Day 3: Budapest

Breakfast. Just as good as yesterday. Enough said.

I arranged to have a private guide for the morning. Interestingly the cost was less than paying for a group tour for the three of us. It was a good lesson to learn, and I arranged to have a guide in Prague as well.

At 9 we met Silvia in the lobby. She was so perky and charming and I knew we would have a good time. She led us to the van we would use and introduced us to the driver.

Budapest is huge and having the van would get us around the main sights.

We crossed the river to the Buda side and went up the Gellert hill which is topped by the Citadel (19th century) and walked around it to see the great views of Pest across the river. Buda is very hilly and Pest is flat. As we walked around the Citadel, Silvia pointed out bullet holes in the stonework. She said if you look up to the second story of a lot of buildings you can still see bullet holes from WW2.

We drove partway down the hill and stopped at a church built into a cave. Interesting and cool as the day was heating up.

We had to take a look at the Gellert Spa which was just across the road. Yesterday, Laura, Stu and I had a hard time selecting which spa to choose, settling on Széchenyi. Gellert is all Art Deco and would have been a good choice except for the fact they had no beer spa!
They do, however, have mud treatments which I think they might be considering for tomorrow. Oy. It is attached to a hotel which is a bit faded. Sylvia said it had been bought by a hotel chain and there are plans for complete renovation.

We were then driven up to the Castle Hill and walked through a lovely square then over to a shady promenade overlooking the river. It was beautiful. A photographer was taking pictures of a bride and groom. Great dress. We walked over to see the Mathias Church which has a wonderful painted tile roof, then to Fishermen’s Bastion, a very crowded lookout point.

What you have to keep in mind while seeing all of the buildings in Budapest, is that they were all destroyed during the war and then rebuilt. On the Pest side, they are 4-5 stories high, with balconies and architectural pieces which are copies of what was there before the war. The style is called Neo Italian Renaissance. The historical buildings on both sides are all re-creations as well.

We drove back across the river and were dropped off in front of Saint Stephen’s Basilica, the second largest church in Hungary. It is spectacular, incredible marble work and even a relic of St. Stephen’s hand. If you put a coin in the slot next to the reliquary, it lights up and you can see the fingers.

We walked over to Liberty Square where there is a fountain made up of jets of water formed in a square. The water goes up and down. The trick to getting inside the square, through the water fountains, is to stand for a second or two in front of the water. There is a sensor that then turns the fountain off so you can walk into the middle. However not everyone has Sylvia to tell them about this and plenty of people were getting wet!

It is in front of the last Russian statue remaining in Budapest. The story is that it was not removed to a park about 20 miles from Budapest where all the Soviet statues were taken because there are unknown Russian soldiers buried underneath.

There is a life size statue of Ronald Reagan striding forward with outstretched hand. It is supposed to be striding towards a statue of Gorbachev. The tradition here is not to put up statues until those commemorated are dead. When Gorbachev dies, it will be put in place.

We said goodbye to Sylvia and walked over to a famous strudel restaurant and sat at an outdoor table. There are so many restaurants and cafés with sidewalk tables. It’s very continental! We were all hangry and not particularly communicative and it took a while for a waiter to take our order. I had a spinach strudel, Laura had a salad, Stu had a tomato and onion salad. But of course we shared two dessert strudels, one poppyseed and one sour cherry with chocolate chili sauce.

I was able to gather enough strength to walk with Laura and Stuart over to the river to see the very poignant Shoes on the Danube memorial. You’ll just have to read about it.

I decided Laura and Stuart need some time away from me, so they gave me a map and showed me how to walk back to the hotel. And they took off together on the tram. (Probably giggling like children.)

It was hot! But I had an icy bottle of water waiting for me in the hotel. And I even went against my highest principle and took a bag of potato chips from the mini bar. I decided my body needed the salt and fat so they wouldn’t count. Luckily, it was only a dollar or so. I’m sure at the Ritz Carlton I would not have treated myself. Can you imagine the prices of the food in the mini bar there?

Laura and Stu spent the rest of the afternoon trying out the tram and metro system (they approve) and did some shopping and got a Thai foot massage. Laura wasn’t impressed, she said she felt worse walking out than when she walked in.

We went out to dinner at a Greek restaurant a block from the hotel. Stu did his homework and said that this place, Mazi, was one of the top rated of any restaurant in Budapest.

What an incredible meal!! We decided to order a lot of starters instead of main courses. Tzatziki, fava beans with caramelized onions, roasted beets with garlic, lamb and veal kabob with sour cherry yogurt (not a kabob as we know them but a little meatball shaped like a cocktail frank), baked feta cheese (the absolute best) and an arugula salad with sun dried tomatoes and goat cheese. A platter of warmed pita triangles with olive oil accompanied this.

We swooned. Of course eating this way allows you to have dessert. The waiter chose for us: baklava made with just pistachios, no inferior nuts like walnuts, and a hot semolina pudding-like center flavored with orange in phyllo dough. The waiter brought a complementary platter of three small scoops of sour cherry ice cream and the baklava was served with a scoop of ice cream as well. I can just about guarantee that you have never tasted anything so good. Including drinks, the whole tab came to $50. Restaurant eating here is good value! We decided the lunch time restaurant just couldn’t compete.

If you are ever in Budapest, do yourself a favor and stop by Mazi.

I love to look at the way words are translated. I saw a good one yesterday when we were in the area of the synagogue. A restaurant said it served “milky meals.” It took me a minute to figure out that it was a dairy restaurant.

Stu called the cruise company today to find out where the boat would be docked. We got the exact location. There are river cruise boats docked all up and down the river. It turns out we can drop our suitcases off after 11 though we can’t board until 4. But the mooring is right by the Central Market a stop we were planning on making tomorrow. We can leave our bags and not worry about returning to the hotel for them. Brilliant!

I’ve enjoyed our stay at Hotel Parliament and am looking forward to our next adventure.

Love,
Lynn