Budapest, Hungary

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We stayed at the Red Bus hostel in Pest, right next to the Redlight district, but it was a really nice residential area just off the main shopping road. The hostel also owned an English bookstore in Central Budapest where we stocked up on books at bargain prices! On our first day we wandered out of our hostel towards Heroes Square, which is lined with huge statues and monuments. The square backs onto the main city Park, which is huge and holds a lake, and open air ice-skating rink and Pest Castle. The castle is beautiful, like something out of a fairytale with towers and cobbled courtyards. It also has a moat surrounding it where we sat on deckchairs soaking up the amazing sunshine! From there we wandered down Andrassy Avenue, the UNESCO protected main street (Budapest's Champs Elysee). We passed the National Opera House and stopped for icecream in a really grand cafe with huge mirrors lining the walls and really decorative furniture (we felt slightly out of place, but we ordered lots of icecream so didn't really care!). We wandered through small sidestreets to see St Stephens Basilica, an imposing domed church, Roosevelt's Square and the Hungarian Parliament building, which is right next to the river Danube. From there we could see across the river to Buda, including the majestically lit up castle and Fisherman's Bastion. The next day we walked across to Buda to see the Fisherman's Bastion, which is the fortifications of a beautiful white palace. Not only is it a beautiful building, but it offers some of the best views of the City. From there we walked across the top of Buda Hill to Buda Castle which has beautiful gardens and statues. We strolled back to the hostel through the city, over the Chain Bridge supported by Lions and illuminated beautifully, and past the Synagogue. The following day we wandered back over to Buda hill looking for Matthais Church (which was very vaguely marked on the map) we searched for hours before realising that we had actually walked passed it numerous times but it was just poorly labelled! We then walked down the river Danube to Margit Island, which was a big park in the middle of the river.
That evening we went for dinner 'The Unicorn' restaurant in Pest and we were planning on visiting a Garden Jazz club (we had a free cocktail voucher), but it turned out we would have had to pay a huge entrance fee, so we sacked it off and went back to the hostel instead!
On our last day we decided to catch a train to Lake Balaton, which is the biggest fresh water lake in Europe. We had to walk two hours to the train station on the opposite side of the city from the hostel to catch a train, walking through the tunnel under Buda hill and nearly suffocating from the fumes. Went we arrived at Balaton Kenese the station was right next to the Lake. It was really pretty because it was misty across the lake and it is soo big that we couldn't see to the otherside. We walked along the edge of the water, through a park and behind the houses which sit right on the water's edge. Because it was out of season none of the cafes were open, but we wandered out onto a little pier to have lunch and sat reading.
We met some interesting characters in our hostel in Budapest! Here is a short summary-
"Primark boy"- sadly a fellow Englishman who worked in Primark and had his "Own" business flogging second hand mobile phones. He had possibly the least banter of anyone we have met so far.
"Creepy Italian man"- We were in his room for the first night until he shouted because Ciara's bag was touching his bed and attempted to propose to Michelle whilst she was standing in a towel. We moved rooms!
"The Teachers"- one of them accidentally ate all of our chocolate...she apologise profusely but never bought us any more. Probably for the best!
"The old lady"- who broke the sink whilst fiddling in the cupboards so that it exploded on Claire doing the washing-up. The scheming old bag attempted to blame it on us!
We really enjoyed Budapest. The city has soo much to offer so that we feel we only got a taster of it, we will have to go back at some stage!

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