Budapest, Hungary

This past weekend, I was in Budapest - one of the most underrated cities in Europe according to my guidebook, and I certainly agree! The city was much bigger than I was expecting, but after a few trips we could easily get anywhere using the public transportation, with no mistakes! This trip was organized through the "buddy network" at our University, so there were lots of planned activities which allowed us to see the whole city in an efficient manner!

We left Vienna early Friday morning, and were in Budapest by noon. When we got to the city, an english speaking tour guide got on our bus and we continued driving around for nearly 4 hours! We got out at certain places of interest, and she would walk around with us and explain more about the history of Budapest, and what we were seeing. It helped us get immediately acquainted with the city and learn more about it's history. Who knew "Buda" was on one side of the Danube, and "Pest" was on the other?? Buda is the more residential side, but has many sights that we would later go back and see including the royal palace, Matthias church, and more! Pest is the economic and business heart of the city, with more restaurants and shopping, and plenty of other sights to see as well. Buda and Pest are connected by 12 bridges, all of which are beautiful and architecturally different. When the German troops left Budapest after WWII, they destroyed all of the bridges, so they have only recently been rebuilt and restored.

After our bus tour concluded, we checked into our hotel and went off to an all-you-can-eat dinner at an authentic Hungarian restaurant. It was delicious - lots of meat, rice, cabbage, and peppers!

We got up bright and early Saturday morning, and left in a small group to do our own thing for the day. The big group was not meeting until 1, and we didn't want to waste our morning lounging around the hotel. We took the subway to the Great Market Hall - an indoor marketplace. The first floor was all produce and meat - lots and lots of meat. The stands had sausages and salami hanging everywhere, and the locals were all out buying their ingredients for the day/weekend! We wandered around looking at the stands and bought some coffee and pastries. We then went up to the second floor, which was all "trinkets". We bought postcards, and made our way around the loop. It strangely reminded me very much of Mexico - there were lots of painted ceramic pieces, beaded jewelry, and colorful textiles!

Sausage!

Next, we headed across the Danube to Buda, and up Castle Hill to see the palace and church. We had been here yesterday at a bus stopping point, but didn't have enough time to walk around and enjoy it. Hungary no longer has a royal family, so there is nobody living in the palace. Instead, it has become a compilation of art museums. We decided not to pay to enter, because we had a lot more we wanted to see before dinner. We headed to the other side of the hill to see Matthias Church and the Fisherman's Bastion. The church was incredible and very different from any that I have seen in Europe. It was under restoration on the inside, which was disappointing since we paid 700 Forints to get in (don't worry too much, that is only $3.00). From what we could see though, the church was hand painted in various designs on the interior. It was very modern looking, and SO colorful! You could even get a preview of the color inside, by looking at the roof of the building which was a beautiful mosaic of colorful tiles. We then walked along Fisherman's Bastion which is a lookout over the river, providing great views of Parliament and the Pest side.

Matthias Church - hard to see the mosaic roof due to the weather!

Fisherman's Bastion

We headed back over a different bridge towards Pest, and stopped at the island halfway across. It is called Margaret's Island, and is a large park. There were lots of families, joggers, and bikers out, and we strolled from one end to the other, and headed towards Pest. We stopped and got a late lunch at a sandwich cafe, and continued walking towards our hotel area. We passed another magnificent church and a synagogue, but we unfortunately did not have time to go in.

That night, our dinner was at an all-you-can-eat Mongolian Barbecue! It was obviously not traditional Hungarian food, but it was very good and we all left quite full!

On Sunday we checked out and went with the group to the House of Terror - a museum about WWII. Budapest was where the Nazis and Soviets came head to head during the war, and this was the headquarters of each party at some point during that time. It walks visitors through both of their occupations of the city, and commemorates the victims that were tortured and killed in the basement of that very building, and in Hungary in general. The museum was interesting, but we all left with lots of questions, as most of the information presented was in Hungarian. We were able to follow some of what we were looking at, but left a tad confused!

Our final stop on this trip was at a Turkish bathhouse. We went to Szechenyi Spa, which is one of the largest in Europe. It is basically a public pool (both inside and outside) that is the temperature of a hottub, and is naturally heated by hot springs below. There were 11 pools total, and we stayed in the outdoor ones. It was only around 45 degrees outside, but we were plenty warm in the water! Many of the girls in our group did not get in - they were freaked out about the germs and just sat on the side, but they sure missed out!

After the spa we headed back towards our meeting point, stopping in a grocery store to spend our last currency and get dinner for our ride home. We left Budapest at 6:00 and were back to our dorms by 10:00.

Overall, I completely agree with my guidebook that Budapest is one of the most underrated cities in Europe! It was beautiful, the food was great, and the people were very nice (not quite as nice as those in Dublin though!). Because of the size of the city, there is so much to see - I'm sure we didn't see it all - but it is still easy to navigate and use the public transportation.

This week is fairly routine - classes and errands. Spring break starts next week (for two weeks!), despite only having been in class for two weeks...? My friends and I are off to Croatia for the first 8 days, and then I'll be back in Vienna to pick Nolan up at the airport for the second week! It's hard to believe my time abroad is almost half over, and I'll be back in the State so soon!