Budapest: City of beauty, bikes and baths

Well, at least that last statement is true. Budapest is called the city of baths. And we had two very different experiences in these thermal spa houses, but more on that later. We arrived in Budapest by train from Vienna and we were just two metro stops away from our hostel. However getting on the metro was unlike any we had dealt with before. As we got down to the station we saw a long line to purchase our metro tickets from a person/window, and since it hadn’t mattered before and because we had yet to draw Hungarian money, florints, we thought maybe we should just hedge our luck since throughout the last two and a half weeks of diligently buying tickets, no authority had ever checked. But we decided to wait and buy our tickets, confused and frustrated that why in this big city the efficiency of getting these tix left much to be desired. But as we got to the escalators down to our trains, we saw at least three police officers checking tickets. We would learn this is standard and saw up to eight officers checking tickets one time, really? That would not be our first surprise of the day as when we got to the hostel our inn keeper claimed he was both hungover and drunk as he checked us in, while drinking a beer. It was around 2 in the afternoon. He was still nice enough to take us through a city map, which took some time with some repeating stories and remembering where he left off and apologizing all the way through. He explained that the hostel had gone out last night and everyone got pretty drunk and they came home around sunrise. And that pretty much sums up the Bubble, our hostel. We also met the other Bubble keepers. A guy Jean, who is from LA but just quit his job to work at the Bubble over summer and our unforgettable cruise director/Madame, Olga, who organized all the nightly events. You see the Bubble was like a big family and you never wanted to leave, you could come back at 8 – 10 at night and the whole group would be going out: going to dance clubs, ruin pubs, live music, karaoke bars, and costume parties. On our arrival night, it was Saturday and Olga let us know that if we wanted to, we could go to the Spa party. We had no idea what this meant but we said sure and dropped off our stuff and ventured to get something to eat then head for the Buda side of Budapest towards Gellert Hill to climb and look over the city to watch the sunset. We ate at an adorable cafe on a street lined with other adorable cafes. We passed people drinking in parks, wandering about, it was a gorgeous day and it was great people watchin

Musicians playing in a square our hostel

Crossing the bridge

As we crossed the bridge from Pest to Buda we were struck by the awesome landscape of this city: monuments, churches, palaces, bridges, parks, hills and the array of various people: locals, students, tourists, bikers, etc. As we got to the top of the hill the beauty somehow got more beautiful. Aaron and I just sat there in awe of this place, awaiting the sun to drop and when it did the sky turned orange. We got down from the Hill, picked up some beer to predrink and made our way back to the hostel for the Spa Party.

On top of Gellert Hill

Sunset

We were told the spa party is basically a club in one of the city’s bath houses. We had to put on our swimsuits and head out to drink and dance is the warm pool. And so we did. And It was one of our highlights of this trip. We hung out with our hostel family but also ran into the Brits we met on our unsuccessful pub crawl in Bratislava, we also met a choir group passing through from NYC. The place was pretty chaotic, there was also a lot of mischief going on in the pool, if you catch my drift. We stayed till it closed at 3a, then Olga took us to a rooftop bar and we watched the sunrise. Aaron and I walked home around 5.

Spa party

With our hostel friends

We woke up late the next morning and headed out around 1p and joined the 230p free walking tour. It was a pretty warm day. We stopped at a square with picnic tables and pop up eateries where we had some beers and tried the infamous Langos. Langos is a fried bread, almost churro like, which is topped with sour cream, then cheese and garlic. You can add other ingredients if you like but that is the classic version. It is Budapest’s signature drunk food. I got to say, I loved it.

Fried cheesy goodness that is Lángos

After the walking tour we toured more of the Palace. The palace was once a summer house to Austrian Empress, Elizabeth, a throw back from the Weekend Palace, Schönbrunn, we visited in Vienna. This girl was stacked with Palaces.

The palace

Since it was still nice, we decided to walk through the hipster Jewish Quarter and get a beer. We found the ruin bar, Szimpla and decided to go there before it got too crowded as were told we had to see all the rooms. Rooms were like crazy art experimental art exhibits, and I’m sure they had deep meaning, of which we weren’t picking up on but it was a mix of a garage sale, a crazy cat lady’s house, and something you might see on the TV show Hoarders. We finished our beer picked up some Hungarian tacos – don’t do it – and went back to the hostel to hear what Olga had in store for us tonight. We went out to an amazing traditional Hungarian restaurant, Ruben’s, not far from our place. There Aaron had more goulash and stuffed cabbage and I had fried goose liver. Note: Hungarians love goose and particularly goose liver. You can find it on every menu, made seven different ways. It was great but I over ate and off we were to the bars to drink more beer! We did a sort of ruin bar crawl as we went back to Szimpla and then to another called Instant. Instant was really cool. It had room after room, nook and crannies. A chill room, a fooze ball room, and some dance rooms, as examples. We really tried to get into the dancing but two things: 1. The Euro techno music makes my ears hurt 2. The sweat box little cave rooms with no ventilation and Euros who don’t wear deodorant made our noses want to turn around. It was really bad. We couldn’t last a minute in those dance rooms. So we ended the night earlier than our hostel friends, around 2:30a.

One of the Szimpla rooms

The next day was one of my favorites of the whole trip: baths and bikes. We rented bikes and toured most of the city. Biking on the Buda side along the river with views of Parliament next to us was incredible. We also biked through Budapest’s island park, Margaret Island. Then biked to the famous Széchenyi Thermal baths, as you can’t go to the city of baths and not partake. And it was amazing! Swimming in heated pools of magical medicinal water around statues and baroque architecture with green domes shadowing the pools…Aaron and I were able to just pause and relax. A great treat from our late nights, climbs and biking all day. At one point I even took a nap. It is a must do, and while yes there are tourists, with the 18+ pools, it never felt that crowded. We left back on our bikes and headed back to the hostel, once again checking in on Olga’s itinerary. But after the baths I was feeling so good and so relaxed, we decided to stay in.

Biking along the Danube

Bath house

We were headed to the Valley of Beautiful Women, Eger, early in the morning – post coming soon and it would be another day on the road, so we went out for another amazing meal in the Jewish Quarter then to bed. After coming back from Eger, and our final day/night in Budapest we took in another tour, the communist tour and it was a bit of a dud so we left early, picked up and mailed my new Austrian and Hungary Starbucks mugs and visited the large market. Then we went to Hereos square, a hip watering hole where people are drinking in outdoor cafes, as well as drinking from BYOB cans around the pool and park benches. While we had drinks we did some trip planning and went home for planning and booking hostels. In the AM we left for our third Hungarian city, Pech – blog on Pech coming soon. Budapest is definitely a favorite city of mine.