After many requests - well 2 
I am starting to post some pics of my trip to Budapest last week to take my son to the Red Bull Air Race in Budapest. I took him for his 17th Birthday which was actually on the day we flew back - I posted a thread showing his pressie from me and DG in the all about section 
Just posting some pics from the first day and will add more later.
We flew with the Hungarian national airline Malev from Gatwick 
as this was the cheapest option. Stayed in a nearby hotel Sat night so not driving through night. Hotel and brekky was good so if anybody wants the contact details pm me - food and drink was included like in the old days lol - They served a nice hot cheesy pastry, roll jam and a cake and came round 3 times with drinks - anything except spirits - wine was included. Given allocated seat numbers on check in - yet people still jumped up to be front of the queue and wait 10 mins for boarding!! Very pleasant flight!
I had booked a taxi to the hotel like I had done last year. When we were putting the cases in the taxi the driver said have you been last year - me and Alex then recognised him as the same taxi driver that picked us up last year 
lol
Got to the hotel about 3pm. Dropped off cases - hotel looked good and went straight back out to waste no time.
We were staying on the Buda side of the river. Budapest is 2 cities combined - Buda and Pest - not sure when they combined. The river Danube split the 2 cities. Near the hotel was one of the biggest hills in the area with statues on the top so we decided to walk up to the top.
This is the hill from the side of the river. The statue can just be seen on the top and to the left and we walked up a winding path through the trees. The pic of me and Alex is about half way up. Legs dropping off but as you can see my belly needed the excercise 
I am 5ft 11in and Al wasn't 17 until we flew back - we are on the same step!!
This is me at one of the viewpoints on the top - the chain bridge on my right shoulder will be mentioned later.
Done a stiched pic from here but can't load it into my picture site. The pic below is from the same point.
Our hotel was just to the left of the nearest bridge. the next bridge is the chain bridge and the third bridge you can just see is Margaret Bridge. The air race was between the chain and Margaret bridges. the planes flew around near this statue waiting to start then dropped down to the start just flying over the chain bridge. last year they flew UNDER the bridge which was the start and finish line.
On the way back down we walked down the roads and had our first meal - and beer. The sausage was a spicy paprika ones.
When we got back near the bottom it liked some of the pilots had been doing a display and the red Bull chopper was with them. If you have seen the racing this is the chopper that takes the ariel pics of the aircraft. The white aircrat is the leader of the championship Paul Bonholme who is British. 
There were other aircraft practicing displays as well.
Here are two night pics of the chain bridge at different times at night to show how different it can look.
The chain bridge was closed - don't think the drivers in the area were pleased as there were queues all day. the roads adj to the river on both sides were also closed for the air race.
We just caught the end of an Hungarian folk group who seemed popular.I got videos of their last performance and will be on my youtube page.
One reason I also like to go abroad is to try local food and drink - the beer was very nice ! We had just eaten a sort of potatoe roshtie which had something else in it. then we saw people eating tubes of a pastry. Later found these being prepared. A dough was wrapped around a cone and flattened to it by rolling. It was then put on a bbg for a few mins to cook. Slid off the cone and people peeled pieces off to et. Must be good as people were queuing for it but we never got to try this particular local delicasy.
here is the bbq.
On the way home played around with pics of car lights - here is a little attempt. Still not sure why you see only the lights and not the cars lol
Almost back at the hotel and came across a fountain - and these are magnets to me lol
then we got to our room knackered after midnight - it had been about 80 degrees all day - and fell into bed and had a real good sleep.
Will sort out some more pics to add here later.
Nighty night.
Keep smiling - It's free!
Djk
:-)