Blogging
From Abroad

So, this past weekend I took a trip to Budapest, Hungary with a friend, Danielle from Australia. Budapest is a city of 2 million inhabitants and is largely the center of economics activity for the state of Hungary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest). After prior research we decided it was possible to “conquer” everything we wanted to see in Budapest in only 2 days, capturing the major sites of both cities. Budapest was once several cities, Buda on one side of the Danube River and Pest on the other side. After a bridge was built over a hundred and fifty years ago (the Széchenyi Chain Bridge), the cities were united. The city from our hostel vantage view (the spire-like building on the left side of the river is Parlament):

As we came to find, Budapest was loaded with World Heritage Sites, rather than list them, I will merely present a timeline as we encountered them. To start we left early morning by bus from Vienna, the ride was about 3 hours or so, but was 25 EUR or so cheaper than the train! Upon arrival into Budapest we were greeted with a nice drizzle of rain that seemed to persist nearly our entire stay, kind of a drag. The first tourist stop was the famous Buda Castle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buda_Castle). Since we were relying on a map from a 900 page travel guide to all of Europe, we got lost repeatedly, that is until spotting the castle “turrets” that were indistinguishable from below. Buda Castle was pretty sweet, a mixture of several, vastly different architectural time periods.

Unfortunately, none of the photos taken inside the church came out very satisfactory. More information found here: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Church). Danielle and myself were given a most outstanding tour in English. Our fellas name was Dominik and he was quite keen on history in general, giving us quite a conscientious tour. It is always a treat to chat with someone who’s passion for history is contagious! As expected the interior of the church was exquisite and had a history so colorful I couldn’t even begin to explain it all, I can hint to the Turks though, they had quite an impact!

We headed further south-west in the castle towards the Royal Palace. It was raining so hard at this point and we just wanted someplace to get warm. The Royal Palace houses several art galleries, we took a brief tour of the permanent collection. Upon leaving Buda Castle we had ample time and sunlight for more exploring and decided to cross the Danube to Pest. There we had a rather extravagent dinner (the exchange rate was favorable!) of drinks of all sorts, and a 3 course meal. After relaxing and eating like royalty it was late and we had to get to our hostel, the Hotel Citadella, situated atop a hill adjacent to Buda castle on the same side of the river. After characteristically getting lost again in a torrential wind storm, we arrived to a warm room of 25 beds, big insects here and there and of course an occasional scurrying of a mouse!

The next day we set out to see everything else as quick as possible before leaving the city at 3:30. The first stop was the Hungarian Parlament, a massive spectacle that sits apart from the rest. We took an interpretive tour of the building. After entering through a metal detector, we were essentially “escorted” around by large men in suits who kept a close eye on everyone in the group. Part of the tour took us to the main dome which housed the Royal Crown of Hungary, their most prized possession that was worn by all Hungarian Kings for 900 years and is one thousand years old!

After the Parlament we headed towards St. Stephens Basilica. A massive building the stands exactly the same height as Parlament, 96 meters (the year 896 was the year of the first Hungarian conquest of the area).

We walked from the Basilica along Andrassy street, a famous street which has numerous buildings marked as World Heritage sites and underneath runs the second oldest subway in the world, over a hundred years old! At the end of this famous street was Heroes Square, a popular site with statues of famous Hungarians from the centuries.

We took the old yellow line from Heroes Square and changed trains to make it back to our bus station and 3 hours or so later I was back to my place in Vienna! It was quite an action-packed adventure, if I could do it again I would want to spend more time in the city and go when the weather is more pleasant! Keep checking back for updates, next weekend I go to Prague or Amsterdam!

Bye!