Budapest - Part 3

Our last day in Budapest was relatively low stress, having pretty much seen everything we set out to see already.

We started at the Szent István Bazilika (St. Stephen's Basilica), which we climbed for the view over the city. We were also going to see the mummified hand of Steven I of Hungary, but there was Easter services in progress so we couldn't get through.

Next we just spent some time wandering around the streets of the town, trying to decide which buildings were damaged by bombs and bullets and which were merely neglected.

Eventually we made our way back to Castle Hill to see it during daylight hours.

We spent a fair bit of time in Mátyás-templom (Matthias Church), which was, of course, covered in scafolding from the outside, but from the inside it was really spectacular.

After this we wandered around the Fisherman's Bastion some more, taking many photos of the view from the hill, and then around the Budai Vár (Buda Castle) itself.

But all this fails to capture one of the key points of our stay in Budapest, which was the coffee shops and the delicious cakes. We had visited a number of the famous coffee shops during our stay, including the famous Gerbeaud, and sampled a number of the different cakes. Our favourite, however, was the Ruszwurm in the Castle district and in fact we went back twice in the space of a couple of hours to try more of their cakes.

We finished off our time in Budapest at some of the markets near our hotel, trying out more local food and spending our local currency, before leaping into a taxi for the Airport, only to be once again delayed by the snow storms in Geneva.

Budapest - Part 2

The next day we took the historic M1 Metro line to Hösök Tere (Hero's Square) and walked through Városliget (City Park) to the Szechenyi fürdö (thermal baths), where we spent a couple of hours leaping from one hot bath to another and walked away feeling relaxed but in dire need of a drink of cold water and a liberal application of moisturiser.

After a cleansing shower back at our hotel room, we headed back in the direction of the Danube in search of a bite to eat and stumbled through some of the street markets that had sprung up over the weekend. In actual fact our timing for visiting Budapest was very good, coinciding with the Budapest Spring Festival, resulting in markets such as these with excellent local food and crafts (and even demonstrations of the local music and dancing).

We continued to the river and headed towards the impressive Országház (Parliament House), the largest building in Europe when it was completed in 1905 but perpetually blackened from polution since it was built with porous limestone.

Behind the Parliament building is the Néprajzi Múzeum (Cultural Museum), which we wandered through learning about the costumes and traditions of the local people. Like our experience at the National museum, we again walked away feeling as through the Hungarians have had a pretty tough time of it.

Since we had planned to visit Castle Hill at night to see the city lights, we then crossed the Danube and headed back South towards the Budavári Sikló (Funicular) which we would catch to the top.

Along the way there was plenty of impressive views across the river.

Last but not least we walked around to the Halászbástya (Fisherman's Bastion) to compare the views from there.

We didn't stay too long, knowing we would be coming back the next day during daylight, and hot-footed it back to our hotel, stopping along the way at the Markets for some delicious grilled chicken with paprika (yeah, it's a Hungarian word, apparently) and potatos.

Budapest - Part 1

We woke up to find it grey and rainy in the morning, and while it wasn't actually snowing, it was very cold. We grabbed ourselves an umbrella and headed out for a quick breakfast. Knowing nothing about Hungarian cuisine, I had scrambled eggs with ham and Linda had black forest cake.

First stop was the Nagycsamok (Central Markets) where we had our first tast of local food, lángos, (an oily doughy thing with cream and cheese on it) and browsed the local crafts on sale.

Then we wandered up to the nearby Nemzeti Múzeum (National Museum) where we tried to actually learn something about the history this foreign country we had arrived in. It turns out Hungary has had a somewhat unfortunate history, allying with the Austrians and Russians at exactly the wrong junctures in time (I wont embarrass myself by pretending to be an expert in Hungarian History).

That night we headed out for dinner at Menza restaurant, which is a very nice modern restaurant with enough of a repulation that meant there was quite a long waiting list. Somehow we got a table, due to some strange arrangement with our hotel, and examined the menu. I think I got a bit more lucky with my choices than Linda, who somehow ended up with a cheesy bread roll in a cheesy sauce for starters (the rest of the meal was very good), and we left the restaurant completely stuffed and in need of a digestive walk.

We walked down to the Duna (Danube River) by way of the Szent István Bazilika (St. Stephen's Basilica) and took photos of the famous Széchenyi Lánchíd (Chain Bridge) and Vár (Buda Palace) before succuming to the cold and heading back to our hotel.