Day 1: We arrived in Pest (Buda and Pest are separated by the Denube river) in the afternoon and by the time we had found our hostal and dropped our things we were starving so we set out in search of typical Hungarian cuisine. We found it, and very quickly! GOULASH is delicious. Its basically just a meat and vegetable stew, spiced with paprika, the typical Hungarian spice of choice. It is no wonder that the Hungarians love this hot stew because it is FREEZING! We knew it was going to be cold, so we came prepared, but still after the sun went down we basically just ran from restaurant to coffee shop to bar to escape the freeze!
Day 2: We found a flyer for a free walking tour (keyword being free) and decided to check it out. Turned out to be very worth the later "suggested tip". Our lovely guide Gabor was full of historical knowledge about Budapest and Hungary in general and casual references to "trace parties" in forests that were "also very nice to go to." He took us all around from the cathedral which he assured us was "just another church, pretty boring", across the Chain bridge from Buda to Pest, to the top of Castle Hill, which had a great view from Buda of Pest and the river.
After a lovely (and cheap! huge bowl of some other type of Hungarian soup for 300 florint... that equals one euro!!!) lunch we headed out to explore Buda a little on our own. Unfortunately, even though we had just been guided, we fell into a terrible tourist trap! We were looking for "caves" that our guidebook had mentioned that had some natural mineral formations, stalagmites, etc. After looking, wandering and asking around the area where if was supposed to be on the map we couldn't find the exact caves we were looking for but instead stumbled on something called "Castle Labyrinth of Caves", or something like that. We were tired of wandering in the cold figured close enough. What a waste of 1000 florint!!! (thats only about 3 euros but still) These "caves" were completely fabricated for tourists, complete with fake cave paintings, stupid hoakey music and sound effects... oh it gets better... fake fossils...a fossil of a COMPUTER for example, and the kicker a fossil of a giant bottle of Coke a Cola.
This was the point when I was truly insulted:
Since it was a labyrinth, we kind were basically trapped in there til we found our way out. We stuck it to 'em at the end though and took full advantage of their "complimentary tea service" at the end. Take that crappy tourist trap!
Day 3: With a good handle of the layout of the city by this point we set out to explore more of the city on our own. We went to City Park and saw a castle with a moat ( I was very impressed that there was an actual moat), one of the famous bath houses and Liberty square:
We also went to a museum about the history of Hungary that focused mostly on the Nazi and communist occupations. The museum was called The House of Terror and was in one of the former Nazi headquarters. It was pretty terrifying because the occupations were relatively speaking not that long ago. The last Soviet troops left Hungary only in 1991. Needless to say,the Hungarians have had it rough.
That afternoon we went to experience on of the bath houses for ourselves. I had been looking forward to this part as a highlight of the trip, especially because we were tired from all of our sightseeing and ready to relax. We went to the Gellert bath house which is in a very famous and luxurious hostel in Buda. The bath houses have, well obviously, baths, or pools of different temperatures, saunas, steam rooms and you can also get a message. I must say I was a tiny bit disappointed with the bath area itself. We opted for the ladies-only area... and frankly I felt like I was in a YMCA locker room. Just a lot of old naked ladies. But it was nice just sitting and having a soak in the warm water.
Day 4: Our last full day we polished off our sightseeing with climbing a frosty mountain to see the Hungarian statue of liberty, we checked out the very impressive Parliament building and went to see the Synagogue which is the second largest in the world. (Trivia: Where is the largest? Nope, not Israel... New York City!)
That night we went out on the town and met some colorful locals. We danced to old American pop music (all cerca the late 1990s for some reason) and were cajoled by our new freinds to sing karaoke! One thing that I will not soon forget: Singing "Still haven't found what I'm looking for" (U2)gazing deeply into the eyes of Martin, our Hungarian friend we met that evening, and singing "....only to be VVISS yoooou....!"
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