Budapest, Hungary Part 1: Overview
A few weeks ago I traveled to Budapest with YAGs friends Darryl, Nathan, and Katie & Troy (just back from their honeymoon). We had a great trip and saw quite a bit, despite the occasional airport strike. Even though I was a bit outmatched in terms of camera equipment and skill, I took plenty of photos so I’ll share them over the course of a few posts.
Arrival
We arrived on a Friday night and were quite perplexed when our driver from the airport kept asking if our hotel was “sheep” (cheap?) and “baught” (bought?). We kept inisisting that, yes, we had booked a room, and yes, it was quite reasonable. Finally, he got through to us... Was our hotel a ship? Was it a boat? Now, it wasn’t that his accent was that thick or terrible that these words didn’t make any sense—we just had absolutely no context for what he was asking. As far as we knew, we were staying in a cheap little hotel in a decent location recommended by Hostel World. Turns out, unbeknownst to us, that we had booked a “boatel.” That is, a hotel on a boat.
Certainly unexpected, but not too shabby, and how many people can say they stayed on the Danube?
Our first night, upon arrival, we went out in search of food. It was sort of late (9-ish) and rainy, so we didn’t wander too far and we happened upon this:
I was a little skeptical; after all, the chef seemed to imply Italy, the name seemed to imply Asian Fusion, and the menu appeared to be fairly traditional Hungarian. Turns out, the food was fantastic — and cheap! (And the name was pretty accurate too: lots of pepper and paprika in Hungarian dishes.)
Photo-A-Go-Go
Darryl (below right) and Nathan (below left) are both quite good with photography, and while I dabble, I don’t have any fancy lenses and didn’t even have an SLR on this trip. Therefore, I left it to the pros.
One of Nathan’s shots of us all standing around and looking the tourist part quite well:
One of the prettiest floral pictures I’ve ever taken:
Some Sites to See
On Saturday, we wandered around for most of the morning and then Nathan, Darryl and I took a 4-hour walking tour (see our guide, Blanca, below). It was very informative and allowed us to pack most of the touristy stuff into one afternoon. I’m going to post all the statue photos at the same time, so look for those at a later date.
The Parliament building—Europe’s second largest after England
St Stephen’s Cathedral
The pediment (thanks Paige) above
The Opera House
Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest in Europe and second-largest in the world
one of the fences on the grounds
the strikingly beautiful Holocaust Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs
Buda Castle
a view of the chain bridge over the Danube
exterior of a large marketplace with really funky architecture
a musical fountain on beautiful Margaret Island, right behind our boatel
That’s all for now. More soon.
Arrival
We arrived on a Friday night and were quite perplexed when our driver from the airport kept asking if our hotel was “sheep” (cheap?) and “baught” (bought?). We kept inisisting that, yes, we had booked a room, and yes, it was quite reasonable. Finally, he got through to us... Was our hotel a ship? Was it a boat? Now, it wasn’t that his accent was that thick or terrible that these words didn’t make any sense—we just had absolutely no context for what he was asking. As far as we knew, we were staying in a cheap little hotel in a decent location recommended by Hostel World. Turns out, unbeknownst to us, that we had booked a “boatel.” That is, a hotel on a boat.
Certainly unexpected, but not too shabby, and how many people can say they stayed on the Danube?
Our first night, upon arrival, we went out in search of food. It was sort of late (9-ish) and rainy, so we didn’t wander too far and we happened upon this:
I was a little skeptical; after all, the chef seemed to imply Italy, the name seemed to imply Asian Fusion, and the menu appeared to be fairly traditional Hungarian. Turns out, the food was fantastic — and cheap! (And the name was pretty accurate too: lots of pepper and paprika in Hungarian dishes.)
Photo-A-Go-Go
Darryl (below right) and Nathan (below left) are both quite good with photography, and while I dabble, I don’t have any fancy lenses and didn’t even have an SLR on this trip. Therefore, I left it to the pros.
One of Nathan’s shots of us all standing around and looking the tourist part quite well:
One of the prettiest floral pictures I’ve ever taken:
Some Sites to See
On Saturday, we wandered around for most of the morning and then Nathan, Darryl and I took a 4-hour walking tour (see our guide, Blanca, below). It was very informative and allowed us to pack most of the touristy stuff into one afternoon. I’m going to post all the statue photos at the same time, so look for those at a later date.
The Parliament building—Europe’s second largest after England
St Stephen’s Cathedral
The pediment (thanks Paige) above
The Opera House
Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest in Europe and second-largest in the world
one of the fences on the grounds
the strikingly beautiful Holocaust Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs
Buda Castle
a view of the chain bridge over the Danube
exterior of a large marketplace with really funky architecture
a musical fountain on beautiful Margaret Island, right behind our boatel
That’s all for now. More soon.
posted by Aaron at 2:19 PM
1 Comments:
That musical fountain was, I think, my favorite place in Budapest! Yay!
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