Budapest, Hungary

For a more substantial weekend getaway, we flew to Budapest, Hungary. Why? I thought it sounded cool a few months ago and had a cheap airfare. We woke up at 4am Saturday in Bonn and - after the usual airport wait - landed there after a short 1.5 hour flight. Hungary is a relatively new EU member and has yet to adopt the euro. The airport exchange rate sucked, but we got enough forint to pay for the mini-bus to our hotel. As advertised, this was a very nice place literally right on the west bank of the Danube River, the Buda side. Did you know that before a bridge linked them in 1873, Budapest was actually 2 cities, Buda and Pest? It sounded silly to me, but I'm not making that shit up. After dumping our bag and getting more cash (which, incidentally, is the coolest-looking currency I've ever encountered), we hiked up cobbled lanes into the walled medieval city around Buda Castle.

There's a little neighborhood up there, along with the castle (now housing the Hungarian National Art Gallery and a History museum), some hotels, restaurants, cafes, parks, statues, and churches. We checked out some of the views down to the Danube for a while and looked at some of the ancient homes and buildings being excavated. After walking around for a while, I desperately needed lunch. We stopped at a little outdoor restaurant: I had goulash soup, chicken and doughy stuff with a paprika sauce, and some kind of sour cherry/plum pastry. Jackie ate salad and fried goose liver pancakes. (food info for Liz.) It was good...heavy, but I was hungry. Next stop was the Mattias Church, with some pretty interesting medieval architecture and very ornate wooden ornamentation inside. My pictures turned out kinda crappy because of the low light. They had some interesting historical displays that included a skull and someone's (saint? martyr?) mummified finger. I love that kind of ridiculous stuff. We spent a good chunk of the afternoon in the art gallery inside the castle, and then stopped at a cafe for the traditional afternoon coffee and cake. I had a double espresso and cream cake (just what it sounds like...good God), and Jackie ate a giant chocolate cake and chocolate drink. Before we left, we had to check out the views from the Fisherman's Bastion, this beautiful stone structure hanging off the edge of the hill, that looks down on the Danube and the Pest side of the river. The red-domed building is the Hungarian Parliament, which was basically the close-up view we had across the river from our hotel room (awesome). After a bit of rest, we went to the bridge next to our hotel. There was some major festival thing on it over the weekend: filled with booths selling souvenirs, food, beer, and playing music, it was open only to (mobs of) pedestrians. We ate some skewered turkey with vegetables and potatoes along with Soproni, the local Heineken-like beer. I'm pretty sure we were asleep by 10pm (not too bad considering when we got up).



The next morning (after an incredible free breakfast from the hotel), we walked across the bridge to the Pest side and headed for the old Jewish ghetto. We quickly found the incredible Dohány Synagogue, the largest in the world outside of New York (ha! take that Jerusalem!). It had a pretty interesting - very moorish - external architecture, but the inside was spectacular. Sadly, I was too cheap to pay for the photo rights, so look at the pictures on the bottom of the wikipedia page. Extremely ornate inlaid wood designs, beautiful chandeliers, etc. It was a huge complex, and they had a very interesting museum about Jewish life, replete with medieval examples of dishes, candelabra, torah scrolls, etc. Most amazing was a Jewish tombstone (with menorah carving) from the 3rd century, when this was Roman territory. Out back was an interesting Holocaust memorial - more than half of Hungary's 700,000 Jews were sent to Nazi deathcamps or simply shot and dumped into the Danube (mostly by collaborating Hungarian fascists) - and a symbolic grave for Raoul Wallenberg. We then walked around in the old Jewish ghetto, seeing a few other large (less ornate) synagogues and stopping for lunch at a popular restaurant serving Ashkenazi-style traditional Jewish food. We had motza-ball/goose-neck and goulash soups for an appetizer. Then we moved onto stuffed cabbages and cholent/stuffed goose sausages with hard-boiled eggs, and finally some warm pastry desserts. Again, super-filling but awesome. To continue the God-fest, we headed to the enormous Svent Istvan Basilika. I've been in a lot of churches, but nothing even comes close to comparing with how beautiful and blinged-out this place was. The interior was filled with gold and marble, beautiful paintings, incredible domed ceilings, etc. Again, to satisfy my weird desire to see ancient bodyparts attributed to religious figures, we checked out St. Stephen's right hand (the "holy right") - sadly I couldn't get a good photo through the glass. We climbed to the top of the main tower and got some pretty amazing views of the city, before moving on. We walked all the way up the Danube, past the intricate Parliament building, and hung out for the rest of the afternoon on Margaret Island (that's right, a river island), very similar to Central Park in NYC. Around sunset, we headed back and had a light dinner and beer at a cafe in St. Stephen's square (where I got this neat picture of the basilica). Before bed, we stopped on the bridge festival again to listen to the live jazz/blues and eat this amazing grilled sweet bread thing (vanilla sugar is so good).

While it had been about 90 degrees the other days, our last day here was pretty gray, rainy, and about 68 degrees at most. This is much better than the 110+ degrees they had here for about 2 straight weeks before we came. We walked past the Opera house and all the way up the major Andrassy Ut boulevard (for no good reason) and had some Chinese food for lunch (too many rich Hungarian lunches). After a quick espresso stop, we had one thing left to do: thermal baths. Budapest is known for their natural hot mineral springs, and there are at least a dozen bath houses in the city. We went to the biggest, cheapest one that allows mixed-sex bathing. After some initial confusion (note to Hungarians: we stupid Americans do not understand the meaning behind curt, repeated, non-descript commands in broken English), we managed to change and get "towels" (curtains?). Despite the cold July weather (Europe is having a cold fucking summer), we went outside first. There were 3 pools: hot (38 C), cold (25 C), and warm (32 C) with fun currents swirling around obstacles. We tried the former and latter....soooooo relaxing. We spent about 3 hours running between thermal baths, mineral baths, and saunas. It felt really good, but there's only so much you can take. If for no other reason, I could come back and spend a week in Budapest just visiting various baths. We took the subway back downtown and the weather cleared a bit. After some more afternoon cake (screw coffee, right?) and light shopping in the pedestrian malls near Vaci Utca we had an amazing dinner (for cheap)! Fried goose liver and onions on toast for an appetizer. I had turkey breast stuffed with apples and soft cheese in a sour cherry sauce with potatoes and a great local red wine...all for like 10 euros. I was convinced it was a scam. I think we were both a little sad to leave...it really was an amazing place and we still had a lot left that we could do. Oh well...definitely a place worth a return trip - highly recommended for a different European perspective (without too much of the depressing stuff about eastern Europe). One last picture of the Parliament....