"Budapest" Budapest by Ewingjr98

I had an interesting trip to Budapest from 28 to 30 January 2006. More to come...

28 January 2006 -- Intro to Buda and Pest

We arrived on the overnight train from Prague, Czech Republic around 0830. We immediately began walking toward downtown, but quickly realized how long the walk would take so we got money at an ATM, found a subway entrance, got tickets, and rode to the Batthyany Ter station across the river from Parliament. From there, we spent a few hours walking around the lower part of the city beneath the old town, had some "sausage roll" type snacks on the street, then made the hike up to the Fishermen's Bastion. After exploring and taking pictures, we stopped for coffee, then went back down to Batthyany Ter station and took the subway to the Deak Ter in the center of the shopping district to find an information booth and a hotel. We found a great apartment along the river to rent for a few days, showered, then wandered around the Pest side of town admiring the unusual architecture. We ended up in the Jewish quarter, so we stopped and had an average dinner near the synagogue. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Turo Taska Parfekterah for espresso and dessert, then went to bed very early.

Parliament from Margitszigit

Zarva means closed in Hungarian. On Sundays, every store front and many restaurants have giant Zarva signs in the windows.

We got up pretty early and went straight to the citadel for a morning hike. At the top we took some photos, then went down the other side past the cave church and the famous Gellert Hotel. Our plan was to go to the food halls at Vasarcsarnok for breakfast, but they were Zarva. We wandered around the area looking for other restaurants, but many didn't open until 11 so we waited and had a really good lunch near the food halls. After lunch we jumped on the subway and went out to the City Park including Heroes' Square, the ice skating rink, the fake castle, and the thermal baths (where we stopped for beer!) -- this area seemed to be the busiest place in the entire city! Next we went to Nyugati Station to check train times for the next day then walked out Szent Istvan Korut (St Steven's Street) to Margitszegit (Margarit's Island). The Island was quiet as evening approached, but it has a small zoo, a nice running track around the entire perimeter, ruins of an eerie old church, and a 100 year old water tower. As it got dark, we left the island, then went to the Buda side of the river to catch a taxi back to our hotel. We took the subway to a great restaurant/bar called Old Man's Music Pub where we had probably the best meal of the 12-day European trip (but they don't take American Express!). At about 2330, we returned to the apartment via the subway and went to bed.

Parliament from Fishermen's Bastion

Our last day in Budapest, we had a train scheduled to depart around 1020, so we were up at 0630 and ready to explore just a little more of this city. Our first stop was the food hall at Vasarcsarnok where we tried some excellent fresh breads and drinks for dirt cheap--we also explored the massive building and its hundreds of shops for about 45 minutes. Next we took the subway to the Parliament area to get a close up look at this impressive building and we stopped at Freedom Park, with its USSR monuments, on the way to the subway station. We arrived at Keleti station about 1000 and almost immediately boarded our train for Komarom, Hungary where we walked across the border to Komarno, Slovakia then caught our onward train to Bratislava, Slovakia.