Our first day in Budapest was packed with about as much fun as you can have in a day - and all in a place called City Park. The park combines your usual city park with a zoo, circus, amusement park, thermal pools and baths, a castle, museums and a political memorial. We did only a few and ran out of time and calories (one cannot live on deep fried bread dough for an entire day.)

First to the zoo which in Budapest is beautiful with old but well kept buildings and mature trees with plenty of shade. The Red Pandas and the Otters were certainly the main attractions here. Then on to the thermal baths across the street, Szechenyi where we could have spent the entire day. Then at 5 pm the circus performed by a group from Russia and finally a stroll through the park to see the castle and Heros Square.

Thanks to Beth, our morning guide - we drove right into the city, found a free spot to park in City Park equi-distant from every place we were going, got tickets to the circus with her excellent Hungarian, found a bank machine to get Forints (thousands of them!) got instructions and tips for using the baths and easy instructions for getting back out of the city at the end of the day.

Here is a summary of the day in photos:

The Red Pandas were a favourite for everyone.

This was one of my favourite "animals". Funny thing was, eary in the day we saw this very same sign coming the direction the photo was taken and decided we better turn around and go back - being Americans in the Budapest Zoo and all. Then later in the day we were coming through here on a path and when I came through the gate at the end I noticed, "hey, this is where we were earlier and decided we shouldn't go!" It was a cage with a vulture in it - no tigers in sight.

The Rhino.

From the tower in the zoo, we see the complex of the Szechenyi Baths.

Inside the baths, Ian and Nic in a rare moment out of the water. This is an incredible place for us PA Americans. There is a warm pool and a hot pool outside and all manner of pools on the inside with varrying degrees of heat and mineral content. In the warm pool here, the middle ring periodically has these jets of water pointing at an angle so that the water rotates like a fast stream. You kind of just float around in a circle effortlessly. Nic and I were able to play a game of chess while in the hot pool - the board sits on a little peninsula in the pool.

Tough to take photos at the circus - normally everything was moving pretty quickly. Here the contortionists(?) performed in such a way that it was difficult to identify which was the front or the back of a person and which was which.

The clowns were great even not being able to understand a word they uttered.

Outside the circus hall.