Budapest, Hungary: More sightseeing

This blog post is a continuation of my previous post on Budapest, where I’ve been describing some cool sites me and Paige have been visiting in Budapest. I just love Budapest, and being back here has made me want to visit much more often! The culture and the atmosphere of the city is really relaxed, historical and cool. Budapest also brings back lots of good memories of my time living here for 2 summers.

There are frequently festivals going on in Budapest, and I’ve been to many on other trips. This time we had the chance to explore a Czech Beer festival, where we ate some pizza and beer! (I found it kind of strange that they served pizza there, especially since it’s not really Czech food! Regardless, the pizza was pretty good). Also, beer has been pretty cheap all through Budapest, on average it costs us just $2-3 CAN for 0.5 litres of beer!

Margret Island is another location I love to visit. It is located on the Danube river, in between Buda and Pest. The island is rather large, and is basically a very large park, with areas to jog or ride a bicycle, and there are swimming pools, an athletic center and restaurants. Since rain was starting, we figured the best way to explore the island was by renting a two person bicycle trolley.

Some of the sights we saw on the island:

From the bridge over the Danube we could see some of the buildings along the river and boats that run through the river. It is also very common to see larger cruise boats.

Another location in Budapest that I really enjoy visiting is the Great Market Hall, which is the central market and is also the oldest and largest market in Budapest, used by both the locals and tourists. The building itself is beautiful, and was built in 1897. The main level sells fruits, vegetables, meats, liquors and other edible products, and the upper level sells souvenirs and has a number of restaurants and food take-out food stands.

In the upstairs area we tried a traditional Hungarian snack: Langos. It is basically a deep fried pastry with toppings on it (it kind of looks like a pizza). We ordered one with sour cream, cheese and salami.

While in Budapest I made sure to eat some of my favourite Hungarian foods, including: Goulash Soup, which is a stew of meat and vegetables and seasoned with paprika. Delicious!

Another one of my favourite soups in Hungary is fruit soup, usually eaten as an appetizer. It is served cold and usually has whipped cream on top. The soup in the photo below (which was delicious!) was made of strawberries.

While in Budapest we used the metro daily, which is super easy to use, and almost impossible to get lost on. I am so impressed with the Budapest metro. You can get basically everywhere using the 3 metro lines, and they are in the process of building their 4th line. There are 40 stations, and there are over a million riders daily. I wish that the Toronto subway line was even half as good as the Budapest metro! The Budapest Metro is also the 2nd oldest electrified underground railway system in the world, where the first line was built in 1896!  One thing that’s pretty cool about the metro is how far underground you go! Check out this escalator, it almost looks like a never-ending tunnel into the ground!

Finally, we also checked out some of the shops and I found a great shirt! Any takers? ;)

In addition to all the touring around we had a chance to hang out with my brother, which was really nice. I haven’t seen him in 4 years and so it was great to catch up and to fill each other in on everything we had missed in each others lives!

Overall my time in Budapest has been pretty awesome, and I was sad to leave! I will have to make an effort to come back again soon! Now on to our next destination: Croatia for a week long cruise through the beautiful Croatian Islands!

Budapest, Hungary: Arrival in Europe, and sightseeing

So it’s been a few weeks since my last post, and I’m sorry for the delay! I’ve gotten a number of emails and messages asking me when I’ll resume writing again! My blog writing has officially begun again, and I will be blogging until August documenting my Europe portion of my trip.

I was back home in Toronto for 2 weeks after my South America trip and it was so nice to be home after spending 5 weeks traveling in South America. I had the chance to catch up with family and friends, but most importantly (and the reason for my return) I attended my convocation ceremony and received my diploma for my Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the Rotman School of Management (University of Toronto). Now that I have graduated, I have taken off again and am spending the next 5 weeks traveling through Europe. My first stop was Budapest! I love Budapest, and being back in this city has been awesome. I spent 2 summers living here and have visited on numerous other occasions, so I know the city very well, and being here brings back lots of memories. This time I came with my friend Paige, so I have had the chance to show her some cool sights. The photo below is us at the Toronto airport.

The trip started with a little family time. My brother picked us up from the airport and we had dinner at their place with his whole family (him, his wife, and their 4 children). It was great to see everyone, especially the kids! They  have grown up so much since I last saw them 4 years ago!

My time in Budapest was mainly spent sightseeing – I wanted to show Paige some cool spots in the city, and I also wanted to spend time just enjoying Budapest. In this blog post I’ll talk about some of the sights, activities foods that we ate during our time in Budapest.

For our first full day in Budapest we didn’t want anything too strenuous because we were still exhausted from the journey, and we were very jet-lagged! So we started off visiting Hosok tere (otherwise known as “Heroes Square”), which is part of a World Heritage Site.

We spent the rest of the day at one of my favourite locations in Budapest: the Szechenyi Thermal Baths. These baths are the largest medicinal baths in Europe, and the enclosure comprises of 3 outdoor pools and 15 indoor pools, each at different temperatures ranging from 20 degrees Celsius to 38 degrees Celsius. The building is beautiful and historical, and was built in 1913. It has become a big tourist site, and you can purchase foods and drinks (including beer) to enjoy while there.

Spending the day at the thermal baths was the best way to relax and get over our jet-lag!

Another location that’s pretty cool in Budapest is the Citadel, which is a fortress at the top of Gellert Hill. From the top of the hill you can see a great view of the whole city. In the photo below you can see a statue at the top of the hill – we climbed the hill to visit this statue (we did not actually enter or tour the Citadel once we reached the top of the hill though).

Once we got to the top of the hill we had a great view of the statue, and of the rest of the city:

At the top of the Citadel there were a number of canons and weapons on display, which were once used to protect the fortress.

Another cool area of the city is the Castle Hill, which houses the Royal Buda Castle, which was completed in 1265, and was declared a Heritage site in 1987. Now the castle houses museum exhibits. To get up the hill we took the Castle Hill Funicular (a small carriage train which rides up the hill). Below is a photo from the funicular followed by photos of the castle.

Also on Castle Hill you can find Matthias Church and the Fisherman’s Bastion. Matthias Church was unfortunately under construction so we couldn’t see too much of it. It’s a beautiful church built in 1015 in Romanesque style.

Just behind Matthias Church is the Fisherman’s Bastion, which is a terrace that overlooks the city, built in the late 1890s.

From Castle Hill we had a great view of the city, including Parliament (the following photo).

It’s been awesome hanging out in Budapest! I’ll write another Budapest entry within the next couple days before jetting off to Croatia where we’ll spend 8 days sailing through the Croatian islands!

Budapest

On August 13th, at 11:40pm we left Munich and took an overnight train to Budapest. We were having so many problems carrying around the enormous and heavy backpack that we had resulted in dragging it along the floor of the train station.
Right before entering the train, while waiting on the platform, I sat on gum!! I was so tired at this point that I didn´t want to deal with cleaning it until we arrived in Budapest, so Mikaela gave me an old receipt she had in her purse and I covered the gum in the receipt so I wouldn´t stick to everything I sat on. Needless to say I looked a bit ridiculous walking around with a receipt stuck to my butt.
We had tried to reserve a private, 2 bedroom, room on the train for us, but they were all sold out. So instead we had to reserve a 4-person room and sleep with strangers. Luckily there was only 3 of us in the room: me, Mikeala, and a random German Lawyer man.
Once we arrived in Budapest, we left our stuff at the apartment and set out walking to the Central Market, Budapest´s largest market, built in 1890. The ground floor sells all types of foods, including typical Hungarian specialties (paprika, Palinka, Unicum, Hungarian goose liver,  kolbasz, pastries, etc), as well as fruits, vegetables, cheese and meats. The upper level houses a number of souvenir and typical Hungarian merchandise shops where you can buy embroidered tablecloths, painted kitchenware, hand crafted boxes, leather goods, and many other products.

  We bought some souvenirs, food, and some poppy seed (makosh) pastries.  From there we walked across the Liberty Bridge (also called the Freedom Bridge) to get over to the Gellert Hill.

We climbed up Gellert Hill to the Liberation Monument, which was erected in 1942 after World War II.  The monument is of a woman holding an olive branch (a symbol of peace).
We had a great view of the city:
Our original plan was to eat the Hungarian pastries at the top of the hill, but unfortunately it started raining while we were climbing up. Before we realized it would rain, we wanted to go to the Szechenyi Baths, so we both had our bathing suits and towels in our bags.
Since we really wanted to eat the pastries on the hill, we sat, wrapped in our towels, on a bench to enjoy our delicious treats.
Later that evening we went out for a night on the town. We got off to a rocky start when we arrived at the metro station closest to the apartment and realized it was closed. We decided to take a taxi. Taxis in Budapest are tricky. In order to get a fair rate you must call a taxi company and order the taxi. If you hail a taxi off the street they will rip you off and charge you outrageous prices, unless you bargain with them before hand. So after bargaining with a few taxis we finally found a taxi driver who would take us for a decent price.
We had a great time dancing in the Hungarian discos (aka. clubs).
The following day, August 15, we went to the Szechenyi Thermal and Medicinal Baths, the largest medicinal baths in Europe. The bath complex consists of many different baths, both indoors and outdoors, all of different temperatures with different healing and medicinal properties, and the water is supplied by two thermal springs.

We spent the day relaxing in the baths and soaking up some sun.
After the baths we got ready for a night at the Sziget Festival, one of the largest music festivals in Europe and the world. It is a week long festival that takes place every August on an island in Budapest, and generally has about 1000 performances each year. It attracts international bands that perform on 5 large main stages and 14 smaller stages throughout the week. This year it attracted almost 400,000 visitors, where 70% of them were from outside of Hungary. Many people buy full week passes to the festival and camp out in tents on the island for the whole week.
Some of the well known bands and performers this year included: Lily Allen, Snow Patrol, Fatboy Slim, JET, The Prodigy, Placebo, The Offspring, Faith No More, Armin van Buuren, Eric, Prydz and Paul Oakenfold.
In previous years it has bands such as: Foo Fighters, Green Day, Oasis, Bloodhound Gang, Shaggy, Basement Jaxx (which I saw when I was at the Sziget Festival in 2004), Scissor Sisters, Good Charlotte, Sean Paul, Nine Inch Nails, Pink, The Killers, Alanis Morissette and MGMT.
The island was completely packed full of people!!

  Mikaela and I had an amazing time! We saw bits and pieces of many different bands, but stayed for the entire performance of Eric Prydz (which was amazing).
  We also had a chance to go for a ride on a mechanical bull:

But the bull quickly kicked us off:
The night was amazing, we had so much fun!
Mikaela left Budapest early the next morning and I was sad to see her go! We had a great week together with so many adventures!
I spent the rest of the day with my brother, his wife and his kids.


That evening I met up with my cousin Jolan to go to the Sziget Festival again. I was so tired from the previous night at the Sziget festival that I didn´t last too long at the festival this time! I still had a great night and it was so great to see Jolan for one last time before I left for Toronto 2 days later.
August 17th, my last day in Budapest, was extremely uneventful as I spent the whole day sleeping, packing, cleaning the apartment and shopping for some last minute things.
On August 18th at 6:45am my brother picked me up at the apartment and brought me to the airport. I had accumulated so much stuff over my 2 month travels that I had to split my belongings into two luggages (I borrowed one from my brother).
I was completely amazed at the amount of stuff I had somehow accumulated during my travels. I left Toronto at the beginning of my trip with a total luggage weight of 18 kg. Half way through my trip I sent 15 kg home with Chad in a duffel bag, and then on August 18th on my way back to Toronto my backpack weighed 19.2 kg and my extra luggage weighed 22.4 kg, making a total of 41.6 kg. Which means that I came home with 56.6 kg in total (including the duffel bag I sent with Chad), which is 38.6 kg more than I had started by journey with. How on earth did I buy 38.6 kg worth of stuff (and carry most of it around with me on my back)??
My flights went well (Budapest-Amsterdam 2 hours, Amsterdam-Toronto 8 hours). When I arrived in Toronto I was completely exhausted from my journey and was not looking forward to going through Canadian customs and waiting for my luggages. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the customs counter and found Jon Borrelli, my friend Dan Borrelli´s twin brother, as my customs officer!! We were so surprised to see each other (the first thing I said to him as I walked up to the counter was ¨what are you doing here??¨). So needless to say, my trip through Canadian customs was a lot more pleasant and hassle-free than I had anticipated.
My parents were waiting for me when I came out to the arrivals hall and I was so happy to see them! It was good to be home.
I had a wonderful trip filled with many new adventures, good friends, amazing experiences and an endless amount of incredible memories. I am so grateful that I was given the opportunity to take this absolutely amazing trip and these memories will stay with me forever.