After a lovely stay in Prague, it was time to head down to Budapest to pick up our river cruise. This was a horrendously long (7-8 hour) trip by bus, broken only by a rest stop at a way overcrowded roadside restaurant. We pulled into the city in the late afternoon, checked in on the boat, and just chilled for the evening, gazing out over the beautifully lighted buildings and bridges along the Danube.
One of the first things we learned was that Budapest is actually made up of two former cities – Buda on the west bank of the Danube and Pest on the east side. They are easy to tell apart – Buda is very hilly and is considered the “desirable area” to live in (still a steal – a 2BR, 2BA condo is around $160K – buy now!), while Pest is very flat and is where most of the shopping and walking platzes are located. BTW, this consolidation only occurred in 1873, when Budapest became the capital of Hungary. Most of the beautiful architecture can be traced to the Hapsburgs and the rise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Unfortunately, Hungary seemed to be very poor at picking winners and ended up on the wrong side of about every war they fought in. As a consequence, Hungary went from being a very large and wealthy country to a shadow of its former self both in terms of size and impact. While the economy has been improving, it is still not robust enough to be allowed to adopt the Euro as their currency (it is still the Forint).
We really didn’t have enough time to see the city and we will probably come back. In the morning we up on top of Buda’s Castle Hill to wander around and take in the views from the Fishermen’s Bastion, as well as visiting St. Matthias Church. There have been churches on this site from the mid 11th century, with much of the current structure being started in the 14th century with many, many modifications made (especially during the 19th century when it changed from Our Lady’s (or Mary’s Church) to Matthias, after the king. This is known as the coronation church for the many royal marriages and coronations there. We then crossed over to the Pest side and rode down the Andrássy út, a 2 mile, tree-lined, grand boulevard that contains the high end shopping district of today (reminded us a bit of Paris or Madrid). At the end of the boulevard is Heroes’ Square, which contains the Millenary Monument and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Beyond that was the beautiful City Park, with lots of artificial lakes, wooded areas, and the zoo.
The best part of the day was when we walked to the Great Market Hall, a big indoor venue that hosts a wide variety of eating stalls as well as merchandise of all kinds (the big thing to buy here is paprika). The biggest surprise was the Russian caviar that sold for practically nothing. I could tell you that I was a good citizen and rejected the caviar, but when a large jar of Beluga caviar is going for $30, you dig right in and, oh baby, was it ever good! Anyway, it was another hot, but enjoyable walk and later that evening, we started of on our cruise. Next stop – Bratislava!
This entry was posted in Cruising, Hungary, Travel