Budapest

Last weekend, Laura and I took a half-day of vacation off from work and 
headed to Heathrow for a three day trip to Budapest Hungary.  Once again, it 
was a jaunt into a country we knew very little about.  I once sat in a
sauna at the gym in Waterloo with a naked Hungarian man, but thats the
extent of my first hand Hungarian knowledge.  Oddly enough, it was a
fitting introduction to Budapest, but I'll talk about that a little
later on.

We flew British Airways from Terminal 1 and landed at about 6:00pm in
Budapest.  We read up a fair bit about the city, so we knew where we
were going and how to pay for public transport etc.  We were proud of
ourselves for being so self sufficient and not having to depend on the
kindness of strangers, but some nice Hungarian man ruined the whole
thing by giving us a book of bus/metro tickets!  He heard that we were
trying to by tickets, and he handed the book to me and said "Welcome
to Hungary".  So it turns out that we didn't need to buy any tickets
until Sunday.  We thanked him profusely but he told us dismissively
"Not to worry, I'm the richest man in the world!"

Our hotel was in our guide book as being a historic building of some
kind.  It turned out to be a Radisson and was pretty posh.  Our room
had a view over the roof tops in the west part of Buda.

Buda is the half of the city south of the Danube river.  Pest is north
of the river.

After we checked in, we went in search of a restaurant that had
English on the menu and might have something without red meat in it
for Laura.  This wasn't an easy thing, so we decided on Sushi.  I have
to say, that it was the best sushi place I've ever been to.  It had
two revolving conveyor-belts.  One refrigerated, and one heated, so
the food stayed cool or hot depending on their contents.
After a few plates, I thought "wow, these are layed out so nicely, I
need to take pictures of our plates".  So I did.  Every one of them! 
You can see them in the pictures section for Budapest.


The weekend was cold and bleak.  And the nouveau-capitalist,
post-communist trains and buildings added to the starkness of things.

Budapest was once known as the Paris of central Europe, but then the
nazis and the communists got their hands on it and cafe-culture
retreated until more recently when things have gotten more touristy. 
The city itself is not quite as "open for business" as Prauge in the
Czech Republic, but for good or for bad, it's certainly getting that
way.

We walked along the Danube.  That is one mighty river!


We saw their Parliament buildings.  This is the largest Parliament in
all of Europe.  It has something like 650 rooms and looks more like a
palace than Parliament buildings.


Until I read Katherine and G's blog of their adventures in south
America, I didn't know the meaning of the word 'funicular'.  So as
soon as we saw one that would bring us up to the palace turned museum
on the Pest side of the river, we payed the extortion-like prices and
rode it up to the top of the hill.


This is the city of ancient bridges.

Budapest had the longest suspension bridge in the world at the
beginning of the 20th century before Hitler and his groupies tried to
slow the advance of the Russians by rather rudely blowing it up.  The 
Hungarians finally rebuilt it in the 60s.

The winter Olympics were going on while we were there, so after a day
of trekking about in the snow and wet cold we went to the local shop
and bought some chocolate bread and beer to watch Euro-Sport and their
surprisingly good coverage of Olympic Hockey.


Food was cheap, and beer was even cheaper.  This seems to be the case
in most central-eastern European countries, but many of the nice
restaurants were nearly as expensive as London.  But if you shopped
around a bit, there were some serious deals to be had.

Because of my previous conversations with the Naked Hungarian Man in
the Sauna (from here on, known as NHMITS) I had heard about the
copious number of spas in and about Hungary.  NHMITS told me that the
locals would go to the spas at least once a week.  I asked him what
this was all about, was it after a workout, or was it just to soak and
relax.  NHMITS seemed to indicate that it was just about the soaking. 
He said that if you want to learn how to have a "proper sauna" go to a
Hungarian spa.

So remembering NHMITS's advice, we went to world famous Gelert Spa.

We both bought tickets for the communal hot tubs, thermal baths and a
massage.  I went into the male-only section and saw many many NHMITS. 
The men who were doing the massages were also NHMITS, which I thought
was a little weird.  I like to think I'm comfortable in nearly all
situations, but the NHM culture wasn't for me.  So I went back into
the co-ed section (with my bathing suit) and soaked in the hot tub
while Laura had her massage by a rather more reserved group of massage
therapists.

Afterwards, thoroughly relaxed and wrinkled, we went out for a coffee
at a little cafe.


Then a quick tour of several more grand buildings, presumably built in
a period of Hungarian megalomania. Beautiful and excessive.


Then we visited another spa.  This time we didn't go right in, we just
checked out the lobby area.  Amazing amount of intricacy in the
architecture and sculptures.

Yes, thats a spa!

Then it was about time to head back to the airport for our Sunday
evening flight back to London.
Here are all the pictures

This coming weekend (second weekend of March) Laura and I are flying
to Copenhagen Denmark to meet up with Laura's Dad.  He's there on
business, so we thought we should pop over and keep him company (in
his work-paid-for hotel room).  Then the weekend after that, St.
Patrick's Day, we're off to Dublin Ireland!  That should be a lot of
fun.

Then, just to keep up the unsustainable, irrationally paced traveling,
the weekend after that we're off for three full days in Malta!  That
should be a nice sun-filled opportunity to relax a bit!

So that will be three trips in a month.  More than our average
certainly, but schedules and cheap deals being what they are, we have
to jump on whatever opportunity we can get!