European Vacation Day 8 - Budapest

38 degrees again today.

Lots of lions about, this one's guarding the castle

I’m not really sure whether I like Budapest or not. I think it’s growing on me, or at least I understand it better. It’s a big place (2.7m inhabitants) and seems to be very much a working city, not so set up for tourists. There is one street that is all tourist shops, with each one selling exactly the same stuff, but at different prices. Our fridge magnet cost 250 HUF, whereas some places were selling it for 600 HUF.

The parliament building

St Marks church

Today we left the hotel at 8.30am and took the metro across the river to Fishermans Bastion and St Marks Church. We then walked to the castle and got lost trying to get out the other side.

J and the Fisherman's Bastion

view from the castle of the Liberation Monument

part of the castle complex

We walked over the Chain Bridge to the impressive St Stephens Basillica. It was very opulent inside with gold everywhere. We had a big lunch then walked to the market. The whole ground floor was fresh food stalls and the upper floor was all tourist shops. After an hour or so we came out with a handmade Hungarian lace placemat.

J at the Chain Bridge

at St Stephens Basilica

inside the Basilica

Price of goods in Budapest are not as low as I expected. Food is reasonably cheap, but other goods are the same price as many other places.

We walked from the market to the Gellert baths, where we enjoyed a spa afternoon. There were 2 indoor pools, one effervescent and one heated to 36 degrees, and 2 outdoor pools one heated and the other a large one with a wave machine. Turns out with the wave pool you are better off in the deep end, as we found out when we moved to the shallow end to get out. J couldn’t keep her balance and was traumatised by the time we got out. I enjoyed it, she did not!

Gellert baths

There were 4 of our tour mates in the baths, and we met 3 others leaving as we arrived. Before we left we sampled the thermal baths. There were 2 heated pools, one at 36 degrees and one at 38 degrees. The 38 degree one felt considerably hotter, Andy made a good point that it is probably because it is above body temperature and the other is just below.

When I went back into the thermal rooms a second time a strange thing happened. I went straight to the steam room, which was around 70 degrees, from there I spent a couple of minutes in the cold pool (18 degrees but felt like an ice bath) and then went into the 38 degree pool. As soon as I was submerged in the water I started to feel a tingling in my arms and legs that seemed to be deep in, not in the fingertips or toes, but starting about half way down the fingers. It lasted a couple of minutes and when I came out I felt invigorated! It’s hard to describe how it felt so I’ll leave it at that.

me in the restaurant

We then walked to a vegan restaurant and had a great traditional Hungarian dinner before walking back to the hotel for a beer and back to the room about 9.30pm. In all we were out for 13 hours and I’m shattered.

J was less keen on Budapest than me, and I was so-so on it, so I doubt we’ll be back. However it is a nice place, with a reasonable amount of tourist attractions (I even saw a Trabant parked on our street) and the people are quite friendly and mostly speak excellent English (useful as Hungarian is fiendishly difficult – it is similar to Finnish which is supposedly one of the hardest languages to learn). The city is however very busy all the time, traffic is a nightmare and it is a bit dirty looking. I got to see the Danube though which I think is the widest river I have ever seen. It’s not blue though, at least not here.

Oh, and they have Tesco here, and C&A. Who knew?

Had a great nights sleep last night, the best yet thanks to the air conditioning, and am looking forward to another before we head to Vienna tomorrow.

One final point of note is that when we left this morning Scott ran past us on his way back to the hotel. We caught up this evening and it turns out he had run from the hotel to the Citadella and back (a good 8-9km with a solid 5 minutes running up steps) which he had also done last night after we arrived. Now that’s just showing off! (the dude has done Ironman competitions, how jealous am I?) He and Erin watched the World Cup in a pub today with a World Cup trophy-shaped four litre beer cooler at their table. With that on offer maybe even J would watch the World Cup.

eagles AND swords?  Too awesome.