Budapest Weekend

[May 18-23]

We scheduled our visit to Budapest so that it would include a weekend for visitors. Katie, Mary-Brennan, and Marta (all ex-pats from Prague), came to visit us and have a fun weekend sightseeing. Danny was also here too, and we made a fun group.



After picking the girls up from the train station, Danny took us to a yummy Spanish restaurant, the Alhambra. It was really nice, even though we couldn't all sit together at the small tables. Then we wandered around to see the city at night, ending up at the Parliament building, where Dean took a few shots of us.

In the morning, the weather was just picking up and we were all ready for the sunshine. We walked around on the Buda side of the city to see some views and watch men sell their cotton candy, fresh from a handmade device in a large plastic bucket. We took the necessary photos, and then headed down to the main market to meet Danny.

The market is just a ˝touristic˝ area, but housed within a historic building. (Touristic seems to be a word that all Europeans use, rather than "touristy," which is also correct.) Many of the featured goods in the market included paprika, sausages, lace fabric, and t-shirts.



Then we decided to have a quick lunch before seeing more. It was the slowest service ever and easily became a 2 hour lunch. But it was quite tasty, as you can see in the picture of my pear and melted brie cheese lunch below.



We decided that we still had time after lunch to make it to the baths, a must do activity in Budapest. There are many places for baths, an activity remaining from the days of the Turkish occupation. Some are men only, some are mixed. We went for a mixed one and everyone wears swimsuits there.

We bought tickets for our metro journey. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any information on how many metro stops were valid for a "Metro Section Transfer Ticket" and 4 of us had to pay a fine to the ticket checkers. It was dramatic and they didn't give any slack to us tourists. Oh well. If it was just Dean and me (and we weren't in a hurry to get to the baths), then we might have held out and waited for the police. It could have been a good blog story!

After all the hassle getting there, the bath was really worth it. We entered into the inner pool rooms, where you had the choice between super freezing, warm, and very warm. The pools felt really nice if you went from hot to cold and back again.

We also ventured outside where hundreds of white bodies occupied every space of sunshine to get that coveted tan. There were three pools here too -- the hot one, the one for lap swimming, and the one with jets and a human whirlpool. Naturally, we went for the exciting one and joined the stream of bodies swirling around in the large whirlpool. In the whirlpool, we ended up floating into everyone and feeling like a one of the crazy kids. [Dean: This is also the perfect flirting machine. Everyone's in their swim suits, people are rubbing up against strangers as the water flings them around, and laughter is in the air. It's a good place to break the touch barrier, but you might possibly come off like a pervert.]

Afterwards, we all felt extremely relaxed and walked back towards the center (to avoid the overpriced metro and enjoy the architecture outside). After dinner, we headed out to Holdovar, a great bar. It is a secret little place in tucked behind several unassuming buildings. All of a sudden, you round a corner, and there is this huge outdoor party with fun lights, music, and good beer. [Our Servas host, Roland, took us here a few nights previous, and that's the only way we would have know about it. As it was, we felt totally cool bringing other foreigners there. I mean, how local of us!]



The next day we walked around Castle Hill on the Buda side of the city. It is the hill without a castle but with lots of interesting sites and great views. [Dean: One of the better parts of it might be the tunnels that cut below so much of the surface. It's like a big maze.]


The Parliament on the Danube


The Parliament in the background


A Turret on Castle Hill


Dean and Katie on the Turrets

The rest of the afternoon we just took pictures and wandered around until the girls caught their train back home to Prague. It was a fun visit and the apartment felt a bit empty without them.