Buda or Pest? Budapest!
Trip dates: February 20, 2017 - February 23, 2017
From Prague to Budapest, we decided to take trains that didn't require reservation to save on some train costs. It was going to be about 6 hours though, so we hoped that the train would be comfortable at least! Luckily enough, we got an old school sleeper car that had kind-of lay flat seats, so we were able to pass the time in (relative) comfort.
We only had 2 days to sight see in Budapest, so we had to make it count.
We started off the day by going to the Central Market Hall, which is pretty touristy now but had lots of Hungarian vegetable and meat stands along with clothes and other knick-knacks, plus restaurants. It also had a "Hungarian street" in the basement to showcase Hungarian specialties for tourists, some of which was interesting but some of which was just tacky.
From there, we went across the Danube to check out the Gellert Hill Cave, a church that was built into a cave, and the Citadella to get some views of Budapest from the Buda side of the river. Buda is the west side and Pest is the east side.
From here, we wandered our way over to the Buda Castle. It was a pretty circuitous route but good for Pokemon Go playing ;) We also stumbled into our favorite meal in Budapest at Tabáni Gösser, see the bottom part for food photos.
For the Buda Castle, we ended up taking the tram (funicular) up to the top just to get the views. From there, we wandered all around taking in the different sights. We wanted to check out the library, cuz libraries are cool, but you had to pay to go in! Screw that, no thanks!
From the Castle, we worked our way a bit further north to the Matthias Church (so named for King Matthias, who improved the church and was married twice in it) and the Fisherman's Bastion, which is an old fortress with 7 turrets and great city views.
The Bastion offered gorgeous views of the surrounding area and we also caught the sun setting with the changing colors. We took way too many pictures here and could've been there even longer.
Fun fact that we learned on this trip - Matthias, better known as Matthias Corvinus, imprisoned Dracula (Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Dracula) for 12 years in Hungary. We went to the Labyrinth exhibit near the Buda Castle that is using excavated underground area which was used in the middle ages for torture and supposedly was where Dracula was kept!
It was super spooky and empty (we were the only ones in there). They give you a little oil light but there's a section where you can just go in the dark, only holding on to a rope on the side. We did it in the pitch black and Lishan was quite scared ;) And unfortunately, our oil lamp went out so we had to finish the rest with a phone light, which took a little bit away from the experience. However, there was a whole Dracula section that had creepy music, dry ice/mist, and ghastly pictures and stuff that phone light or not, was a bit scary.
Spoooky
After our labyrinth fun, we went across the Chain Bridge back to the Pest side and also saw the "Shoes on the Danube Bank" memorial to the Holocaust. We've seen many different Holocaust memorials on our trip through Europe, but this one was particularly strong in its simplicity and in the starkness of its message.
The next day, we worked our way further east on the Pest side to see Hero's Square. This day had much better weather than the day before, so we took advantage by walking all over and checking out the cool statues and surrounding area.
Overall we really enjoyed our time in Budapest. It has a really rich history that we really felt we got to see while we were there. The scenery was all beautiful, even when it was cloudy and rainy.
Lishan kept making fun of me for forgetting things that happened in Prague vs. Budapest, but then I countered with the fact that they're both cities with a big river in between them and famous bridges so I kept getting them confused, and she relented a bit :)
Food wise, Hungarian food was OK. We got really sick of goulash in only a few days by eating it a whole bunch. We've seen that food in central Europe (and moving further east) tends to be a lot saltier than we're used to, but just something to be aware of and counter as best you can.
From what I'd read, Hungarians typically do a soup with their meals so we did a lot of soup!
On our last night in Budapest, I started to cough a whole lot. Uh oh. I seemed to have caught something (cold? flu?) and it hit me harder in our next stop, Vienna. At least we got to see Budapest before I got sick!
