21st January - Budapest
Trip Start
Dec 26, 2008
1
26
28
Trip End
Jan 26, 2009
Budapest,
Hungary
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Darren played it safe and stuck with the Hungarian omelette and Penny being more adventurous had the quiche, both of which were very good. Needless to say the 10% rule was adhered to.
After heading back to the room for toothbrushing and fetching raincoats (which would be needed for the rest of the day) we went to the supermarket for some fruit and chocolates.
We caught the metro at Deak ferenc ter and headed to Batthyany ter so we could catch a train to Aquincum, the Roman ruins out in the suburbs of Budapest. We checked which station we should get off at and found a conflict between Lonely Planet and the Hungarian tourist map, but since there was a station called Aquincum we felt that that had to be the place.
Alighting at that station we walked through the drizzle to the ruins of a forum close to the station which was more like a rubbish dump, and had a temporary camp located on one side of it full of even more trash. Very disappointing start.
We then crossed over the road and made our way to the museum and found that the ruins were not accessible from November to April. We could see them easily through the fence and saw they were reasonably sizable, almost as large as Herculaneum in Naples.
The museum was open so we entered and we immediately surrounded by a sea of school children who, thankfully, were leaving. The museum had quite a collection of both Celtic and Roman pieces and some very interesting and well laid out displays. However one of the rooms was closed off, which appeared to have the larger statues and mosaics on display. One unique exhibit was a Roman organ, very few traces of which have been found anywhere else.
We caught the train back to the metro stop and headed for the surface, where we walked along the river (in the rain) and caught the funicular to the top of Castle Hill. From there we headed into the Royal Palace to visit the Hungarian National Gallery, again passing the funny man at the funicular who again wanted to know where we were from. Penny has now identified him as the "shouty man" who has been discussed at length on the TripAdvisor Budapest forum. Apparently he is difficult to get rid of once he has attached himself to you, but he doesn't seem to go for Australians. In the National Gallery one wing was closed and we were therefore offered tickets for half price. The very nice girl at reception gave us a very helpful and detailed description of where we should/could go and how to get there. As it turned out, the accessible two wings were plenty for us Philistines, who didn't really appreciate much of the art on display. A collection of late 19th century Hungarian art was nice, and some contemporary stuff was interesting, but there was a lot of what Darren termed "filler" in between - ie, art that didn't particularly appeal to us who don't know much about it. Most entertaining were the attendants - more numerous than the patrons - especially the woman who wouldn't let us skip a room and looked very disapproving when we went through it too fast, and the man who didn't think we could really be trusted to be there at all and stalked us through the rooms that were his responsibility.
We then walked back down the hill, across the Chain Bridge and to Gerbeau, our new favourite place, where we had cool three-layered lattes and cakes - Gerbeaud torte for Darren and cappuccino cake for Penny. We tipped far more generously than intended by failing to notice that a service charge had already been added. Should have noticed that there wasn't a highlighted, circled and underlined statement at the bottom of the bill that service was extra. Tipping is such a pain for Australians - well, for us, anyway. Come to think of it, maybe that's why the "shouty man" isn't keen to impose his unofficial guided tours on us.
We were now thoroughly wet and decided that was a good enough reason to head back to our lovely hotel room, where we hung out until it was time for the next meal.
We caught the metro to Oktogon station to Liszt ferenc ter, where we went to Menza, recommended by both Lonely Planet and TripAdvisor. There were real actual Hungarian people there! Darren had pork fillet with potato pancake and beer, and Penny had catfish stew with cottage cheese pasta and wine. Both meals were very nice although Penny thinks catfish takes a little getting used to. Then we had chocolate dessert (sort of like a fondant thing) (Darren) and sour cherry and poppyseed strudel (Penny).
Although it was still early, we abandoned our plans to walk along the river again due to the rain and retired to the hotel. No photos today - too rainy! Although it has been much warmer here, the rain is pretty annoying, and there's more forecast for tomorrow. We're glad we did some major outdoor things while we could.
