Backpacker adventures in Budapest, Hungary
May 25th, 2007
A little late, but better than never.
After leaving Bulgaria we headed to Bucahrest, Romania for a couple of days and on to Sighişoara home of Vlad Tepes. Bucharest was not that great however although Sighasora was small the staff at Nathans Villa Hostel made us both feel very welcome. Sarah will post more about those experiences very soon.
From Sigisora we took an overnight train with Maya (friend we met an Sighişoara) to Budapest and arrived nice and early at 10am and left our bags in left luggage at the station. We grabbed a quick omlete, with Hungarian Salami of course, from good old McDonalds and then headed towards Budapests main city park a partake in one of Sarahs favourite pass times, relaxing in a thermal mineral bath.
We chose the Széchenyi Spa, the largest thermal bath in Budapest. The neo-baroque baths where built in 1913 after its springs where discovered in 1879, the deepest and warmest wells in Budapest. The spa complex is a vast complex of indoor and outdoor pools and saunas and is considered the premier medicinal bath on the Pest side of the city.
We paid our entry fee (approx 10,000 HFL) which included entry to all the pools and made our way up to our little cubicle. We quickly got changed in to our swimmers and headed deeper into the complex. We made our way to the first pool with a temperature of 30 degrees and waded in to relax our tired bodies after another rough night on the train. I closed my eyes briefly and when I opened them I was confronted by an overweight elderly man in bright purple speedos, wearing a gold chain; not the start I was looking for.
That experience was a good enough excuse to change pools to a warmer 38 degree pool just around the corner. We continued to explore the pools for another three hours finding extra saunas, even hotter indoor mineral pools, three large heated outdoor pools and most importantly an ice cream vendor. Feeling suitably refreshed and looking like prunes Sarah and I called it a day and decided to explore more of Budapest.
Budapest is a beautiful city with many treelined boulevards to wander through. We spent the rest of the day admiring the old buildings and the Dambue River. We had to meet our couchsurfing host at 6pm so we jumped on a couple of trains and headed to the stop closest to his apartment. A short walk around the corner followed by a small wait and we where eventually greeted with “Hello Aussies!”.
Quick Tip 1: If you plan to use the metro in Budapest beware of the ticket inspectors. They target travellers so make sure you buy a ticket and validate it before you step onto the platform.
We stayed with Yuri for three nights who provided us with great insight into Hungarian politics, history and the business of importing Pashminas from India.
Our second day in Budapest was similar to the first… more walking. We headed to the Citadel on top of Gellért Hill and visited three of the bridges that cross the Dambue.
On our third day after seeing all the sites with no local knowledge we took a bike tour through the city, it proved to be a great move. Our guide fully explained the affect that communism has on Hungary and the economic state of the country. He discussed the relevance of many of the monuments as well as important pieces of architecture.
After riding all day we where quite tired so we headed back to Yuris house for a rest and dinner knowing the next day we would be travelling 4 hours by train to Lake Balaton for a relaxing three days.
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