We took an overnight flight to Hungary from NYC and got a surprisingly good amount of sleep on the plane. By the time we got to our hostel and settled in a bit, it was lunchtime. Our hostel was kind of strange- we had a twin private room, and apparently the private rooms are in a completely separate building down the street, in an apartment building. While we were weirded out at first, it was pretty nice to essentially have our own apartment with a bathroom, kitchen, and living room.
One of the workers in the hostel gave us a lunch recommendation, but we arrived there only to find that they were closed for vacation. August is kind of a universal holiday month throughout Europe, so many family-run establishments close down. This ended up being fortunate, because we instead stumbled upon an all-you-can-eat-and-drink place down the road. We got to try stuffed paprika, goulash, venison, and all kinds of other Hungarian foods. Plus, unlimited wine! I would have taken a picture but we were too hungry to think about that kind of thing.
Once we thoroughly stuffed ourselves, we set off for the tourist area of the Buda Castle District. On our way we stopped at St. Istvan's Basilica, which is pretty massive:
The interior is incredibly beautiful as well:
We took a little elevator-type thing up the steep hill to the castle district. This area is full of tiny medieval roads, pretty churches, and old buildings:
It also has Fisherman's Bastion, which looks like a fairytale castle and has awesome views of the Pest side of the city:
After soaking in the awesome views for a while, we headed back to the hostel. On the way we saw the Dohany Synagogue:
We saw a cemetery attached to it, and noticed that all of the dates of death were in 1945- a grim reminder of the city's horrific past. Once we made it to the hostel, we gathered our stuff and headed off to the famous Szechenyi baths. These are hot mineral baths around thermal springs and the facility includes indoor sauna areas and a couple outdoor pools. Since we were going late in the evening, only the outdoor pools were open, but they were more than worth the trip:
There were three pools: a giant hot tub (38 degrees), a lap pool, and a warm pool with jets and currents throughout it. We spent a couple hours just relaxing in these with the many tourists and locals spending their evening the same way. By the time we left, it was too late to grab dinner in a restaurant anywhere, so we settled for some gyros, which are found all throughout the city at all hours of the night. We went to bed at a responsible hour to get ready for our travels the following day.
Next post: an afternoon in Vienna
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