Budapest - caves, baths, wine, Pálinka and oh so much walking!



View from hostel window. Lots of damage and bullet holes.



I’ve been delaying writing about Budapest, Hungary. I’m finding it very hard to try sum up this amazing city. I suppose a good place to start is the story that one of the guides gave on the communist walking tour that I did. She woke up one morning and looked outside her window only to find that a movie set had been built on her street – she was looking at a re-creation of the Berlin wall. The buildings in the area of down town are a mottled bunch – most of which have not been renovated since the 1950’s rebellion (I think I have the facts right) where students took to the streets in protest of the communist government. A fire-fight ensued and many of the buildings you can still see bullet holes in the walls. Every now and again you can see a number of bullet holes on a building at head height and you know what happened there. Now days, the country is democratic and some streets are approached by the movie industry as a good place to find a fairly authentic set for war period dramas.

Matthias Church

But I’m skipping ahead – I arrived in Budapest train station where I met up with my friend Ash and her husband Dezso. My most recent friend to get married... (Congrats!). The photographs of the wedding were truly stunning!



Matthias Church

We worked our way through the public transport system – metros and trains to get to the place where Dezso’s friends would pick us up. I had a really stunning evening with them, and they were kind enough to allow me to spend the night. It was also amazing to see Ash again – especially after so many “quick meet people and then they leave” situations. It was good to have a friend that has known all my quirks for ages.



View of the Parliment buildings



So, on arrival, I was offered a shot of Pálinka. This is a strong liqueur that can be made from a variety of fruits. I believe the one I was offered was from grapes. It’s a highly distilled drink, home-made and very potent (especially since I hadn’t really had any lunch) and is very typically Hungarian. It warms you down to your toes! The walking tour guide the next day mentioned that this home-made liqueur can be as high at 50 – 70% alcohol. Don’t think this was quite that high, but it did have a kick!

Parliment

The family I was staying with made a goulash dish for dinner over an open fire in their backyard. This one was a pork based dish with veggies.  Hungarian goulash is thinner than a stew, very tasty and served with pickles and bread (as everything seems to be in Hungary). Yum! I love open fire cooking. Also, they had two cherry trees in their garden as snacks before dinner and they sent me away with the most massive bag of cherries ever! After dinner it was a lovely glass of red wine and chatting. (One of the secrets of Hungary is their wine region which is really fabulous). Many thanks Ash, Dezso and to your friends and their amazing hospitality! I had a lovely evening and am very grateful for it.

Hole in Hungarian flag
Cutting out communism

So, after a night with friends I had to make my way from the non-touristy area where shrugs were given where English was spoken, to the tourist area where English is sometimes understood.

The metro system is also very strict in Budapest – you have to have the right ticket and they always check it. If it’s wrong they fine you. It’s aimed to catch the tourists supposedly. So, a bit of a challenge to get this right the first time without speaking the language. But thanks to some guidance given by Ash and Dezso I seemed to manage ok.

Finding my hostel was an interesting affair as I wondered exactly what neighbourhood I had arrived in. As mentioned earlier, a number of the buildings have bullet holes in them and are that deep grey colour of smoke. Also, there is a fair amount of graffiti around. But the hostel (when I found it) was clean and lovely inside and I was assured that this was a safe area. (I have to admit, once I knew a little about the city, I felt very safe there.) Everything was pretty much in walking distance, but the Metros certainly made the walking shorter. I think I averaged about 10 km at least a day in this city.

View of Buda side of river

Hungary is only very recently a democratic society, I believe that the communist regime ceased only in 1989. The parliament buildings are stunning and I believe one meter longer than Westminster Hall in London and they are very similar styles. It seems a case of “my parliament building is bigger than your parliament building”. But the building really does stand out on the river and is a beautiful sight.

Interesting fact, Budapest was originally two towns that combined. The “castle” side of the city was called Buda and the other side was called Pest (Pronounced Pesht).

Parliment

So, what is there to do in Budapest? Well, the free walking tours were fascinating, both the old city tour and the communist tour. Have to say I really enjoy the free tours (and then you tip what you feel like) as the tour guides really have to be interesting and hold your attention. They also know a number of facts and tell you everything from how to work the public transport system to how to say a toast in Hungarian and which local wines are good. More than anything, they give you an idea what you want to spend your time exploring further. They seem to run in most cities in Europe.

On the walking tour we also explored the Pest side of the river, walked over the famous bridge and then explored a bit of the castle area on the Buda side of the river.  There’s no actual castle here but rather the Royal Palace, an underground labyrinth cave (which at some point in the evening they turn off all the lights and you can walk around lost with an olden day lamp, scary music playing in the background). I chose not to do this one – I just utilised their free bathrooms and water and tea on offer that not many tourists seem to know about.

I love to hear about legends of a place – and Hungary has a rather nice simple one that the walking tour guide told us. Long ago, the Hungarian people originated from the Mongolia area of the world and trekked to Hungary. It was said that they followed a type of bird (like an eagle) who was carrying a sword. Where the sword fell, there the Hungarians settled. There’s now a statue in the palace with this large bird and the legendary sword.

 

St Stephen's Basilica





View from St Stephen's



View from St Stephen's





Climbing the Basilica



Hungary is mainly Catholic and the main church in Budapest is St Stephen’s Basilica. It’s really beautiful inside! St Stephen was the first Christian King of Hungary. It’s also known for the relic that the church holds – the mummified fist of St Stephen. You can still see this on display if you deposit a bit of money into a box, the light turns on for about 2 min and you can see the fist. And if you are travelling cheaply, you can wait for someone else to put their money in instead…

Inside St Stephen's



Also St Stephen’s has a stunning view from the top of the church. It was very interesting as there was a bit of a gallery on the way to the top. The paintings and drawings had a mixture of Christian symbolism, nature and medical surgery in each of them. It was an artist that specialises in drawings of surgery and then put his own spin on it. Some of it was just plain weird.



Into the darkness we go...

I also went caving in Budapest! Under the Buda side of the river are lime stone caves that stretch for ages under the city, the longest being 19 km long with a network estimated at over 100km. We were a group of about 15 – 20 people that went through the caves. It was very interesting – probably more so looking back on the experience. This is not something you should do if you’re claustrophobic at all. I almost got stuck at one point. I blame it on woman’s hips… So some passages are very tight and you have to crawl through them – I mean belly slide through them using elbows and toes. I’m not too sure how some of the bigger men managed to get through – I suppose no hips!  Lots of fun.

Also it was a 2 – 3 story ladder you had to climb down order to get in and out of the caves. A ladder descending into darkness and when you looked down the first time you had no idea how long you would be climbing for! I was rather nervous about that – but it was firmly bolted into the rock and I actually ended up loving that bit.

It was really dark in the cave – you wore a lamp on your helmet and a big overall to protect against the mud. At one point we all turned our lamps off to get an idea of the darkness – it was darker than closing your eyes. The caves were made of lots of brown rock and were a little muddy. No stalactites or stalagmites in sight. A number of times you had to slide down passageways to get to the next chamber – sliding on your shoes as there were rocks at strategic places on the slide down and your bum would have been a bit sore otherwise. Others you had to climb up and some were through holes in the ceiling and were a bit slippery. Have to say is was quite fun getting into a chamber and guessing which impossibly small looking hole you would be using to move to the next cavern. The next day I discovered that I had used muscles that I didn’t know I had.

To ease the aching muscles, I decided to explore the healing waters of the Hungarian bath houses – famous places of relaxing waters. There are a number of hot springs in Budapest and so a number of different bath houses. I went to Széchenyi Baths which has various pools at different temperatures. A nice 24 degrees or warmer – really good – some even with bubbles coming up from the floor! The bath house was situated in a park, very pretty with a castle of sorts in it. It was open until 10pm when it’s only just dark – it really was a lovely place to spend the evening relaxing. And yes, swimming costumes and bikinis are a requirement, never fear!



Outside the Bath



Inside the Bath

Hungary also has a museum called the Terror museum which is mainly about the communist era and a bit about the second world war and the effect on Hungary. Hungary had a lot of Jewish people in it… I didn’t end up going to this as it was a really sad and quite dark museum situated in the house used by the secret police under Hitler then Stalin. I decided that I wanted a happier experience of Budapest, although I probably missed out on one of the main things to see.

Memorial for those who died

 

 

One thing I struggled to get used to was the currency. Hungarian Forints are much weaker than South African Rand and it took a little getting used to the fact that you could easily spend about 1000 Forints on a simple meal to 5000 Forints on a fancy two course meal with really good wine. For South African Rands, you have to divide by about 30. So… that is… um… about R33 to R166 on a meal. A good price for Europe.

 

I had a stunning duck breast with mint and mango sauce drizzled on the side with a truly stunning glass of red wine the one night. Well worth the spoil at this stage. Bread and cheese is normally the staple diet of the cheap-skate traveller! I got tired of this very quickly.

 

Hungarian food though is really fatty – I mean about 2000 calories per meal is what the guide suggested. I’m not a calorie counter so I take it that’s a lot. Someone suggested it was your preferred daily limit all in one meal! One of the typical Hungarian foods is fried bread – rather like a vetkoek, but flat with cheese and maybe tomato, pickles, onions, cucumber, salami of some type and whatever else you would like to put on it. Really rich – I only had half and I felt rather sick. At least I can console myself in that I did enough walking to get rid of what I was eating!

Church in Budapest

On Sunday I decided that I needed to find a church again. I ended up mentioning it at the hostel and two other girls decided that they wanted to come with. So, we ended up walking at pace (being late) and eventually finding a tiny evangelical English church – the International Church of Budapest. Again, they were singing songs I knew which was lovely. I’m not all that evangelical myself, but it was lovely to meet some of the Christians living in Budapest and I had a good chat with a couple of the ladies after the service – including another visitor from South Africa which was great.  They were a very small church – couldn’t be more than 20 - 30 local people when I was there. Maybe it was a Sunday where not many people came? The congregation was mainly North Americans and North Africans as members of the congregation. They don’t have a pastor, so one of the elders took the service.



Fisherman's Bastion



After this I walked down the river, geocaching and exploring the castle area. Among other things, there’s the Matthias church and the Fisherman's Bastion in the area. The Fisherman’s Bastion is a really beautiful section of wall with turrets, stairs and walking paths. It cost a little to get up to one of the sections of the wall which was a bit of a waste as if you snuck into a restaurant the other side of the terrace you also got great views. The Bastion looks over the Pest side of the river with all the bridges crossing it. Really beautiful. I believe that it was called this unusual title because the guild defending this section of wall in the middle ages was the Fisherman’s guild.

Travelling by yourself has its limitations. One of them is the random photos of yourself that you try to take (which I’m getting fairly good at). However, it’s always easier to ask people. Asking people also doesn’t require any English – you just smile point at your camera, then you and then at the view that you want in the background.

It normally works out quite well. However, some people just have no idea how to take a decent photo! So, on this wall I came across a group of Japanese men touring. Japanese are known to take tons of photos, so I figured that they would be pretty good at it. So I approached a person lagging behind the group and did my little mime to get a photo. This caused quite a stir and he ended up talking to his group in Japanese for about 5 min while taking what I thought was more than one photo. Then I had a couple of Japanese men come to take photos of me with their cameras. A bit like paparazzi – then one of them came to stand next to me and the camera’s all flashed again. So getting my camera back, I found … only one rather bad photograph with me and the view and one with me and a random Japanese man! Had to laugh at this one! I mean I always wonder what they do with a photograph of a random blond person and the view? Look I met a blond person! Do they think I come from Hungary? Maybe when I go to Japan (not this trip) I’ll be recognised!

I eventually ended up walking up to one of the best viewing points in Budapest. It was a proper tiring uphill walk through a park of sorts and through a fancy residential area to the Citadel. Well worth it at the end of the day because the views were amazing!

Shopping street

Indoor market

Summer fun

Main market

A ruined bar

Main park

Fisherman's bastion

View from Bastion

Famous chain bridge

View from the Citadel

Geocaching

The Citadel - symbol of freedom