It was a long drive, but we made it from Kutna Hora to Budapest in about eight hours. We checked into a very basic, no-frills hotel, and did a bit of sightseeing on foot around the city. The next day, we visited the castle overlooking the Danube River, much as we had done in Prague, and ended up doing quite the circuit around the city. It had gotten much warmer outside during the previous day or so (up to 36C-39C), and we were sweltering the entire time the sun was up. We headed back to the hotel, took a shower (one nice thing about having communal showers is that you can use it after check-out if need be), and headed out around 9:00PM on the longest stretch of driving yet–a grueling 24 hour stretch from Budapest through Romania and Moldova and on into Odessa, Ukraine. We had decided to leave at night to save us from having to spend money on another room for the night and because it would be much cooler outside.
Leaving the city at dusk and traveling down two lane ‘highways’ (the proper highway ended at Budapest), we were treated to the sight of prostitutes at almost every intersection, dressed in bright clothing (apparently so that they would stand out in the dark and you wouldn’t hit them with your car…which we almost did a couple times), often standing in the middle of nowhere.
Pictures have been posted in the gallery.
