere between getting off the boat, and almost reaching the apartment, my sister lost her baseball cap though - she’d been using that to protect her head from the sun. I made us some sandwiches, and we then relaxed in the apartment and phoned home until we decided it was time to head back out. We thought we might find somewhere to get Meggyes Rétes (cherry strudel) from, but did not.

Although the roads along the Danube were heaving with people, we did manage to find somewhere on the Erzsébet bridge to sit on the floor and wait. Not long after we sat down I found an even better place that would give us a view of Buda Castle, but my sister wasn’t keen on standing so she went down to the riverbank and found somewhere to sit. We agreed on a place to meet so that she wouldn’t get lost in the crowds.

At 21:00 the display started with some lights and music and escalated into fireworks that got bigger and bigger in waves, and finishing with ones in the national colours whilst the bridges too changed to red, white, and green.

Our plan was to leave around 21:25 so we’d have a five minute head start on the crowds, but a few minutes before that my sister messaged me to say she was at our meeting point already, so I left the bridge to join her outside of the church. She’d decided we’d stay until the end, so I got closer to the fireworks and took more photographs until they finished,

The journey back to the apartment was through crowds of people, with one bottleneck where loads of police vans were parked up. It may have been busy, but we still managed to avoid getting too close to people. It had been a reasonable evening out.