Kris and I had a third week together after Karin returned to the USA just after our trip to Paris. We had a quick, laid-back week in Geneva together before we headed to Budapest, Hungary for a long weekend. What an incredible city!!! I had visited with my family for a day-trip when we were in Europe when I was a little kid, and I had been wanting to go back for years. Kris and I had a fantastic weekend exploring the city, enjoying lots of good food and drink, and admiring the beautiful culture and architecture of Budapest!
Budapest has become famous in recent years for its "ruin bars". Often times, when there's a run-down building, abandoned lot, or empty space, bars and restaurants move in and cobble together crazy, eclectic hang-outs. It's a great concept. The first one that Kris and I explored is also the most famous and one of the very first ruin bars, Szimpla Kert. This place was incredible. There was amazing amounts of random decorations, crazy rooms, graffiti everywhere, cheap drinks, and generally a fantastic atmosphere. Even though we were there earlier in the evening when things were pretty quiet, we loved it! It was so much fun to explore the different rooms and themes and decorations. Random and awesome.
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In this room, you could push the buttons on the box (like Kris is doing here), and the
images on the TV screens would change to some random pattern, image, video, etc. Awesome! |
Chain Bridge
The literal link between Buda on one side of the river and Pest on the other side, the Chain Bridge was the first bridge to cross the Danube River between the two towns. It's gorgeous by day and by night!
For Sale Pub
After walking to the Chain Bridge, Kris and I stumbled upon this fantastic bar/restaurant called the For Sale Pub. It's less than a block away from the Great Market Hall, and it's amazing! It's almost like an Old West-style saloon, complete with sawdust on the ground and baskets of peanuts you can crack open, eat, and throw the shells on the floor. The unique feature of this place, however, was that there were random business cards, scraps of paper, passport photos, currencies, advertisements, notes, ID cards, etc. posted up ALL OVER the walls and ceiling. It made for a really cool effect and a funky, cozy bar atmosphere. We loved it! We even came back to this place on another night at the recommendation of an American Ex-Pat we met there the first night who recommended their goulash. It was indeed really freaking good goulash!
Random discoveries in Pest
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| Sweet club, bro. |
Great Market Hall
In need of paprika, dried peppers, pickled peppers, fresh peppers, fruits, veggies, sausages, in addition to trinkets and souvenirs? Go here! The building is gorgeous (it looks like an old train station), huge, and filled with locals and tourists alike! We really enjoyed wandering around here and looking at all of the stuff for sale.
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| Kris is evidently famous in pickled-pepper land. ;) |
Walking over the river to Buda + Castle hill
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| The sunlight perfectly captured in this old church tower's stained glass was stunning! |
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| His shirt cracks me up! |
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| The Chain Bridge and the Parliament Building. |
Castle Hill: Matthias Church and Fisherman's Bastion
This area is absolutely gorgeous. The interior of the Matthias Church is unreal, and the views from Fisherman's Bastion are breathtaking!
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| I loved these cute little carved guys! |
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| Best spiral staircase ever! |
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| Gorgeous stained glass and architecture abounds. |
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| Lighting, lighting, lighting! |
Mazel Tov - ruin restaurant
This place only opened up a couple of months ago, and it was recommended by one of my coworkers at the UN who is from Budapest originally. Delicious Middle Eastern food and great local Hungarian wines, HOLY CRAP! We had amazing, mouth-wateringly good food here. I very very highly recommend it to anyone visiting this city!
Street fair awesomeness
Kris and I were planning on heading to the big city park to check it out and visit the famous Széchenyi Thermal Baths, but we wound up stumbling upon an incredible series of street festivals: a beer and food cart festival in one area, local and sustainable transportation fair in another, a Hungarian heritage festival in another, an equestrian fair in the big plaza by the park, and then a fish and meat festival in the park itself! That whole part of town was one big street party! It was wicked sweet! We walked the whole length of the fairs from end to end and had so much fun trying delicious local dark beers (it's so hard to find dark beer in Europe, and this stuff was epically high quality!), tasting local foods, wandering around flea market stalls, meeting locals, laughing a lot, and taking photos. It was a fabulous series of events that we weren't even expecting! Those kinds of things are the most fun to enjoy. :)
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| I've seen one of these face street sculptures in Paris, Geneva, and now Budapest, too! |
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| A+K love in the kid's section of the fair. :) |
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| Me and my friendly turtle buddy! I wish I knew what he was advertising, haha. |
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| Meat stews for days! |
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| Kris and a Transylvanian castle |
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They put kids in the baskets and then spun this thing around like a huge swing.
I wanted to be five years old again for a few minutes to try it out... |
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| Chilling with the giant statue man. |
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| The statue of the long-dead Hungarian writer, Anonymus. |
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| Goulash in a bread bowl and liter can of beer... We must be in Eastern Europe! ;) |
Széchenyi Thermal Baths
I was particularly stoked about this place. Budapest is famous for its thermal baths, and this is the most beautiful outdoor one, and the main one where both locals and tourists go for some relaxation, people watching, sun bathing, and pool time!
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| I loved the colors! Great contrast between the blue and yellow. |
Climbing things for good viewpoints of the city
Kris wandered off for a bit on Saturday evening while I sat down to write some postcards, and he came back telling me that we had to climb a tower! The big church just around the corner had a tower you could climb up, so, of course, we were immediately on our way up the stairs. Tower climbing in Europe is one of my all-time favorite activities, and I have to get to the highest vantage point I can find in every city! The view from this church of the city as the sun set were just lovely.
Night adventures to the top of Gellért Hill (on the Buda side)
Stunning views of the city at night from this location! The park is huge, and there are so many trails. I wish we could have explored the area in the daytime as well, but we'll leave that for another trip. :)
Hungarian Parliament Building
While we missed out on getting tickets to go inside the building, we walked all around the outside and admired this gorgeous building and the surrounding gardens. Next time, we'll be sure to get tickets early and take the tour of the interior!
Budapest is a fantastic city. Kris and I both fell in love with it immediately and already are looking forward to returning again someday. We would love to explore more of Hungary and learn more about its fascinating history. If you're in Europe and have a spare weekend, definitely make a point to visit Budapest; it shines!!
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