Budapest - city of baths

April 2016 

After our massive Moroccan trip, we had another planned to Budapest with our friends Steve and Meg for Easter 2016.

After skiving off work early, we landed in Budapest on Thursday night. We picked up some pizza and wine from the airport supermarket (only about 4 quid for both) then taxied in to our Airbnb accommodation.

The apartment was spacious, modern, well-fitted out and only 80 quid for 4 nights. 80 quid in London would probably get you one bed in a dorm for a couple of nights. After dropping our bags we had our dinner and polished off the wine in the bath.

The next day we started exploring the city. We arranged to meet up with Steve and Meg. We strolled along the Danube and got our first proper views of the city. We wandered along, past the Parliament building, and the famous chain bridge. Not bad, I have to say, but nothing spectacular - that came later.

We met up with the Steve and Meg, and had breakfast before setting out again. We walked across the chain bridge to the Buda side of the river. The city was formally created in the late 19th century by the joining of the towns of Buda on the west and Pest on the east side of the river in to the city of Budapest. Buda is more hilly and compact than Pest which is generally flat and spacious. On the way up the hill we ran into a filming for the TV series "Emerald City".

The top of Buda hill is a quieter more compact part of the city, allowing some nice views over Pest.

View from the Fisherman's Bastion

Is it just me, or does the guy with the eagle look a little like Will Ferrell?

Budapest has some cool bars. We stopped at a Communist themed bar that looked trashy from the sign but was surprisingly cool inside. Next up was Szimpla Kert, the first and most famous ruin bar iin the city. Ruin bars are one of the things Budapest is known for - you take a cheap, run down building, fill it with an assortment of cool, weird things, a feel of disrepair and decay, add alcohol and music and you have a ruin bar. We later also tried another ruin bar, Fogashaz - while it was cool, it didn't quite have the same feel as Szimpla Kert. On the last day Steve and Meg left for London earlier than us, so we decided to fill in the rest of the afternoon by trying another ruin bar, but that had a weird gothic/alternative feel to it that was nowhere near as good as the other two.

We stopped at a bar across the road from our apartment to try some famous "Bull's Blood" - a strong red wine that Hungary is known for. Now, I like a nice heavy red, but this was something else. So strong and thick it was really hard to finish a single glass. Had to try it though.

St Istvan's Cathedral is just one of the magnificent buildings in the city.

We had hopes of getting in to do a tour of Parliament - another amazing building - but it was all sold out. Maybe a Parliament tour is the traditional thing to do on Easter Saturday in Budapest. So we walked along the river again, and saw the very sad monument "Shoes on the Danube" which commemorated the Jews shot on the river bank by the Arrow Cross militia during World War II.

A rare waterbus undisturbed in its native habitat.

That's gelato, by the way.

We wandered around the central city again, getting some food at one of the big, touristy markets - it was a bit more expensive, but there was a good range. Goulash, potato pancake, hot dogs, beer, and more.

Once, we thought we'd be adventurous and use the metro rather than walk half an hour. We bought our tickets from the machine and headed underground. As we merged on the other side, a plainclothes guy stopped us asking for our tickets. We noticed he was an official transport ticket inspector, and we found out we hadn't validated our tickets when we bought them - copping a whopping 15,000 HUF fine each, for a ticket worth about 150 HUF. Not impressed. Luckily everything else in Budapest was cheap - we bought a couple of bottles of wine, a six pack of cans of beers, chips for around 1700 HUF - maybe 6 quid.

We had booked tickets to a Sparty on the Saturday - a late night spa party (as the name might suggest) running from 10:30 to 3am. It was a short walk across the river, and we managed to get some amazing views of the city en route. As for the Sparty itself - it was an experience. We all felt like we were just a couple of years too old for the crowd, which was 80% opportunistic guys to 20% girls - by the end of the night there was a lot of groping going on.

We also thought we should try another bath or two while we in Budapest, apart from the Sparty. So the day after, we went to the Rudas baths, one of the oldest baths in the city, having originally been built in 1550 by the Turks when the controlled Budapest. These baths were far more peaceful and normal compared to the Sparty, and were all indoors inside an old Turkish building. I tried a steam room for the first time, which was set at 55 degrees plus and was so hot that the mineral-y steam burned my nostrils. I followed that up with a quick submerging in the 10 degree cold pool - it was a bit of a shock to the system, and I stopped after the third time when I started to feel a little strange. No photos allowed, so here's an image stolen from Google:

We took a wine tasting river cruise on our last night in Budapest. We got some spectacular views of the city -the Parliament buildings in particular were amazing to see on the river - while tasting some really good wines. I hadn't realised Hungary was famous for its wines, and I found I enjoyed the whites more than the reds.

Meg and Steve flew out early the next day so Rach and I had a bit of time wandering around Budapest by ourselves until our flight late that night.

Budapest does a good omelette and it made a good hearty fuel of a breakfast on a few mornings.

We tried another baths, the Szechenyi baths which were different again from the first two - mostly outdoors, and with about 30 different pools of different temperatures. We tried the (dry) sauna again, which was hotter at around 70 degrees but didn't burn like the steam room did. 

After a burger dinner and a stop at another ruin bar, we were off to the airport. Thanks Budapest, for a classy weekend!