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Blogs from Budapest, Central Hungary, Hungary, Europe
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May 6th 2013
My thoughts and feelings towards Budapest are very mixed. Let me start by saying I think I had over romantized the city. Everything we had read and or heard about Budapest said how beautiful it was and how much it was the Paris of Eastern/Central Europe. What wasn’t mentioned was anything the resembled the truth of Budapest. It is a beautiful city in places, of course the food is amazing but it is not the Paris of Eastern, Central or any other part of Paris. I am not saying that it was a mistake to come here, because it wasn’t. I just wish I would have known the truth about the city, my mind set would have been quite different. When we went to Bangkok, I knew what to expect, the travel guides did not hide ... read more
May 6th 2013
Budapest, Hungary Der Kleine Prinz is tied up on the Pest side of the Danube in the center of Budapest. This is a city of bridges connecting the Buda and Pest sides of the river. The Pest side is mostly flat while the Buda side is clustered around high rocky cliffs. On the highest hill overlooking the city is a statue of woman the Hungarians call their “Statue of Liberty”. It was put up during the communist years and once had a large red star on the pedestal. The star was pulled off after the Soviets were driven out in the late 80s but the statue remains. The view of the city from the top of the hill is superb. Budapest of a most beautiful city. Of course much of it was also bombed ... read more
May 5th 2013
After careful consideration and much discussion we decided not to take a third crack at the thermal baths, even though Lukas was free entrance with our Budapest Cards. But free doesn’t really man free at these places, but none the less we opted out to make our last day in Buda less stressful. And what a stress free day it turned out to be. First we slept in, Jerry until 10 and me until about 9. I finished yesterday’s blog while Jerry slept. While I took a shower Jerry went down to inquire of the front desk where we could sample the must have desserts of Budapest, they directed us to the end of the Metro 1 line to a place called Gerbeaud. It was right at the exit of the metro so not hard to ... read more
May 4th 2013
The number 1 line of the Budapest Metro was the first subway to be built in the continental Europe. The emperor of Austria and Hungarian King Franz Josef was the first to ride. It was built to celebrate the millennium of Budapest in 1896. It is a short line the runs the length Andrássay utca and the stops hit many of the major highlights of the city, such as the Franz List Museum, Opera House and Heroes Square. We spent most of the day going back and forth seeing various sights. Franz Liszt Our first stop of the day was the Franz Liszt Museum. On Saturday’s they also have a short concert at 11 am. The museum is part of the Museum Academy which Liszt helped found and served President all his life. During the last ... read more
May 3rd 2013
Random Musings First, let me end your suspense about our run in with the local ladies and young men of the night. Evidently our hotel is in the Times Square of Budapest (not the new cleaned up Disney version of Times Square, but the real seedy Times Square, pre Bloomberg). When we came up from the metro from dinner last night, I wanted to see if I could access the ATM, I could not figure out how to open the door, but this woman knew the trick. I thanked her and we walked on. Next thing we know we keep hearing the word sex, you want sex, we laughed and said no thank you. Then 3 seconds later a lovely toothless woman approached us asking the same simple question Sex? Sex? Again we politely just said ... read more
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May 2nd 2013
The trained arrived in the station at just before 1 pm. When we stepped off the train we were greeted by 2 things both not pleasant. The first, and most noticeable, was my dear friend humidity. I do not like humidity; fortunately it wasn’t Deep South or Chicago humid. The second thing was the obnoxious taxi hockers. The literally tried to take your suit cases out of your hand before you even got off the train and wisk you to their waiting taxi. Between Jerry and myself I am pretty sure we said no about 20 times. The train station is under some serious renovation and it took a bit to find the main lobby. Once we found that I went inside to covert some Euros to Forint’s while Jerry had a smoke. The guide book ... read more
Naturist sites, wild dogs and lots of Jaegermeister and Palinka
Published: April 23rd 2013Europe » Hungary » Central Hungary » Budapest » Buda
April 23rd 2013
I haven't covered that much mileage during the past couple of weeks. That's because wherever I go, I keep bumping into great people who look after me and feed me beer. My three day stint in Budapest has now turned into a 5 day rest period as I don't wish to be charged for being drunk in charge of a bicycle! Looking back at the past two weeks, I have travelled through some wonderful cities and countryside, cycling from Vienna in Austria to Bratislava in Slovakia and onwards to my present destination Budapest, in Hungary. I'm happy to say that the weather has dramatically improved with temperatures now in the mid 20s most days and I'm starting to develop a real cyclist's tan. Great when you're cycling but not so fashionable when going for a swim ... read more
Throwing Stars, Fish Shaped City, Portaging to Slovenia (Giving Italy the Boot), Sinking in Bled, Porn for Breakfast and readily available Ecstasy
Published: April 13th 2013Europe » Hungary » Central Hungary » Budapest
April 13th 2013
Day 51 of 146. That leaves 95 more days of adventures! But let's talk about the last 6 days. Last week I was in Rimini Italy, a town located right beside the country of San Marino. Regen and I chose this spot as our base of operations for exploring the mountainous town center. Rimini itself was quite the strange place, being set up as a huge party town for the hoards of summer tourists, (mostly nationals). Pubs were open to 4am as a standard throughout the week, and we definitely got the sense that the whole 'raison d'être' was just to have a crazy party. This being said this is not what we did. We took the bus into another country, San Marino to be exact, which is the oldest republic in the world that is ... read more
From Pest to Buda and back again
Published: May 9th 2013Europe » Hungary » Central Hungary » Budapest
April 9th 2013
Buried three seats deep next to the window, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, it was obvious that after 5 minutes of airtime that I was going to need the biggest piss ever to grace my 30’s with. Window seats really are a wretch at times. The gauntlet before me was that of a small Hungarian boy and his much larger grandmother with coats and dishevelled clothing splashed all over the place. I can only assume that her bag weighed more than 15kg and she wasn’t willing to pay the hideous extra charge that Ryanair no doubt sting you for should you go over that limit. So naturally she decided to beat that system by wearing all of her excess clothing. Unrobing as soon as she had pitched her stool within the plane, effectively cementing us ... read more
Puszi Puszi from Hungary
Published: April 7th 2013Europe » Hungary » Central Hungary » Budapest » Pest
April 4th 2013
After a quick three hour bus ride from Vienna, we arrived in Budapest and proceeded to find our way to our next host. We had struggled to find anywhere to stay in Budapest but at the last minute, Moni, fom Couchsurfing, came to our rescue and offered us a couch and a very comfy beanbag for a couple of nights. The first night a few of her friends came around and they cooked us some delicious Hungarian food accomponied by a couple of shots of Palinka ( a traditional Hungarian Spirit) which had been made by her mother. After a good sleep in the next morning we headed out for a wander around Budapest to find a Langos and Catch up with Janos, a friend of Erics. Budapest is really very stunning. The Danube is Huge ... read more
