A couple of weekends ago, I went to Budapest Hungary with Veronica, who I lived with when I lived in Denia in college. Here are some of the highlights of the trip.
10. Pink and purple airplanes.
Yes, yes, you read that right. WizzAir, a Hungarian line, boast these colors as their colors. Now, pink is my absolute favorite color (I really need to tone it down…) and I love me some purple (loved them together when I was like 8!) but as colors for an airline, I even sort of have to draw the line.
The pink and purple in all its glory.
But the flights were cheap, so I really can’t complain.
9. Our little apartment. (Complete with love swans!)
Somehow I always imagined my first love swan experience would be on my honeymoon… Or with a boo or something. But no. In Budapest. With Veronica. :)
The apartment had a little kitchen and a bathroom. There was a computer in the main, great room with wifi (which didn’t work for me though…). But otherwise it was perfect.
And we conquered Budapest with such poise and grace, like the international women that we are. ;) Everything was in Hungarian (which is so NOT a Romance language, not even CLOSE!).
By bus…
By metro…
By tram…
7. Meeting the locals.
So turns out that there are really limited hours for women at the Turkish baths in Budapest. Bummer. Women’s days are Tuesdays and Saturday and Sunday. On Friday, we thought we would end the day with a nice bath… Nope. Only one was open for women. And it was not a famous tourist one. Which meant lots of charades, sign language and lots and lots of giggles. The bath was great– the sauna and the sulfer-infused water. Delightful. We stayed until the baths closed, and as Veronica was grabbing something out of her bag, I snapped a self-portrait.
This couple (mother/son) came up and tsk-tsk’d me, saying that they would take my picture. The woman joined us for this little picture. She was adorable!!!
We ended up walking out of the baths together and as we walked to the tram to go back to our hotel, we talked. She spoke Hungarian to us as if we spoke it fluently. And like I said, Hungarian is not like ANY other language I have ever heard. To my ears, it’s a bunch of nonsensical sounds strung together… No offense, Hungarian. I am sure you are a beautiful language that I just don’t understand. Veronica made the point that if we all spoke the same language, there would be no wars. Good point. While we were trying to get into this bath, the woman quoted us a price in very broken English and then said another price and “10 minutes” and she kept saying “10 minutes” showing us her 1o fingers to reiterate… We were just confused. We didn’t want to pay for only 10 minutes in the baths. Turns out what she was saying was that if we WAITED 10 minutes, we could pay less. Ahhh… How nice of her. That is NOT what we were thinking as we were all mostly confused.
Anyway, this woman did not speak a WORD of English and all I could say was köszönöm (coos-ooh-noom, or something like that…) which means “thank you.” I laughed and laughed and so did she. She was adorable. Her name was Ana (or something like that) and if I understood her correctly, she was 75 years old. Adorbs.
6. Churches & Synagogues
The churches in this town were mighty impressive.
And the city boasts the largest synagogue in Europe. We tried twice to see the synagogue. Our first attempt– Saturday. We knew we wouldn’t get in to see it, so we took pictures of the outside. On Sunday, before we caught our shuttle to the airport, we decided to try again. Jewish holiday. Bummer. But we had some amazing vegetarian food instead.
Yum. :)
5. Castle District
We wandered up to this amazing district on a hill. There’s a church and a bastille. The views were spectacular. Here are some of the pics.
Veronica and me.
Some cute little shops up in the Castle District.
Up at the church.
The view from the Bastille.
The gorgeous Parliament Building. Next time I ma in Budapest, I will have to check it out.
Windy windy windy!
4. Buda Castle
The castle was also up on the hill where the church was. I was expecting more of a castle castle, like giant bricks and turrets and such, but it was essentially a palace. With a couple of pretty sweet fountains!
See? More palace, less castle…
One of the fountains.
Climbed right up the other one. ;)
3. Museum of Terror
This museum was built in a building where a lot of really hideous things happened in Budapest during and after World War II. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, but my dear friend Allison (who lived in Budapest in college) suggested it, and ALL her suggestions (practically everything we did) were awesome.
The front of the building. Andrássy út 60. Synonymous with terror.
All the faces on the wall are of people who were subjected to torture and/or death in the basement of the building. Crazy. The tank is real. For whatever reason, this is the only place where pictures can be taken.
The museum is the whole building, and the tour took us through a variety of the rooms and their uses. The basement was FREAKY! All the REAL cells where people were tortured. Some of the methods were really sobering… And seeing the real spaces was kinda unnerving. I went into the padded room and about had a panic attack and came right back out.
2. Food
The food was out. of. this. world. Here are some pictures to drool over. YUM!
Goulash.
Veronica and her goulash (which was so much better than mine! ;))
Kebaps and raspberry fanta.
Lángos. Deep fried bread with sour cream and cheese and toppings.
Seriously, what’s NOT to love?!
Sitting in front of me there is my own personal serving of diabetes. The iced coffee I THOUGHT I ordered was coffee with 2 scoops of ice cream, whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. All I wanted was coffee with ice cubes, I promise. And the cake? Had some sort of apricot something between layers of chocolate cake and frosting. I can feel my blood sugar rising as I type…
Hungarian wine at the New York Cafe. Mmm.
1. Baths
Budapest is famous for their Turkish baths, and they didn’t disappoint. We went to 3 different ones. The first one, where we met the locals, was Lukács (pronounced “luke-ach”). Then we went to Szechenyi, one of the bigger, more popular baths. These were not my favs. They were HUGE and had a ton of baths, but there were a TON of people, too. Hot baths, lots of people. All I could think of were all the little things growing around… Maybe the sulfur keeps everything clean? Here we got massages from “Anus massage.” You think I am kidding? Totally not.
Here are some pics of the baths themselves at Szechenyi:
Our last day, we went to Rudas. This was by far and away the best bath we went to. Started off a little bizarre when I asked one of the guys who worked there where my friend had gone and he then proceeded to invite me into one of the little cabins with him… Nah, I’m good, thanks. But the baths were AMAZING. Sat in the sauna for a while. Just relaxed. Veronica got a pretty sweet water massage, but I decided to save a few of my shekels. I took pictures. ;)
Veronica’s massage. I do sort of wish I had gotten one. The guys looked like pretty great masseurs!
The inside: glorious!
la rubia en españa 