Blogs from Budapest, Central Hungary, Hungary, Europe - page 11

Budapest is known as the spa capital of Europe, if not the world. They have at least 30 public spas in this city alone. Spa here means thermal baths, not a resort with pampering and massage. Taxes are high here for residents. Up to 20% on consumer goods. Restaurants everywhere, mostly Hungarian, followed by Italian, sushi, and bakeries. So far on this trip, pastries have been rather sad. It is hard to walk around all day on cobblestone streets. Maybe time for a bus tour tomorrow. Europeans are consumed with Catalonia and Brexit. We get little news about the Napa and Sonoma fires. Lesson: do not build or live in the hills , fault line, or flood zone. I finally saw some film of Napa on sky news. Ugly, sad, awful. The American Embassy is just ... read more

Do you remember that "Dreadful Hungarian" (per Mrs. Pearce) named Zoltan Karparthy from My Fair Lady? As sung by Professor Henry Higgins: "There he was, that hairy hound From Budapest. Never leaving us alone, Never have I ever known A ruder pest." We do not intend to crash any Hungarian parties, nor try to fool Zoltan again. But we intend to find out more about Hungary on this trip. I did not realize that Hungary became a kingdom in 1000 AD, and was instrumental in holding off the Ottoman's expansion into Europe. They were once part of the Celtic world, then the Holy Roman Empire. The CIA says: In 1956, a revolt and an announced withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact were met with a massive military intervention by Moscow. Under the leadership of Janos KADAR in ... read more

Geo: 47.4984, 19.0408... read more

Cities are strange things - you either love them or hate them. Some cities like London and Paris call you back many times. Others are one day visits. Budapest is a pretty city and one that you could come back to many times. After walking around Buda we stopped beneath the funicular that runs all the way up to Castle Hill. We picked up an orange juice and the pasty and then set off for Adam Clark Road. The road was actually written in Hungarian and the only thing we could read was the name of Adam Smith. He was a scottish engineer who had a hand in building the Chain Bridge and the built the tunnel under Buda Hill . . He was honoured by having the street named after him. Adam was born in ... read more

We rented a car to start Day 4 and headed out to Szentendre (a small artisan town about 45 minutes NWish of Budapest). Travel recommendation #1 from this trip is to download an offline map app. No data needed and it lets you know where your are. You can look up reviews for app options, but T had "Citymaps2go" which was a great little app. It doesn't give directions so I had to have separate turn by turn instructions as well to navigate. Still - it got us back on track when we missed some turns so I am all about these apps now. I downloaded "Maps.me" as it has GPS like T's app AND it can give you directions, so we'll see how that one works out when we get to the driving part in ... read more