Advertisement
Published: March 5th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Construction in Budapest
Dad, I was trying to take a pic of the machine so you could see how little it was, but oh well. for 4 hours, at least. So I went on a 3-day trip with a huge group of international students to Budapest last weekend. Friday, we dragged ourselves out of bed at an ungodly hour and headed down the road in a double-decker bus fit for 90 people (but there were 60 of us). We were on the road for about 5 hours, and we went through Slovakia and its capital Bratislava. So eventually we made it to the hostel, unloaded our stuff, and started the day's tour of Pest. For those who don't know, Budapest is actually three cities in one: Buda, Pest, and . . . hmm I don't know the third one. Anyhow, Pest is on one side of the Danube River and Buda is on the other.
So Friday, we toured Pest for a while. The sites there included St. Istvan's Basilica, the National (?) Opera, Hero's Square, and the Great Market Hall. So let me be a tour guide and give you a brief description of the interesting things from those. St. Istvan was a king a while ago who introduced Christianity into Hungary, and Christianity is still pretty big there, so he's a pretty famous
guy. His basilica is huge, and the two best parts of the basilica are: 1. it was raining at that point, and freezing too, and we could go inside, and 2. they've got his right hand there still (but unfortunately it wasn't available for me to see--bummer). And the Opera . . . well, that's all I know. Okay, Hero's Square is a spot in the city where they have some statues of some famous Hungarian guys and other statues and monuments too. They built it in 1896 (and a lot of other monuments and buildings) to celebrate 1000 years of the Magyars being in Hungary. And the Great Market Hall was right down the street from our hostel. It's a huge building that is kind of reminiscent of Pittsburgh's Strip District, with selling fresh veggies and meat and souvenirs. We also ate there; it was called langos (see pics). It was very organized, and not my type of market, but it was functional.
Saturday, we went to Buda. First we went up Gelert Hill, which overlooks part of the city. Gelert Hill is named after this monk who came to teach Istvan's son. Well, at that time, not
everyone was Christian or liked Christians. Some locals decided they didn't want Mr. Gelert around there. So, what'd they do? They took him to the top of a hill, stuck him in a barrel, drove nails into the barrel, and pushed him down the hill. Thus, the name of the hill, and thus, he is also a saint. It would have been a nice view of the city if it hadn't started raining and blowing hurricane-speed winds, but oh well, I got some exercise. And we also went to the Citadel (not so exciting) and the Royal Castle (Buda Castle, built by the Hapsburgs, I think), which was pretty, but it was still raining. Also, right there is Fisherman's Bastion, which has nice views of the Parliament across the river. At this point, my umbrella had turned inside out approximately 20 times and we were all freezing. So we went on a lunch break. Unfortunately, we were in a very touristy area and couldn't find a local restaurant soon enough (we just wanted to be warmer and to feel our fingers again). So we ended up going to a touristy restaurant and most of us ordered goulash (a traditional Hungarian
Souvenirs Anyone?
Some of the wares of the market hall soup with meat, onions, potatoes, and carrots). We were very cautious when we got the bill because our tourguide had warned us that these places try to rip tourists off. And it turned out they got us too. They had this charge that was an extra 10% on the bill, so we were already like mad that we thought we were being duped. And then we get all of our money together and the guy says that the bill doesn't include another 10% service charge. At this point some people were arguing b/c we knew they were just making this stuff up. If it's a necessary charge, why wasn't it on the bill? He couldn't give a good answer. We could have walked out without adding it, but we did. The worst part is that there isn't really anything we could do about it. We knew that they were ripping us off but we didn't know how to get around it. So: in case you didn't already know this, don't go in tourist restaurants, especially in Budapest.
When we walked outside after our lunch break, it wasn't raining!!! So we decided to go on our own to the other
Hungarian Heart-Attack Special
My first Hungarian food--langos is fried bread, kind of like funnel cake dough sites for the day and head home early. We went to Margaret Island, in the middle of the Danube River, and then it started raining again, so we ducked into a McDonalds (which we all thought was an excellent idea). We got out of the rain and then went to the Parliament, and then headed back to our hostel. At night we went to a local pub and drank some local beer, which to my now very-cultured taste was not as good as the Czech beer, but it was okay.
And Sunday we hit the road again. But we stopped in a Hungarian town named Gyor on the way home for a thermal spa excursion. Thermal spas are popular in Hungary, and as a matter of fact, Budapest is the capital city with the most thermal spas in the world. Anyhow, for me it was maybe the best part of the trip because it was something I'd never done before. I didn't take any pics because I didn't want my camera to get wet . . . sorry. To describe it, there were five or six different pools, with the water about 3 feet high. The water was warm
(a little cooler than a hot tub), and different colors, like one pool was greenish and another was a nasty yellow color. But so they had bubbles and waterfalls. And they even had two waterslides, which were pretty exciting. And some of the pools went outside so you could be outside (luckily it didn't rain while we were there). There was this one room that covered a part of the pool that had a low ceiling and like beds under the water that you could lay down without drowning. The ceiling was black but there were lights in it, so it was like stars. A cross-section of the population go to the spa, families with children, couples, older people, younger people. I highly recommend going to one of these in Hungary if you get the chance!
So that was my trip to Budapest! My general feeling about it is that it is the huge European-like Pittsburgh of the East; they have a river, bridges, a psuedo-Strip District, and even an incline. The difference is that it is about 800 years older. I am also supposed to go in May, once I'm done with classes here, and that should be
a lot better weather. Hopefully next week you will get to hear about my trip to Copenhagen this weekend! Love!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 13; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0523s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Michael
non-member comment
enjoy your return
I had the chance to live in Hungary for a while and took many weekend trips to BP. Upon your return make every effort to get away from vaci utca and andrassy utca and venture into the more Hungarian parts of the city. Do not eat in restaurants with english or german menus - you'll be taken for a ride. Check out the House of Terror - uniquely presented 20th century history of the oppressive occupations of Hungary. Enjoy!