Budapest

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Monday, July 2 - Tuesday, July 3: Budapest, Hungary

We stayed two nights in Budapest in a very old, dilapidated building with an inner, open courtyard with flats circling the courtyard. Our actual room was huge with a hardwood floor, crown molding on the ceiling, a chandelier, and old stately furniture. The city Budapest is a merging of two former cities, Buda and Pest, which remain separated by the Danube River.

On our second day, we took a bus city tour. The bus only had a second level that was open to the sky. It was in the 90s and quite toasty driving around Budapest with the sun beating down on you. We did manage to see all the major sights—the Chain Bridge, Vorosmarty Square, Heroes Square, Varhegy (Castle Hill), Halaszbastya (Fishermen’s Bastion), the Royal Palace, the beautiful Parliament Building, St. Stephen’s Basilica, Opera House, and the Citadella. Afterwards, we had an ice cream in the park and relaxed. In the evening, we had dinner with a Hungarian couple we had met. He is an architect and she is studying to be a lawyer. We showed her the tickets we got on the train from Prague and Budapest and even she could not decipher what it was or meant. She indicated that it was not necessary to pay it and that this was a typical Hungarian thing.

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The following morning, we went to one of the old famous bathhouses in Budapest called Furfi Noi Gyogy-Furdo. It was amazing. It was absolutely huge with a large outdoor courtyard with three gigantic swimming pools—one hot, one cold, and one medium temperature. Completely surrounding the three pools was a circular foundation that housed multiple sauna rooms and about thirty plus other rooms with thermo-mineral baths at varying degrees. The spa dates back to the 1800s and has retained the beautiful architecture and details from this time. There was even one thermo-mineral bath for doing aqua aerobics that was being led by an instructor. I could get use to this. We spent a few hours soaking and sweating and then had to be off to catch our early evening flight to Malta. Going through immigration, we were a bit nervous about the tickets we had received in Hungary, but we were allowed to leave without any problem. By the time we return, Hungary will have adopted the Euro and our tickets will be long forgotten.