Budapest, Hungary

On Thursday, November 6, I left with a group of 13 other students to get on a 7 hour train to Budapest. We left at 3:30pm and after the long ride of playing cards, sleeping, and listening to music we finally arrived around 11 at night. We arrived into a train station on the east end of the Pest side of the river. When we walked out of the train station to find an ATM and head to our hostel, we found that the street was literally a construction site, blocked off and filled with construction equipment, and the city looked a little less than friendly than we had become accustomed to. We quickly found some money (about 200 Hungarian Forints equals $1) and walked to the hostel, walked up to the second floor of this large building and found a guy sitting at a kitchen table or "the reception area". The hostel was three large rooms with beds, a kitchen, 2 bathrooms and 2 showers. The man who was the receptionist had his own living area where over the course of the weekend we heard him snoring many times and learned that he lived in the hostel, sleeping and eating there and checking people in and out as they came. We settled in our rooms and after walking around the city to see the river and then finding something to eat and drink, we were all tired so we headed back and went to sleep.

The next morning, Friday, everyone split up to go see different things and John and I set out from the hostel and walked across the white Elizabeth Bridge over the water to the Buda side of the city. There was a large monument over a waterfall just across the bridge with a statue of St. Gerard holding a cross out to the river in front of a semi circle colonnade. The monument was built into the side of the Gellert Hill because St. Gerard was thrown off this hill by rebels in 1046. We walked up the large set of stairs to get a better look at it up close and on the way up we started to get really good views across the river back to the Pest side and also to the Buda Castle to the left. After hanging out and taking some pictures we made our way higher until we reached the Citadel on the top of the hill. The Citadel was built by the Hapsburgs, the same family that built the Hofburg Palace where we had seen the treasury collection in Vienna. At the front of the Citadel looking out over the river there was a large Liberation Monument that can be seen from anywhere along the river. This monument was built in 1947 to commemorate the country being freed from Nazi rule by the Soviets after World War II. We walked along in front of the Citadel and looked at some of the things that the vendors where selling along the path and then headed down the hill to go to the Buda Castle.

We walked up to the Buda Castle and there was a small entrance with a tower to the left of it. We went through the gate and up a flight of stairs and it opened into a big open space surrounded by old castle walls on all sides. One wall was covered in really pretty red and green leaves and we spent some time there looking around. We made our way through an arch way and followed a path towards the river that brought us to the front of the Castle which now houses the Hungarian National Gallery and the Budapest History Museum. It was starting to get dark (around 4:30pm) and lights were starting to come on to light up the facades of the castle. After coming down from the castle we walked through the city underneath it for a little while (the streets on this side of the river were much nicer than on the Pest side) before coming to Matthias Church. The gothic church was covered in scaffolding but there was a series of small towers connected by a walkway that we walked through before heading down to the river to take the Chain Bridge back over to the other side. By this time we were hungry and looking for somewhere to eat dinner so we went back to the street where we had found food the night before and found a small restaurant that had a good menu. We had pitas with feta cheese and tomatoes for an appetizer and I had a chicken breast with cheese and bacon inside for my entree. The food was really good and after dinner we headed back to the hostel to meet up with everyone else before going out to a bar.

The next day John and I left the hostel with the intent to explore the Pest side of the river. John had a list of some thrift stores that he wanted to go to so we checked them out before getting some lunch and walking by the Great Synagogue. Since it was Saturday we were not allowed to go inside so the closest we could get was the small courtyard in the front. This synagogue is the largest in Europe and the second largest in the world. Not being able to do much there we headed to St. Stephen's Basilica where we were able to get in. There was a really large courtyard in front of the entrance and the interior was very ornately decorated with gold and stone. Stephen was the first King of Hungary and one of the most interesting parts of the Basilica was that they had his mummified hand on display. It was in a small glass shrine that was very dark but when a tourist paid 200 forints (about $1) the box lit up and you could see the small mummified hand clenched in a fist inside.

From there we took the metro out to the very large City Park. We came out of the metro in front of Heroes Square, a large square where the Millennium Monument sits that has statues of important people in Hungary's history. The square is framed by two art museums and the main street through the park starts just behind it. We walked up the street and found the Vajdahunyad Castle on our right. We walked over the moat on the bridge and through the main gate. The castle complex housed a little church inside and there were several vendors along the path. The path lead us out into a large open area of the park where there were people throwing a frisbee and also playing ping pong on the permanent ping pong tables. We spent a little while outside enjoying the daylight while we could before heading across the main street to the Szechenyi Baths.

We had heard from several people that the baths were something that you should definitely do while in Budapest. We didn't really know what to expect and the list of different tickets you could buy was pretty long so we decided to just buy the basic all day ticket for the steam bath. We got the tickets, went through the entrance and were led to locker rooms to change into our bathing suits. John and I met up again ready to go and followed the path to the baths. We walked into a long hallway that had what looked like a series of small swimming pools. The pools are all at different temperatures, some at 30, 34, 36, and 38 degrees Celsius, and some even colder or warmer than that. The water from the baths comes from two thermal springs underneath the park. We walked through the hall, spending about 10 minutes or so in each bath before coming to the door that led us to the outside baths. There was a long pool in the center where some people were swimming laps and two semi circle pools on the ends. We went in one on the end and the water felt really good since it was cold outside and there were fountains spraying water into the bath with a lot of pressure that felt really good when sprayed on my back. The bath was very crowded and there were older men playing chess on a section that jutted out into the water. We spent a lot of time in there before checking out the bath on the other side which had a large whirlpool in the center where tons of kids were jumping on top of each other and getting carried around in circles. We spent about 2 hours going in and out of different baths before using a sauna, which I had never done before, and seeing how long we could stand the heat before jumping into a cold shower to wash off the sweat. We changed back into our clothes and they had free hair dryers for us to use. The baths were definitely my favorite part of Budapest and one of the coolest things I have been able to do so far while in Europe.

That night we ate at a Hungarian restaurant called Fatal where they gave us huge portions of food, I had chicken with potatoes and John had schnitzel. When we came out of the restaurant it was raining so we quickly headed back to the hostel to meet up with everyone else and hang out for the night. The next morning we woke up, packed up our things, and left the hostel to grab something to eat before getting on the train to go back to Prague. Budapest was very different from any of the other cities I had been to so far, and even with its not so nice parts it was definitely a city worth experiencing.