Day 5.3 - Sunday 28th October 2012 - Budapest, Hungary


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Europe » Hungary » Central Hungary » Budapest » Pest
October 28th 2012
Published: April 26th 2013
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The coach journey to Hungary was pretty uneventful – there were actually people at border control this time although they didn't say anything about lack of visa for Slovakia. Fiona and pretty much everyone else on the coach fell asleep except me, I ended up chatting with Chris and Emma which was nice 😊 We got to Budapest but I can't remember what time. We had a little drive through the city – it was much more crowded than Vienna and doesn't look so organised. It was a bit misty and couldn't really see the surrounding hills well – suspect it looks better on nicer day. Chris dropped us off at Hero Square and we all walked down to Museum of Torture – war museum which really didn't appeal. Apparently Fiona could have got in free as she had a British passport and is under 26 – so random?! Instead of going inside I suggested going to Café Gerbeaud, it’s an extremely famous Hungarian café which is well known for its Dobos torta. Café Gerbeaud is one of the greatest and most traditional coffeehouses in Europe. it shines in Gründerzeit style with its stucco, the grand chandeliers, the panelling made of exotic woods and its furniture. As soon as I mentioned cake, and the prospect of eating something which might be better than the Sacher Torte appealed to Gina and Lindsey and they came along with us.

It was already getting a bit dark and hard to find our way around but we finally came upon Gerbeaud’s and went in. Just as I was expecting it was really posh inside – so big and grand. We each ordered a piece of Dobos torta and Fiona and I had and orange juice mixed with lemonade. Gina and Lindsey had a coffee. It was soooooo nice, exactly how I imagined it to be. What’s even crazier is the cake I made before I came to Hungary tasted exactly the same. I was soooo happy. Oh for those who don’t know the Dobos torta has 7 layers of cakie goodness with a chocolate cream layer in between. It is topped with a hard caramel layer. We finished the cakes and drinks and headed to the little gift shop they had. I bought my mum and dad some flavoured chocolates, ginger and lavender (if I remember correctly) I also bought my dad a dark chocolate bar, and a milk chocolate bar for my brother, his girlfriend and myself :p

As Gerbeaud’s is in Vörösmarty tér, the shopping area of Budapest we decided to look around, somehow we managed to loose Lindsey when went into the Hard Rock café gift shop. Gina said she liked to be alone sometimes so thought she maybe gone off on own for a bit. I bought my dad a T-Shirt from the café as he sort of collects them.

On the way down to the Danube we bumped into Zach and Maya - they told us about the underground souvenir market down road so we went to take a look. Gina got talking to one of the stallholders – he spoke 8 languages!! He was very strange; he said I was Hungarian as I had small white hands – Weird!!! He and Gina spoke in French for a bit and she got a discount on some paprika gifts for friends. I bought my mum another fridge magnet and also a little bag of hot paprika with a painted mini wooden spoon.

It was quite nice out and as we were pretty much most of the way back to the hotel we decided to walk back rather than go all the way back up to Hero Square to get coach. The 3 of us walked along the river, it was so pretty, all the lights were on all the different bridges, we couldn't work out which one was the Chain Bridge in the dark. There were trams which ran right alongside the riverbank – they were very full of commuters – looked very squashed and old style. Very different to Vienna!

We finally spotted our hotel (Mercure Budapest Duna) and realised we had to go through this strange underground path system to get there. There were a few mini shops where Gina bought a massive slice of pizza from one of the little stalls. The seller was randomly from Wales – small world! The pizza was really nice.

We checked into the hotel even though our bags hadn’t arrived yet – still on coach. We thought they might have been there already. This time we were on the 5th floor in room 504 – it was ok, 2 single beds next to each other again, but bathroom a bit more modern. Shower over middle of bathtub – bit strange! There was an ashtray on the shelf with no smoking sign inside it – ironic!! Once we had dropped off our coats we came back downstairs and waited In the large reception lobby – Ed was there already and while we were waiting Lindsey showed up too. Felt a bit bad for not looking around longer for her. At 8pm the coach arrived and we grabbed out bags and popped back to our room. Our 2nd door key was not working so I had to go up and down the stairs about 5 times I was knackered. When I went back people said they were too tired to go out and explore and were just going to sit in the lobby. Fiona and I joined them for a bit but we were all so tired we headed up to sleep. We didn’t have any dinner tonight, we were so full of yummy cake.


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