Once in Budapest we cabbed it into the city to "Hotel Carlton", which turned out to be a nice place to stay (as usual Amy made a good choice). Great location, not too expensive, tasty breakfast. The hotel is on the Buda side of the city, just up from the so-called "Chain" bridge:
We arrived in the mid afternoon, and spent our first few hours just walking around to see the city a bit. Walking across the bridge from Buda to Pest gives you a good initial view of the two sides of the city, and of the riverside scene. The Danube is no wimpy river-- very sizable and muddy-looking with a ferocious current. We wandered along through some of the pedestrian areas of Pest, eventually winding up at the Central Market (which turned out to be closed-- they shut things down early on Saturday afternoons). We walked about half way back, then had basic dinner at a place along the Belgrad Rakpart, the walkway on the Pest side of the river, then tromped the rest of the way back to the hotel to collapse.
Sunday was overcast and a little cool to start out with, so we packed our rain jackets in preparation for our Parliament tour. The tour outfit picked us up from our hotel around 9, then brought us over to another hotel to collect the rest of the gang. It was a fairly small group, maybe 15-16 people total, about a third German-speaking and the rest English speaking. The Parliament building itself was pretty interesting, but the guide was unfortunately not all that great-- he just sort of told us the minimum. He also had to alternate between German and English; that was a little weird, since I could swear that he was covering more material in his German explanations (maybe I was just imagining things). Here is the view of the building from Buda:
Here is a shot of the front:
The building itself is enormous; it is apparently so big now that the actual legislature only occupies about a third of it-- the rest just sits idle (or is used for entertaining foreign tourists, heh). The exterior has a few minor sculptures and crests of one sort or another, but nothing too elaborate. The inside is considerably more lavish: everything seems to be covered with gold leaf, marble pillars, complex statuary of various sorts.
Buildings in Budapest seem in general to be very big on statues-- you see small statues or carvings on all sorts of buildings that don't seem as though they should "rate" that sort of attention. Here are some of the statues inside the Parliament building:
Other interesting tidbits: cigar holders bolted onto the windowsill, so that the MPs can ditch their cigars in case they need to rush in for a vote (apparently the "smoke filled room" is alive and well here). The Hungarian crown jewels:
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The crown jewels apparently have a very interesting and turbulent history, having been stolen during WW-2, then discovered and spirited away by allied troops to Fort Knox of all places (they were returned in 1978). The crown is supposedly very important-- power resides with the crown, so if you want to be king, you absolutely have to have it one your head at some point.
A stained glass window from one of the rooms:
After the tour we headed off to explore Margit Island, which is located smack in the middle of the Danube, with its southernmost part touching one of the bridges between Buda and Pest. We rented a "quad" bike and poked around for a bit to see what we could find. The bike was incredibly heavy and not very fast, but the kids had a ball with it, particularly Ethan, who enjoyed being in the drivers seat for a change (parents were relegated to the back seat; our job was to provide engine power and yelp occasionally when we came too close to running over a pedestrian).
The island has nice jogging paths, a ruined church in the middle, a Japanese garden, and a rose garden. Lots of very determined runners & bikers working out (seems to be a magnet for the sporty types). We had lunch at one of the restaurants there; Amy and Lydia had pasta/gnocchi while Ethan and I tried the salads. Afterwards we made various attempts to try to figure out which bus/tram to take back to the hotel, but we were stymied (later on we figured out that we were looking at the wrong bus stop), so we walked the rest of the way back to the hotel. After a restorative rest, we collected our gear and hopped on the bus Number 86 (which runs north/south on the Buda side of the river) down to the Gellert Hotel baths for a swim. Here is the entrance to the baths:
The baths in Hungary are definitely not to be missed, but getting in and out of them is unquestionably a weird and confusing experience. At the registration desk there is always a huge "menu" of options to choose from, including various types of thermal bath, massage options, cryptic descriptions of how much you have to pay depending on how long you stay. Basically you just ignore all the details and tell the cashier that you want to swim and that you have X number of people, and they give you the "default" option. Then there is an elaborate check-in procedure which involves handing over a small magnetic or bar-coded card to an attendant (this is to record how long you stay), followed by a lengthy hunt for the locker room. Maps are nowhere to be found-- you just have to sort of muddle your way around until you find where you are supposed to be. In the Gellert baths, this requires following a twisting subterranean passageway that goes down underneath one of the indoor pools, then spirals back up toward the other side of the building. Once you reach the changing room, your first task is to find an attendant (you can't do anything without an attendant!). The attendant picks a locker for you, at which point you change and stash your gear in the locker. After changing, you find an attendant, who gives you a small metal tag on a string with a number stamped on it. The attendant writes the number on a small chalkboard inside the locker(s), then locks the lockers with his/her key. The attendant then points to the number on the outside of your locker and commands "Remember!". Fairly simple system, but very "people-intensive".
I didn't bring my camera inside, so I don't have any pictures, oh well. The Gellert bath has indoor pools, including a large one that is clearly supposed to be modeled after a Roman bath (very elegant, with all the requisite stone columns and statues of fish, etc). There is also an outdoor pool section, which is also quite nice, although decorated in a more modern style. The big attraction for the kids was the wave pool, which was quite fun. Apparently this particular pool was one of the first (if not the first) wave pool ever created, and it is still very popular. The life guards at the wave pool seemed to want to take a lot of breaks, however, which meant that they would shut down the waves while they smoked their cigarettes or had their coffees. When this happened we would walk up a set of stairs to an outdoor thermal bath (very warm water, maybe 30-32 degrees centigrade) to fool around until the waves game back on.
All in all, a very pleasant swimming experience once you get past the various check-in and check-out rituals. Not cheap-- maybe 11 or 12 bucks a person when you get out the door, but still a fun and interesting time. We took the bus back up to the hotel, then had dinner at a nearby fish restaurant. Decent food; nothing to write home about. Amy and I had "Tisza" style Hungarian fish soup, which was served with a dish of hot/salty Paprika paste (I had never had this particular condiment before). Afterward we grabbed a very quick dessert for the kids at a nearby cafe and then took off for a walk uphill. A short climb brought us right to the main church on the castle hill ("Mattias Templom") along with the so-called "Fisherman's Bastion", one of the few building that I remember well from my last trip to Budapest years ago.
On Monday it was sunny and warm, so after a large breakfast at the hotel, we took off to do some more exploring and walking on the Buda side of the city. We tried to take the funicular up to the top of the hill, but it was (unfortunately) closed for some reason, so we had to hike up instead. At the top, we circled around the National Gallery, then made a big loop (bigger than we had hoped, in fact), then back over to the main part of the hill-- at this point we were pretty hot and sweaty, even though it was still relatively early in the morning. We decided to try the "Buda Castle Labyrinth", described in our guide book as a good activity for kids. The entrance was a little door off a side street; we hiked down a couple of flights of stairs and bought ourselves some tickets.
The Labyrinth turns out to be a sort of vaguely circular underground walk through assorted passageways, with tunnels fixed up to try to make them a little more "interesting" for the tourists. It had to be one of the cheesiest tours I have ever been on: there were extremely fake "Lascaux"-style cave paintings, outrageously artificial "fossils", just about everything except a fake plastic minotaur in the corner. In spite of the kitsch, Lydia enjoyed it a great deal, since she got to lead the way and poke into all the corners, etc. Also, it was deliciously cool, which was a relief after our hot outdoor hike.
We spent a little while at the nearby grocery store, then decided to head out for another bath expedition, this one to the Szechenyi Bath in Varisliget park. We had initially looked at taking the subway, but the guy at the hotel desk told us to try to bus instead, so we took the #105 bus, which took us there with no trouble. We were actually accosted on the bus by the ticket inspector (we had our 3-days passes handy, so we were able to pass muster)-- that is the first time that's ever happened to me. The inspector was a fairly ordinary-looking young man who clambered onto the bus about midway and then pulled out a sort of patch or badge and started asking people for tickets (this prompted several people to grab tickets and put them into the validation machine; several other people immediately got off at the next stop :-). Once we arrived at the park, lots of tromping around trying to find a place to eat; we finally resorted to eating at the cafe that was there at the bath, although it took us a while to find it. The Szechenyi baths have a huge baroque-looking facade, and the interior entry way is quite elaborate as well.
As with the previous bath, lots of confusion of which line to stand in, where to go to find things, but we did eventually get things sorted out. The actual swimming was maybe a little less interesting than the Gellert baths; no wave pool, but they did have a section where there was a sort of circular track with jets forcing the water around in a loop, so you could push your way into the current and then get circled around for a while, which was fun (the kids especially liked this). We swam for an hour and a half or so, and eventually dragged Lydia out (she would have happily splashed around all day). From there we decided to walk across the park to the Transportation Museum. Alas, the park is quite a bit bigger than it looks on the map, so it took us a while to get there, and (alas again) the museum was closed when we arrived. Phooey. We had some grumbling from a certain tired member of the family on the way back, but we did eventually make it to the subway, then the bus, and finally back to the hotel. To distract ourselves, we spent quite a while trying to imagine what it would feel like to dive into an enormous bowl of chocolate ice cream :-). Dinner at the restaurant just down the hill from the hotel, which had a Belgian theme (mainly a huge list of Belgian beers, from what I can tell).
On Tuesday after breakfast we zoomed off on the bus to Saint Stephen's church downtown, an enormous and very impressive building, inside and out.
Another incredibly lavish interior; Hungarians seemed to really go for the gold leaf thing back when they were building these edifices. The kids had fun making up a game that involved jumping around from one "circle" to another on the mosaic in the pavement outside the church (memo to Mom & Dad-- running and jumping around outside is way more fun than looking at boring churches):
From there we walked to the Ethnographic Museum, which I thought was really very interesting. The permanent exhibition features clothing, tools, costumes, books, furnishings, and just about anything else you could imagine being used in everyday life by regular Hungarians During the lives in the 18th and 19th centuries. Very interesting stuff-- I thought it was one of the highlights of the trip. I found the sections on farming and on the various trades (leatherworking, weaving, pottery) the most interesting. No photos; sorry. From there we took the tram down the river to the Central Market to have some lunch and do some shopping.
The market is a nice one-- a bit less dark & cavelike than the Bocqueria in Barcelona (also not quite so crowded, phew), but with lots of nice-looking fresh produce, meat, fish, bread, etc. The ground floor is entirely devoted to food & wine, then there is a ring-shaped upstairs area that has shops selling souveniers and clothing, along with food stalls on one side where you can get a quick meal. The kids had crepes; Amy and I had stuffed peppers and a vegetable/rice dish. Not bad (also fairly cheap). Trammed it back to the hotel and had a long "quiet time" to recuperate. We then got our gear together and took the bus back to Margit island to visit yet another pool, this one the 'Palatine'.
Huge place with just outdoor pools-- we had looked forward to riding the water slides, but as luck would have it both the wave pool and the water slides were shut down. Even so, we had a nice time-- the kids had a great time riding the "current loop" (similar to Szechenyi) and fooling around in section of the pool where they had huge clouds of bubbles coming up from the bottom. Took the bus back to our hotel, then walked up the hill for dinner in Buda. We tried "Rivalda" (recommended by the guide book, but it looked just a little too fancy [not enough for Lydia to eat], so we wound up at another place a bit to the north. The meal was ok, but the dessert that the kids ordered was amazing-- some sort of sponge cake slathered with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, and nuts (it disappeared in record time).
On Wednesday we thought about trying to take a river cruise, but eventually we opted for just a hiking expedition instead, over to the "Citadella" area (up on the hills to the south). We had a nice time-- more excellent views of the city and nice fresh air. After that: off to the airport to catch our flight home.
More random thoughts on the trip:
Food: the meals in Budapest seem to have a sort of Germanic flavor-- people seem to drink beer as opposed to wine, and the fare is usually meat & potato type stuff for the most part (plus the goulash soup, which is delicious, along with various other odds and ends). The fish is almost all fresh water-- trout, perch, carp, pike, catfish. When you order an entree, it nearly always seems to come by itself-- you have to ask for vegetables or rice or noodles on the side. The prices were tolerable-- not hugely expensive, but not super-cheap either. On the other hand, paying the bill always resulted in head scratching, since the receipt was in Hungarian (or worse, abbreviated Hungarian), and there would invariably be some sort of unknown blurb for 800 forints that we couldn't account for.
Getting around: the public transportation in Budapest was really a joy to use. We tried the trams, the subway, and especially the buses, and it was all very efficient and for the most part easy to use. No "gotchas" or disasters; we never had to wait for more than 5 or 10 minutes for the next train/bus/tram to turn up. Compared to the London tube experience, Budapest public transport was a dream-- no mile-long escalator rides to reach the platform, no surprise discoveries of shutdowns, and the rides were much less crowded. I am glad that things worked out this way, since virtually all of the stories you hear about the cabs are bad (one of the guys behind the desk at the hotel went so far as to say "The cab drivers here are all gangsters!").
It was nice to get back to Cambridge after all the travels-- feels good to sleep in your own bed again for a change.
