We arrived in Budapest late at night on Sunday and crashed at our hostel. We awoke the next morning for breakfast and talked to Gabe, the man who ran our hostel, about what there was to do in Budapest. We had arrived not knowing anything about the city except that it used to be two cities, Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube River. Gabe informed us that we were on the Pest side of the city and proceeded to plan out the next two days for us.
Monday morning we walked to the synagogue, which proudly declared that it is one of the largest in Eastern Europe. Believable. This thing was enormous and had a museum and graveyard attached. We spent a fair portion of the morning there before moving on to the Basilica that took about 300 years to finish building. Inside we had a special treat of viewing the 1000 year old hand of a Saint. Glorious! That hand was one of the most disgusting things I think I have ever seen. We ate lunch in a cafe near the Opera for pretty cheap and I got some pasta and the best brownie cake dessert thing afterwards, it was warm, soft, and delicious. We headed up towards Heroes Square next and took a look around before heading to the Hungarian Bath House. As none of us brought our bathing suits with us on our trip through Eastern Europe in February (how foolish of us) we opted to forgo the experience of bathing naked with middle aged Hungarian men, surely a treat. I am actually a little disappointed that we didn't go in but we took a look around and it sure did seem amazing. We checked out a castle before walking back to the hostel before dinner. We ate dinner at a famous restaurant. I think I ordered the wrong dish though because I didn't find this restaurant all that fantastic considering the price and comparing the meal to others I ate in Hungary. I got what was essentially a jelly donut with chicken inside it. Not very filling, or tasty. I hit the hay at the hostel after dinner and the rest of the crew went out drinking.
Tuesday morning we walked as close as they would let us up to Parliament and then crossed the Danube to explore the Buda side of the city. We climbed up a mountain and got some amazing views before checking out the fisherman's bastion and a church. I walked home to take a much needed nap in the afternoon and met up with other MUDECers for dinner at a traditional Hungarian restaurant. My chicken and potatoes were fabulous, it was probably the best meal I've had all semester and to top it all off I enjoyed the most fantastic strawberry juice with dinner. We left in the afternoon on Wednesday for Prague and managed to avoid using our Eurail train passes and only had to pay 19 euro for the trip.
Overall, Budapest was a fun city, a very interesting combination of cultures was easily distinguishable the only real negatives were the terrible weather we faced and continuing to travel with the same group for an extended break can get exhausting. Pictures can be found here! Next up, Praha!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment