Advertisement
Szechenyi Furdo
The outdoor area of the bath house. Sunday
We arrived in Budapest at about lunch-time on Sunday. It has a really nice feel to it, kind of old-school and not too commercial yet, but still eastern Europe. They cant speak English that well here, but we get by. We got lost coming out of the train station so finding our hostel was a bit of an ordeal but apart from that, we havn't had any troubles really. This hostel is small, very cosy and home like, its in an old apartment block, has an open kitchen which is good and a laundry! Its good location, and the internet in completely free!! And, we haven't seen any one else in this hostel yet, so it feels like we got our own place in Budapest!
So after we settled in and had lunch we went to a traditional Hungarian bathhouse named Széchenyi Fürdő, where they have all these indoor and outdoor heated pools and ponds and thermal water, sauna and steam rooms. Lots of old statues, fountains and columns, so you jump from one pond to another to another. They had these mineral ponds which were really relaxing, so we just spent the afternoon/evening lazying about in these ponds.
Next door to this particular bath house is a zoo. Apparently, the hippopotamus' in the Budapest zoo are the most successful at reproducing than any other zoo in the world. They think its because they bath in these thermal baths too! They get the water from natural springs under the ground. The land is very fertile and rich in minerals.
Monday
We just can't get enough of bike riding, so on Monday we did a bike tour of the city. It has become a ritual now. We do bike tours with a guide who shows us the major sites of the city, gives us background knowledge and some history, then the next day we hire bikes out and ride around independently! In my opinion, this is the best way to see a City. Since these European cities actually consider bicycles when planning roads, if you are good at reading maps you can get around the city much faster than using trams, buses and the metro - trying to understand these is a mission in itself!
With the guide we visited the town square (Hero's square), some historical buildings and churches, the famous Budapest Chain Bridge, and the Castle.
On the Chain Bridge
Between Buda and Pest. Buda is behind us. Nathan's camera battery ran out half way through the tour so i he pretty pissed off. It was a tiring day, so in the evening we settled for a dinner around the hostel area, which is very touristy, and paid the most for a dinner we've paid since arriving in Europe. Hungry has its own currency (the Florint) and when you pay, its usually in multiples of 1000, so its deceiving when you order.
Tuesday
Tuesday we hired bikes out for the whole day, and had SUCH a great day just riding around the city! Nathan made up for photos from the previous day. The weather was fantastic! Maybe its just a little too hot to be on bikes! But it was a great way of seeing the city! We visited more sites (Budapest really isn't that big) had a great lunch, then in the afternoon we went to a different bath house, named Gellért Gyógyfürdő on the Buda side of the river (Budapest used to be two cities, Buda on one side of the river and Pest on the other side, then they joined and the rest was history!) So the bath house we visited was on Buda
side, not much is over there apart from the castle, its all happening on Pest side where we are. This bath house wasn't as nice as the first one we visited but still a great concept and nicely decorated, it had all the thermal dips and pools and steam rooms!
Then in the evening we hopped back on our bikes and rode to a popular cafe strip for dinner. It was great! had a fantastic pizza! Though we're saving all our pasta eating for Italy!
Wednesday
Today we've just lazed about, its another hot day, so we slept in, the other 4 people in the hostel checked out so now really have the whole place to ourselves! Oh and the people in the hostel did our washing for free cause we've stayed 3 nights! AND we got free beer on arrival! Its great! we love it here!!! So we just did some shopping today in the main district, had some lunch, and now we're just waiting for our overnight train out of Budapest to Munich! It departs at 8pm and arrives at 6am, so its a long trip, too long to be in second class with dodgey seats,
so we upgraded to have our own cabin and beds, but paid an extra $80 each! so perhaps it wasn't worth our while doing a night train, maybe we should have got up early today and left in the morning and arrived in Munich at night? But then we'd pay for an extra night in a hostel and waste a whole day doing nothing on the train. But, this is the longest train ride we plan to do.
Its a shame we're not here for a weekend, during the week night life is pretty quiet apart from the cafes. But everyone says on the weekend it's a party town. But thats okay, we're going to be in Munich for the weekend!! Another German weekend! Just think of all those massive beer halls waiting! In Austria, Nathan learned how to speak some German! He can say 'this is my brother' in German, and he's so excited about it that after a few beers, he walks the streets telling complete strangers. Sometimes people want to continue the conversation, and unfortunately, we cannot...
After Munich we're thinking of changing our plans and dropping into Switzerland, and skipping Venice. Accommodation in Venice
is ridiculously expansive! And with my brother it wont be very romantic. We both don't want to ride in a gondolla, and we both hate pigeons! So, instead we might Lucerne. I might be able to do some adventure sports in this alpine town like Mountain Bike Riding, or trekking! I have a friend who lives there also. We've made contact with him and he is overseas with work, and plans to return two days after we plan to leave! So after Munich, we may go somewhere else to fill 3 days before visiting Lucerne.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.075s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0362s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb