We spent a few fascinating days in Budapest last week. We arrived Wednesday evening from Amsterdam and took the 100 bus from the airport to our B&B. Most of us are over 65 so we had the wonderful bonus of traveling for free on Budapest public transportation. My sister bought a bus pass. Make sure you have your identification and/or bus pass in order and available. We were checked 5 times in our five days in Budapest! Our B&B was on the very busy, somewhat “gritty” Rakoczi Ut. It’s located on the edge of the Jewish Quarter. After a quick trip to the somewhat chaotic Lidl down the street to grab some breakfast and lunch food we headed to our clean, quiet B&B on the third floor of one of the buildings that line Rakoczi Ut.
The next morning we set out to explore Budapest. We took the #2 tram up and down the Danube and had coffee and a pastry at The Strudel Garden. We strolled up Andrassy Ut and peeked in the opera house. In the afternoon we visited the Great Market and purchased our obligatory paprika. Afterwards we had a delightful dinner at the Pipa Etterem, located right behind the market. The food was delicious and reasonably priced and the service was great.
On day two we visited the Veli Bej baths. It was a quiet, relaxing experience. There was one fairly large pool in the center and four smaller ones surrounding it. It was all inside. We took public transportation to get there. One of the highlights of our visit was mastering the public transportation system. It’s great! Frequent buses, trams and metros and easy to figure out. That afternoon we went to a wonderful free, lunchtime concert at the Liszt Music Academy. Approximately eight students performed on a variety of instruments. We loved it! In the evening we visited the ruin bar, Szimpla Kert. We went early in the evening and enjoyed the unique bar experience.
The following day we headed up to Matthias Church and Fisherman’s Bastion. Wow, lots of tourists! The church was beautiful and interesting. By the time we reached Fisherman’s Bastion there were so many people that we couldn’t enjoy it to its fullest. However, on our way back to the bus we came upon a small folk crafts festival. It was delightful! We had a goulash supper at Mama Goulash in the Jewish Quarter. Sure, it was super touristy, but we enjoyed the goulash. In the evening we went on our Danube cruise. We used the Legenda Company. We purchased our tickets online the day before and arrived half an hour early so that we could get a seat on the upper level. It was a great experience. Beautiful!
The next day was a bit of a disappointment. We had planned to visit the village of Szentendre, but I woke up with a Hungarian virus and spent the day at the B&B, sleeping, drinking lots of water and swallowing lots of expensive Hungarian Ibuprofen. By the next morning I felt quite a bit better, but it was time to hop on the plane to France.