On my last flight to Canada I sat next to two Canadians who raved about Budapest. They said it was beautiful, cheap, full of beer and baths (or more appropriately, thermal spas.) With that in mind, Alanna and I ventured east last weekend.
We hopped on a Ryanair flight and sat beside an unsuspecting guy from Oakville. Alanna broke the ice with, "Congratulations! We're not fat OR smelly!" Lucky guy.
The city was beautiful, and because 80 per cent of it was destroyed in WWII, you could even say it's fairly new architecturally. We stayed off of Andrassy Ut, the Champs Elysees of Budapest, midway between downtown and Heroes' Square. I will leave it for you to Google what Heroes' Square signifies, because here lies the biggest shortcoming of this gem of a city, it is terribly marketed. They don't sign things appropriately and they don't shout enough about their accomplishments and buildings. For example, does this mean anything to you?
There is a significant language barrier, however. On our Jewish history tour two people asked fairly innocuous questions and the tour guide said, "Wrong question!!" TWICE! (Sidenote - don't mention communism to a Hungarian, and don't ask them their religion. Apparently that's totally faux-pas, as so many people have been persecuted for it.)
I'm going to excuse a lot of the rudeness we experienced to there being a significant language barrier. The Hungarian alphabet has 44 characters, and it's meant to be an incredibly difficult language to learn. Aside from the language, the people have experience and a harrowing history. Some 68,000 Jewish people in WW11 were killed there. After the war, a communist regime created extreme ramifications for anyone who didn't tattle on objectors.
It's all very fascinating stuff - but the museum that was meant to teach us all this (aptly named, The Museum of Terror), guided you around with printed info sheets that were at least a page long single spaced, and about 20 of them! It played loud rock museum and juxtaposed this with out-of-context pictures. The only experience was disorienting and frustrating. I left the city feeling I knew even less than before.
Here's some pictures about what we did:
We went to see the president's guards.
We checked out souvenirs (above), and the marzipan museum below.
We had a memorably good meal on the river on a boat. That's feta-stuff duck below.
We went to the famous Szechenyi Bath, with 15 thermals pools including the 38-degree one in the photo below. It was a bit weird, as it was chock-full of older men and smelled like sulfar. Apparently if someone goes to the doctor with arthritis, the doctor will actually prescribe them to go to the baths for healing. The waters are full of minerals and are meant to be really good for you.
Here is some "typical" food - or so I'm told. Paprika-filled and sour cream-topped.
There are a number of bars made out of abandoned buildings, called "ruin bars." We went on a pub crawl to check these out.
We saw some of the Holocaust memorials, including this one on the walk to the parliament building.
The parliament building was modelled after Westminster Abbey. We were put off by the customer service there so we took this photo. teehee!
At some point we got lost looking for a restaurant. This is us lost somewhere after seeing a man wretch on the curb. Lovely.
This is the gorgeous monument memorialising the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
And here is the shot of Budapest: Pali, described by someone as "throat rape." YUCK. I did not try it!
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