Advertisement
Published: March 10th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Our Guide
This is Jana, our guide. Ahoj!
I have returned from Budapest, Hungary, where I spent the weekend. I had a nice trip, but I am glad to be back in Brno!
The trip started off a bit interesting… We were supposed to meet in the lobby of our dormitory at 6:30 am, so I dutifully showered, packed, and set my alarm for 5:30 the night before. My alarm rang when it was supposed to, but I guess when I had the phone (which serves as my alarm) clutched ever so tightly in my little hand as I lay in bed, the snooze option was canceled! I awoke with a start at 6:25! I jumped up and threw on my clothes as quickly as I was able. Thankfully I had packed and prepared the night before! I grabbed my bag and ran out the door!
Fortunately, in this case, it is the nature of large groups to move slowly as a whole and I arrived with a few minutes to spare before boarding the bus. We boarded a large tour coach (we had nearly 60 people, I think) and began our journey to Budapest. It took us approximately 6 hours to get there, as
Central Market
Ohh, what yumminess was contained within those walls... gulas!!! we stopped a few times. When we arrived in the city, we went first to our hostel to drop off our things and we were then allowed some free time to explore the immediate area and get lunch.
I accompanied a few people to a large, indoor market across the street from the hostel, known as the Central Market Hall. To me, it looked like a train large train station with numerous stalls of delicious looking vegetables, meats, cheeses, and other goodies. There were also several stands and small restaurants at which you could buy a traditional meal of gulas (spelled goulash in the States). Hungarian gulas is very yummy and nothing like I had imagined. Previously I thought of the dish as some kind of hamburger-helper type meal with noodles and tomato sauce. Real gulas, however, is actually meat in a thick stew or sauce, served with bread and/or potatoes. I have to say, I immediately thought that this would be something you might find in Iowa; it is a very hearty, filling meal that has the essentials: meat and carbs! ;-) It was absolutely delicious. I do like the Czech food (the staples of which are cheese
and salt, or so it seems) but it was great to have a great big bowl of what was essentially beef stew. Mmmmmmmm…Good!
We gathered together again to really get started on our tour of the city. Did you know that Budapest is actually a combination of the cities Buda and Pest? The Danube River technically separates them and there are four main bridges that connect the two areas. (Our hostel was less than a block from the river). The bridges are all quite new as they were originally destroyed in World War II. The bus took us to Hero's Square and I took pictures of the giant structure in the centre and of the museums on either side.
Please visit http://www.aviewoncities.com/budapest/heroessquare.htm for lots of good information about the square.
From Hero's Square we walked down Andrassy Boulevard, on which is located the opera house, museums, shops, a few consulates (I think we saw the Turkish consulate) and housing. Everything was a bit dreary because the weather was cold and rainy. We made it to Saint Stephen's Basilica; initially we were told it was closed but then seemed to magically open again. Apparently the times of availability
to tour the church are quite sporadic. The Basilica is only a few blocks from the Danube and the Chain Bridge, which offers a beautiful view of Parliament. The Parliament buildings were designed after those in London and are especially striking in the evening. We did the very touristy thing and took obscene amounts of pictures, much to the chagrin of our guide. Once we had collected ourselves, we continued our walk back to the hostel. My roommates and I refreshed ourselves and then found an interesting restaurant that was “submarine inspired” - that is, you were supposed to feel as if you were eating in a submarine. I felt a bit claustrophobic, so mission accomplished, I suppose. ;-) We didn’t quite want the night to end, so we went to a local pub. I feel a peculiar loyalty to Czech beer and wasn’t keen on paying an excessive amount of money for bad beer, so I returned to the hostel and showered. I wanted to be chipper for the long day ahead!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.037s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0169s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb