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Published: November 4th 2012
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The Parliament Building
The foggy view from the top of the Buda Castle The decision for this road trip to Budapest was not a hard one. I happened to own a valid Schengen visa, a leftover of my previous trip to Strasbourg, and I asked a friend of ours and his girlfriend if they would go. So a week of planning, we booked two rooms at the
Apartment4you Budapest through my favorite booking site, and it cost only €29 per apartment for two for one night stay. I prepared some itinerary based on a lot of Googling as it was my first time to be in Budapest. It was not a first visit to Budapest for Kiki, but the previous three were business trips, which means that he hasn't seen a lot of the city.
It was the end of October 2012 and the day was super rainy when we started to drive, although it was not too cold. The rain didn't upset us, the friend and his girlfriend were equipped with two umbrellas, Kiki and I were equipped with a rain jacket for each. Leaving Zagreb at around 6.30, we got lost already at 7.00. Our Garmin navigated the way to Budapest through Maribor in Slovenia, while we were planning to take the
Buda Castle
Viewed from the Pest Part of the City highway toward Varaždin direct to the border with Hungary, without entering Slovenia to avoid the expensive €15 Slovenian vignette. Therefore, we wasted around an hour an a half driving on a non-highway roads to get our way to the border avoiding Slovenia. By 9.00 we were somewhere at the Balaton Lake in Hungary, and the rain fell even harder. We stopped by to have morning coffee in one gas station, and that was when we realized that nearly nobody, nobody, speaks English in Hungary.
We entered Budapest at around 11.00, parked the car a few hundred meters away from the great Parliament building (after again getting lost toward suburb Budapest). The language barrier again kept us from having a smooth parking ticket purchase. The boys were trying to figure out how the parking machine functions, and they ended up losing a few hundreds Hungarian forints eaten by the machine up. The rest of the coins that we had were only enough to pay the parking for two and a half hour, so we hurried up to the Parliament building (just to find out that the tour ticket for the day was sold out). It was a pleasure to just
The Hidden Castle
Now the Museum of Agriculture see its exterior though. From the Parliament we walked the Danube bank up to the infamous Chain Bridge. We crossed the beautiful bridge (arguing to each other if this bridge opens up or not), ended up at the Buda part of the city, at the entrance of the Buda Castle. We paid around €3 per person for one-way funicular ticket to climb the hill toward the castle (you can also climb on foot for free), and we were up hill in no time. Buda Castle is huge, it's beautiful, but it doesn't have the gardens like other typical castles (read: Versailles in Paris, Schoenbrunn in Vienna or Mirabel in Salzburg). It doesn't serve the conventional museum of the castles like King Louis beroom or Sisi Museum, instead it serves modern galleries with different kind of exhibitions. There is a hotel in the complex, and we ended up at the bar at the lobby of the hotel which serves cheap Hungarian beers.
We checked in at our apartment at around 16.00, left the car there and headed back to the center of Pest part. We took the Hungarian metro, which apparently the oldest underground system in Europe. We started the
The Little Chapel
On the front yard of the National Agricultural Museum walk at the beginning of the Vaci street as the public sign points the street as a "fashion street". Don't imagine Champs d'Elysess of Paris or the Orchard Road of Singapore. It's a pedestrian zone with a few brands' showrooms, on the scale of the Istiklal Street of Istanbul. We had early dinner at the
Sorforras restaurant on the main street which turned out to serve affordable fantastic Hungarian authentic cuisine. We spent the night in several different unique bars and pubs after visiting the beautiful St. Steven Basilica (which reminded me of the Hofburg Palace in Vienna) and the Opera House.
On Sunday we got up late (it happened to be the day of the beginning of the day light saving time, so we could sleep an hour longer due to the time switch), and started the day by walking toward the Heroes' Square. It's a huge square with two giant gates (almost twice the size of Bradenburger Gate of Berlin) on which the Hungarian heroes' statues stand. Accidentally there was a Croatian flag placed on a flower arrangement in honor for the heroes (we had no clue why it was there). The square is surrounded by great buildings, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Art Gallery. We crossed the bridge behind the square and it lead us to a little lake where the Vahajdunjad Castle is hidden behind the trees and bushes. The Castle is cute and beautiful, surrounded by a beautiful garden and an old little chapel in front of it. It serves now the National Agricultural Museum which we enjoyed very much.
We headed back to Zagreb in the late afternoon, leaving beautiful Budapest behind with lots of great memories. I personally woud go back there a few more times, I'll do summer visit of the city, and most probably I'll do new year's eve there. Not for 2013 new year's eve though, we've got another fantastic travel plan for that one already. Maybe next time we'll have the chance to do the river cruise.
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