Busting Out in Budapest
Trip Start
Jul 27, 2007
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23
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Trip End
Oct 22, 2007
We headed south from Poland and after a quick stop in Bratislava we got to Budapest around dinner time. After dinner at the hotel we headed for a walk into the centre of the city to the river. Budapest is made up of 2 cities - Buda and Pest and are separated by the river Danube. We were staying on the Pest side so we could see across the river to the castle district that was really well lit up at night as well as the various bridges across the river. After the walk into town we headed back to the hotel for a quiet evening with a few drinks in the bar in the lobby. I had swapped room mates for this stop of the journey with Kristian (one of the ring leaders of our big night in Krakow) sharing a room with me. The next day I joined up with a small group from the tour and we headed out to discover Budapest. Our first stop was the cathedral of Saint Stephen who was the one of the main saints of Hungary. The cathedral actually has his hand in a box at the back of the building but wasn't open when we were there. The cathedral itself was quite amazing and very similar to various churches and cathedrals through western Europe. From here we crosses the river on the chain bridge, which is one of the more famous bridges in Budapest and would have been one of the old if the Nazis hadn't blown it up. On the other side of the river we took the funicular up the hill to the castle district. The castle itself is a mix of a 17th century palace and medieval castle set to defend itself. The grounds are quite amazing and has probably the second best view in Budapest. We quietly strolled around the castle grounds before heading just up the road of it to the labyrinth. This labyrinth was rather different with some strange parts as well some downright weird sections as well. The room where the wine fountain is was the only room I couldn't enter as the smell of the wine made me sick, what did I expect seeing the wine had been recycling through the fountain for some unknown number of years. After this we headed down to the river front and pass the bridge we walked to the night before. Here I left the group and headed over the other side of the river towards the history museum. This museum had been recommended by our tour leader and I was quite keen to learn more about Hungary's history. I was quite annoyed after half an hour of walking to find the museum closed (it is common practice for museums outside of the summer holiday period to close on Mondays throughout Europe). I decided to walk back to the other side of the river and try and find the group I had left. I climbed the hill where the liberty monument sat and found the best view of the city. The monument itself was quite impressive and had originally been a monument dedicated to the liberation of Hungary by the Soviets over the Nazis (we all know how that turned out). After leaving the monument I made my way back down into the city and back to the hotel so I could do some washing and write out a few postcards. I also had a few beers to finish off from the carton I had brought in Prague. After completing these jobs I got ready and headed back out to meet up with our tour manager Justin as he had recommended a place for dinner. I hadn't had lunch through the day and I was lucky as the meals at the place were enormous. I had a bowl of chicken soup to start with and instead of coming in a bowl it came in a hollowed out bread roll which amazingly was still quite solid. For my main meal I had leg of pork which was this bone with a huge amount of tender, juicy meat hanging off it. Once this was all finished there really wasn't any room for dessert so we headed back towards the hotel and stopped off at a small pub for a few drinks. We had several members of the tour group finishing in Budapest so it was time to have farewell drinks with them. One couple, Brook and Sarah were leaving for Russia the next morning so they were getting picked up at 4.30am so after the pub shut we headed back to the hotel were the lobby bar was open 24 hours so several people decided to stay and drink through the night with them. I ended going to bed around 2.30am with Kristian seeing them off and then crashing at 5am. He also was leaving the group the next day so he could afford a sleep in. The next morning we said goodbye to the rest of the group and got back on the road heading for our final destination, Vienna.
