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Published: March 9th 2012
Hello All!!
Sorry I didn't get this up earlier, I forgot my memory card in my computer in Barcelona while I was venturing off to Budapest!
Budapest is the capital of Hungary and is split in two (Buda/Pest) by the Danube River. Along the river there are many Bridge, the most famous is the Chain Bridge lit up at night. All the bridges were destroyed by the Nazi's when they left Hungary. Since Hugary was taken over by many different countries in different decades (Romans, Turks, Austrians) there are many kinds of architechture and style of buildings. When we first arrived it looked a lot like I imagine riverfront Poughkeepsie was about 10 years ago. The billboards and signs are kind of old school and there aren't many modern cars cruising around. The lack of cars may be due to the fact that the public transportaition is so convienent and useful. There are trams, metros, buses, trains and taxi's.
We started out going to the City Centre and walking around where the shops and cafe's are. The statues in the plazas were covered for the "winter" but the monuments and buildings were open to visit. We walked down
a pedestrian only area and there were wooden shops that reminded me of going to the fair. The venders ranged from brick ovens pizza, cinniman roll tunnels that were the size of my arm, fur rugs, leather wallets, candy and jewlery.
After we went down the river to see the Buda Castel and Fisherman's Bastion on the Buda side. We ordered Goulash soup and pizza and Hungarian beer. The Goulash soup was much more like beef stew than the noodle-type Goulash Mom makes.
Then we were off on the metro and tram to find our hostel "The Grand Hostel" on the Buda side. It was really bright yellow and red, with all diferent colored walls and rooms inside. The staff was super helpful in getting us around especially for dinner that night. We went down the road to a place called "Full House" and I got amazing penne with cream sauce corn and bacon. It sounds like a strange mix but it was delicciousssss.
The next morning we decided to just take it easy and explore the city and ended up finding this huge marketplace with fresh fruit, baked goods, honey and jams! It was 3 floors and each
Pizza Lunch
Goulash Soup!had seperate food being sold. One thing really important in Hungarian food is "Picato" which is hot pepper salsa and hot peppers are sold on a string in a lot of places. For lunch we found a hole in the wall buffet of Hungarian food that was so inexpensive and so amazing at the same time. We all got something different and tried it all and the sausage was really different and very good. After lunch we headed to the Buda Castel and the Fisherman's Bastion to walk around and take pictures at the best view of the city! Winded from walking around and full from all of our snacks we stayed in for the night.
Saturday of our trip we decided to finish up seeing the last few sights on our list. We started at the Synagoge, also the largest in the European Union, which is a museum now. The one sight that was really interesting inside was the "Tree of Life" whose branches are made of metal but are light enough to still move in the wind! While walking we ordered a Flaffel which was unbelievably good, I didn't want it to end. Afterwords we headed up
toward the City Park which has another smaller castel that looks like Disney's Castel for Snow White, there was a carnival going on so obviously we had to get some cotton candy!
The most amazing part of our trip started Saturday evening at the Szechenyi Bath House located in the center of the park. Inside there are outdoor and indoor heated pools with fountains, whirlpools and waterfalls. There were alot of people there to enjoy the baths which are said to relax and rejuvinate any that spend time in it. On top of that a few of us chose to get a massage. The building is a maze so finding our rooms was an adventure all in itself! My hopes flew up when I saw a really cute masseuse walk out...and choose the old lady next to me with the membership. My masseuse actually looked like the principal from Billy Madison except instead of being chubby he was very muscley. It was my first massage and it was very relaxing! I think he was a little worried about my cold eskimo feet becuase he kept going back to them to warm them up! All relaxed and chilled out we
Market Road
Little log cabins! went back down to the river to get ready for our dinner boat cruise!
Budapest is beautiful at night, especially the Chain Bridge and Parliment. The dinner on the cruise was amazing and the food ranged from all kinds of salads, spinach tortilini mix, sausage and cabbage (MY FAVORITE), all kinds of pork and chicken and the desserts were out of this world. There was a pudding shot type deal with whipped cream half a wild cherry and a chocolate leaf on top. The other kind of dessert was a carmel like flan that had a chocolate covered coffee bean on top. Everything was so amazing and we were serenaded by the trio orchestra after dinner and we requested New York by Frank Sinatra and of course sang along with it! Haha! That night we were able to see the Basilica at night and it was absolutely beautiful for our last stop in Budapest!
We had to wake up super early at 3am to catch a cab to the airport. But early bird gets the cheap flight!
Love you all and Missing you more and more every trip I take!
Chaquita
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Kathy
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enjoyed your blog
We are planning a trip to Budapest in May and I found your blog very interesting. I would have loved to have the names of many of the places (restaurants, markets) that you visited.