Anyway I caught the train down to London on Thursday night. But the end of the 2 hour train trip it was blatantly obvious that I was coming down with something. Luckily Kings Cross station is complete with a pharmacy so I went straight there and bought some lemsip cold and flu and some strepsils and they did a fine job all weekend!
Sarah and I had a not too late night and got up bright and early to catch the plane to Budapest. The plane was delayed slightly but all came through in the end and we made our connecting flight and arrived safe and sound in Budapest. Driving into a town from the airport is always interesting as you often get to see the worst parts of a city which I think was sort of true in this case.
Our four star hotel was lovely a nice smart though quite small room. So after dropping off our bags we headed out to explore. It was about 3.30 at this time and already starting to get dark. We were staying very near the river and so walked across the bridge to see this amazing cave Church. It was a Church built in a series of caves, with some external structures also built on. An order of Monks live there too. We had a look around there, there was a small portion of the caves open to the public. We then poked our head in the famous Gellert Baths and Hotel just across the road.
Pretty much dark by now we walked back across the bridge and walked along the river looking at the beautiful Christmas Lights and buildings. Heading back inland we stumbled on a lovely Christmas Childrens market in front of the large St Stephen's basilica. There were a couple of stalls with things that looked like the children had made, and even better they were giving away free raisin bread, roasted chestnuts and mulled wine. Which was a bonus as Sarah and I had been planning to find somewhere to buy some!
Then came the real thing... I'm addicted to markets... I love them! And Budapest has a great Christmas market. It was great! Lots of stalls of Christmas things, and pottery and porcelain, amazing food, and all kinds of other random stalls. Sarah and I began our weekend theme of having authentic Hungarian cuisine. We were brave and had cabbage rolls! Which were nice, the sauce was really delicious actually. It rained a little at this point, the only rain of the whole trip (despite forecasts to the contrary) and the rain wasn't too bad really.
After the markets we went to the first cake shop, Budapest is famous for cake shops. They had tons of beautifully presented layered torts. All looked so pretty and so yummy! So after much deliberation we both managed to choose a cake and they were delicious! We then found our way back to the hotel through lovely streets lit up with Christmas decorations.
Day 2
We had our free hotel breakfast, and I had quite a lot of it actually (it was yummy, muesli, cold meats, eggs, sausages, fresh bread and pastries). Then we began our mega walking day with a walk up a hill to see a beautiful peace monument. There were very good views of the city, it was quite misty unfortunately but this made it all the more romantic really. We continued heading up (or was it down the river) to the castle and national gallery which was in the old palace. We caught a little short gondola type train up the hill.
Up the top of the hill we came at just perfect time to see the changing of the guard. Quite an interesting display, a very precise choreography - an almost dance like march. We walked around the buildings and looked at the statues up there. Such a nice view from up there too! Oh it was up here I went to the most amazing toilet. As with a few of the loos around the place you had to pay (100 forints - about 30p, or 90NZc) and the lady who took care of it had such a set up in there! Pictures all over the walls, a heater, a couch, stickers on the mirror... it was so funny! I wish I'd got a photo!
Sarah and I then visited the fisherman's bastion which was a fantastic structure, check out our photos on bebo these ones I found on the web. It's hard to explain was it was exactly, oh hang, I'll be good and look it up. Ok here goes: The Halászbástya or Fisherman's Bastion is a terrace in new-Gothic and neo-Romanesque style situated on the Buda bank of the Danube, on the Castle hill in Budapest, around Matthias Church. It was built about the turn of the century (last century that is).
We then went to Matthias Church which was a lovely Church. Quite different looking inside to many I've seen already. There was a tiny museum section in it too where to my disgust there was a human foot! And a scull on display. The foot was particularly bad as it seemed to be still decaying, well it was pretty much decayed but it wasn't just skeleton if you know what I mean. I just found out for those who actually like facts that the Church was named after the greatest Hungarian King, Matthias Corvinus. Sorry despite looking it up I can't see whose foot it was.
Ok I'm going to move this along a bit faster. We had the best cakes ever at the most famous (or was it the oldest) cake shop in Budapest. They were delicious, but surprisingly even more impressive was the hot chocolate I had! It was so rich! Anyway then walked back along the river and quickly stopped in at the hotel to pick up togs to go to spa! The spas were stressful initially it took so long to get someone to tell us which kind of tickets to buy, and for someone to sell them, then to find a place to get changed. But once we were in Sarah and I had a lovely relaxing hour and a half or so.
Saturday night we went out in search of a good Hungarian restaurant and found a lovely one. It had such character and the food was good too! Especially these paprika bread rolls which I couldn't get enough of! Sarah had paprika chicken and I had goulash... yum! That left us too full for desert so we hit the streets to walk it off and search for bars.
The first bar we found was ok, the next one lovely! But we thought we could do better well at least find one we liked as much, the one we headed for was closed. However almost back at the hotel we found another one which was really funny. There were huge tubs, well almost buckets of roasted peanuts still in shells on each table. The floor was littered with shells! It was amazing - I've never seen so many peanuts in one place (I've also never had peanuts in shells that weren't raw before!). So that was a nice place to end a good night, me munching through the peanuts and Sarah playing with the candles.
Day 3
Our tie up ends day. We made it all the way along the river to see parliament finally. It was an impressive building, we didn't go in or do a tour however. But there was a small market outside and I finally tried some roasted chestnuts! I didn't love them but they were ok, nice to keep hands warm anyway. They tasted surprisingly like potatoes. We stopped into St Stephen's basilica on the way to the Christmas Market and popped our head in. It was a lovely Church too.
Back at the markets we finally got to try Kürtöskalács (this translate to chimney cake) which were delicious sweet things... sort of like donuts but not fried at all, instead dough wrapped around a pole then cooked while the pole rotated and glazed with sugar. It was at this point we totally lost track of time (but not so badly that we were running late). But we got a waggle on and headed back to our hotel to catch the taxi back to the plane station.
The trip to the airport was interesting (the taxi driver was a lovely old man who offered us some strepsils and called them lollies, and was a slightly scary driver, especially when his cab just stopped and he didn't know why). We got there safe and sound to find out soon after our flight had been canceled. This turned out not to be a problem at all though as they put us on different flights that got us back to London at almost the same time, plus we got a free meal out of it!
Anyway that was my trip to Budapest! Now I'm all up to date. With my international travel at least.
:)
Mindy
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