Day 2: Budapest

Last night I was in great shape(?)so stayed up until 9:30, which was pretty good considering I had been up for at least 24 hours. But oh this morning! Jet lag is real.

I met Stuart and Laura in the breakfast room in the hotel. Luckily they stay open until 10:30. Breakfast was fabulous. About eight different kinds of charcuterie, cheeses, eggs several ways, beans, bacon, sausage, ham, lots of breads and pastries, juices, a coffee machine with about 10 different buttons to push for various coffees, fresh fruits, jams, syrups, even a juicer to make your own fresh grapefruit juice. I stood there in a daze, then restraint kicked in. I did, however, have four different coffees.

We took a Bolt taxi (Budapest form of Uber) over to a farmers market that is open on Sunday, the Szimpla market. It is located in a ruin bar. Ruin bars have become very popular, apparently now they are mostly for tourists. But they are in very dilapidated buildings. The one we were in was fabulously decorated, something to see everywhere. Lots of tables with vegetables and tables with samples of cheeses, sausages, honeys, and the ubiquitous paprika.

Stuart found another market about a 10 minute walk away that was supposed to have antiques. It looked a bit like the Bellefonte antiques mall. We found a wonderful little bookstore/café and had iced tea and iced coffee (called a dirty hippie) for a pick me up. They had fabulous postcards. Weird, the kind I like!

We decided to head towards Zara for a tiny bit of shopping but as I looked up I saw a Star of David, on the dome of the Dohany Street synagogue, the second largest in the world. We first walked along an arcade which enclosed a cemetery where several thousand Jews who died in the ghetto before the war ended were buried in mass graves. Traditionally, there are never cemeteries next to a synagogue but this is the exception. There were hundreds of stones placed on the memorial monument.

We bought tickets, went through security, and into the synagogue. Stu was given a paper Yarmulke. It was built in the mid 1850’s and then destroyed during the war and then rebuilt. It is styled like the Alhambra. We listened to an English speaking guide for about 15 minutes, then walked around on our own. It is very powerful to think of how many people passed through the doors and were killed during the Holocaust.

We decided to buy bus passes and took the bus back to the hotel. A short time to regroup, and then a taxi to the Széchenyi baths.

The place looks like a huge yellow and white wedding cake. I opted for a cabin, a small changing room and Laura and Stu took off for the Thermal Beer Spa on the other side of the complex.

The building itself houses many small thermal pools but the biggest attractions are the three pools in the center of the establishment. By far the largest is an enormous lap pool, flanked by 2 thermal pools. There is larger than life statuary all around, even Neptune riding dolphins, or at least I think they were dolphins. I elected not to take the beer bath and arranged to meet the kids after their session. I had to buy a cap to use the lap pool. The thermal pools probably had 150 to 200 people in each one, the huge lap pool probably had 6. I’ll tell you why. It was COLD. It took awhile, but I eased myself in and spent the next hour slowly swimming back and forth. I met Laura and Stu after their bath session in one of the thermal pools.

In the center, there was a circular half wall that divided it off. Within this was a very fast current that pushed you right around the circle. Laura grabbed me (I think she thought I would drown) and we were laughing so hard we couldn’t talk. Stu was right behind us howling, too. The amazing thing is that most of the others in the current were not laughing at all. Maybe it’s an Eastern European thing. I noticed that there were few Americans there, although I did see one teenage girl in a Woodward Camp t-shirt. Also, I was one of the older people there, it seemed like a young demographic. Stu read that the locals go before noon, maybe that’s when the oldsters hang out.

While I was doing my laps, I could see people surrounding the pool and made some observations about the human condition. There was a good looking woman in a black tank suit with “Bad Girl” emblazoned in white on the front. She walked everywhere hand in hand with a man in a speedo who looked like he was happy indeed to be with her. Also there were two women in the exact same suit (major cleavage on display) who spent a solid half hour taking pictures of each other posing with pouty mouths. There were always women posing in front of statues with adoring men snapping photos.

We Bolted back to our hotel, showered and changed, then went to the restaurant Zeller for dinner.

We were greeted with complementary glasses of elderberry Prosecco. We were taken through several small rooms, then through a large room decorated like a garden, large trees all around with interesting lights hanging, and paper cutouts of birds flying around. The ceiling was glass. A live duo was performing. We decided to sit in the adjoining room so we could talk. Stu ordered black current beer. I thought it was good, probably because it didn’t taste like beer. Laura and I started with truffle cream soup which was fabulous and Stu had tiny whole fish which were fried and served in a paper cone. Our entrees were equally imaginative and good. We were so stuffed, dessert was out of the question, but we were brought tiny banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Of course we managed to eat them. On the way out we passed at least four tables where EVERYONE was on their mobile devices. No one was talking. What a waste.

The taxi came and brought us back in about five minutes. It took over ten to get to the restaurant, because Budapest has a system of one way streets which makes it difficult to get from one place to another.

I did notice today that except for the area around the synagogue and the ruins market, the streets were virtually empty. Because it’s Sunday? We will find out tomorrow.

I’ve got to set the alarm, we are meeting our guide at 9.