Budapest

Budapest is actually two cities. Buda and Pest. The Danube runs between them. Buda is to the west on the hill and Pest is on the flat land east of the river. I was staying in Pest and started my explorations by taking the metro to Deak Ferenc Ter

This is a building you first see when you come up from the Metro in Deak Ferenc ter. (I believe ter means square or plaza.) I have no idea if it has a name, just thought it was worth a photo.

Just a block down the street is St. Elizabeths. It has been built up around it, making it difficult to get a better shot.

From here you take a bus across the Elizabeth bridge.

From up on the hill you can get a better photo of the bridge and church. As you can tell by the cruise ships, this is a pretty popular stop.

Once you are on the Buda side you can take the castle bus to see the sights. The “bus” it is like a golf cart on steroids. It has about 8 bench seats that can hold 3 people each. It doesn’t have a great deal of speed going up but our driver was doing his Indy 500 impression coming down. With all the hairpin turns you really get to know the person sitting next to you.

The castle complex is fairly large and now houses the Prime Minister’s office as well as the National Gallery, National History Museum, National Archives, City Hall and St. Matthias church.

This is the former Royal Palace, now the home of the National Gallery. They have a good collection of art from the 1800’s forward, Monet, Gauguin and Toulouse Lautrec as well as others, well worth visit.

These guys were hanging out in front of the Museum. Officially Palace Guards but a great photo opp for tourists.

St. Matthias church is beautiful, another building with incredible tile roof.

It was too big to get all in one photo!

At the far end of the complex is the Buda Tower. It dates back to the 1200’s and is the only original building that survived intact throughout time. The church that was attached to it, is long gone, with only the foundation remaining. At one time the church had a wooden wall down the middle so that it could be shared, Protestant on one side, Catholics on the other. The tower made it through both world wars and then was forgotten during the Communist reign. It was brought back to life just in the last 5 years. It has a staircase up the middle and gives great views of the surrounding buildings as well as the city.

This is the view of Hungarian National Archives from the top of the Buda Tower. Just another gorgeous building.

One of the reasons I wanted to go to Budapest was to see their thermal baths. There are 3 main baths, they are all beautiful and very well known. I decided to visit the Gellert baths as they were smaller and would be less crowded.

This is the lobby as you enter the spa.

This is the indoor pool.

This is the outdoor complex. The main pool also now has a wave action. They run the waves every hour for about 15 minutes. I was surprised to see how excited everyone got about it. Then I realized that a beach with surf action isn’t that common in this area of the world.

The hot pool is on the left. I got here about 9:30 in the morning so it was just me and a couple dozen seniors in the whole place. After all the walking I’ve been doing a soak in the hot pool was just what I needed. Later in the day as the sun got hotter the cooler wave pool was a big draw. Starting about noon I kept saying, just another 30 minutes. I left about 2:30. Good thing about coming early is you got your pick of chairs and umbrellas, no sunburn for this kid!

I was a little worried before I got to Budapest as I had started reading the reviews of my hotel. Most were pretty good but one guy just hated it, said the AC didn’t work, there were bugs and it wasn’t clean. Once I got there I realized you can’t believe everything you hear. No bugs, AC was fine and my room was spotless. The building was a former apartment building, definitely Soviet era. Concrete square, with central courtyard. They had modernized it by putting elevators in the courtyard, thankfully. Breakfast was served on the top floor with a great terrace.

This was my view in the morning.

There was a great farmers market here one morning. Another morning I heard folk music and went exploring. It was a group of seniors, mostly women, that were learning dance steps on the basketball court. Sat with a couple of older women on the sidelines and watched. We smiled at each other and enjoyed the show.

For all the different neighborhoods I have stayed in, I have never once felt that I wasn’t welcomed. Most of them I have felt like everyone’s odd cousin from American. Oh yeah, that’s Marianne, she doesn’t speak the language but she’s ok. Not sure I would get this feeling everywhere in the States.