Buda Meets Pest

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Monday 4-25 to Wednesday 4-27
Back to Eastern Europe! Budapest is a first for both of us and once again, Eastern Europe catches us off guard with cold, rainy weather. Ugh, when will we learn?! With so little time in this city, we decided to make the most of the day, regardless of how freezing cold and rainy it was outside. We visited St. Stephen’s Cathedral (founder of Hungary) during Easter Monday mass. Oops! We thought Rome would be closed down on Easter Sunday and it was hopping with tourists and locals alike. Easter Monday in Budapest, however, was like a frickin’ ghost town. Everyone seemed to be at church on, what appeared to us heathens a little too late, a very holy day. Leave it to the tourist sights to be open, though. We visited the old castle district and Nick was agog at all the beautiful art nouveau architecture. Budapest is a very beautiful city. It has a charming 19th century allure that we haven’t experienced on this trip before. The old castle was pretty but Matthias Church was the show stopper. The outside was very gothic and inside the walls were painted in traditional Hungarian style, which was dark but beautiful. The amazing part was the roof, though! The tiles were arranged in stunningly colorful patterns; we’ve never seen anything like it. And from Fishermen’s Bastion, we were treated to sweeping views of the Chain Bridge and Parliament Building. We stopped in Ruszwurm Café for some traditional pastries (thanks for all the great tips, Agi!) and Nick had a solid block of the richest chocolate cake I have ever seen – it made a loud thudding sound when it fell over on the plate! He of course ate the entire thing – an amazing sweet tooth that boy has!

Chain Bridge and Matthias Church were even more beautiful at night, all lit up and sparkling along the Danube. We took in a traditional string concert and dance show, then strolled through the city at night and got a little lost on the way back to our hotel. We should know better than to head out into a city we don’t know, under cover of darkness, without a map ;o)

The next day, we thought the city would be more alive after the Easter holiday, but we were mistaken. While not the ghost town it appeared to be the day before, most stores were still closed and very few people were out on the streets. We tried to go to Parliament but that too was closed. Bummer because Parliament is a beautiful art nouveau building, with supposedly amazing gold leaf detail inside. Oh well. We were able to visit the Ethnography Museum, which actually had some really cool exhibits on Hungarian folk art and daily life in the country. We then headed to the opera house and that, fortunately, was open to tourists. Budapest seems to compare itself a lot with Vienna, so they will tell you that while the Vienna opera house is bigger and more famous, the Budapest opera house is more beautiful. [Nick Note: I have to attest that indeed they are correct, it is no contest that the Budapest opera house is much more beautiful. This is because most of the Vienna opera house was destroyed in WWII and when they rebuilt it in the 1950’s, instead of recreating the 1860’s, ornate building interior, they just put up a functional modern interior composed mainly of solid white walls. I don’t know if they did this because in the 1950’s a solid white was considered more elegant or if it was because they were broke after the war and so they just had money to put up a more utilitarian building.] The building was beautiful and the concert hall incredibly ornate. Apparently, the famous balcony scenes from the movie “Evita” were filmed here, which many of the English-speaking tourists were oohing and aaahing over. At the end of the tour, we were treated to a mini concert by one of the opera divas singing a short selection from “Tosca.” It was pretty cool. We took it easy the rest of the day before heading to a local pub to take in that night’s Champion’s League game. The bartender was great – he seemed to feel the need to instruct us on how Hungarians watch soccer, telling us what phrases to say when the players take a dive on the field. We also had some amazingly good paprika pizza at the pub – it’s a minor experience but worth mentioning, considering we just came from ROME! Seriously, this pizza was delicious; I had no idea the Hungarians has such good pizza!

Our last day in Budapest was spent being as lazy as possible! We got up early and headed to Széchenyi thermal baths : nine indoor and outdoor pools – heated!, including a jet powered “lazy river”, water aerobics, countless saunas (Nick enjoyed them; I can’t really handle the steam), and endless people watching! I loved all the old ladies in their 1950s swim caps, complete with ruffles, flowers, lace, and all! It was a GREAT afternoon. I think all the heat and steam turned our brains to mush, though. I’d be surprised if we exchanged more than a sentence or two with each other the whole time; I think with all the relaxation going on, our mind went blank and our bodies just tried to keep us from drowning as dozed off in the pools. ;o) It was nice.

That evening, we hopped a RailJet train to Vienna. Beautiful countryside! These modern, high speed European trains are the absolute best way to travel! Better than planes by far and light years ahead of any train or bus we ever took in Asia!

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