What a Chaotic day in Hungary

 

‘They said that, of course, Budapest is beautiful. But it is in fact almost ludicrously beautiful.’ – Anthony Bourdain

Day 1 ( Pest )

After visiting Prague, we headed to Budapest, Hungary with 2 separate transportation. Train and Bus, we crossed Poland, Austria and Slovakia. After 3,5 hour ride by train, we stopped at one of the stations in Slovakia to continue our ride with Bus. We thickened our jackets because there was snow and rain. We waited for our bus while grabbing a cup of Coffee in the coffee machine inside the terminal. Macchiato was the best option in this kind of situation. After waiting for almost an hour, our bus has arrived. We were so exhausted and sleepy. Thank God that there was an empty seat in the Bus. Each of us can sleep properly with 2 seats hahhahaha

Our ride was around 3 hours and finally we arrived at Budapest City. We stopped in the Burger King and looked for WiFi nearby while ordering a Coffee again. After gathering information from locals about purchasing a Tram and Metro ticket, we headed to our Hostel in the Budapest city central. The metro was cozy and classic compared to Berlin and Paris Lol. Before we went straight to our Hostel, we stopped at Money Changer first since Hungary used Hungarian Forint for the currency even though they were a member of the European Union. And to be honest, Hungary is one of the affordable countries in Eastern Europe compared to countries in Western Europe. After getting plenty of Hungarian Forint, we headed to our Hostel by Tram.

After a 5 minute ride, we arrived at our Hostel. Our Hostel was located in the city center. It’s on the 3rd floor of a big apartment building on the Budapest main road. Classic and homey. We booked a Hostel that included a kitchen that we can use for cooking our own meals. After re-charge our energy for a while, we were preparing ourselves for a city tour that was already on our bucket list. Cannot wait for that. Our first list was the Hungarian Parliament Building. The most beautiful Parliament building according to me. 

Budapest’s Tram, The Parliament Building 

We planned to buy a Tram’s ticket but sadly the ticket machine was nowhere to be found in the public place. In Budapest or maybe most of the countries in Europe, we can buy tram and metro tickets with one way tickets, 24 hours, 48 hours or 72 hours tickets. Since we could not get that damn ticket we decided to ride the Tram without tickets. But unfortunately, there was a ticket checking man who approached us and we were not able to show our tickets to him. They stopped us at the next stop and were interrogated by them. They even took our residence permits and passports. Because we were on the wrong side and those were our mistakes. Then we need to pay them 8000 Hungarian Forint or 32 Euro to get our residence permits and passport back. In the end we were looking for tram and metro tickets to the nearest Station.

With a heavy heart, we let our money go and we got knowledge from the incident when we headed to the Budapest Parliament building. The first time we saw it, we were amazed and speechless. I am so dumbfounded. This is the most beautiful parliament building I’ve ever seen in my life. It was really a beautiful building with gothic architecture. It was dominated by creamy and white color. There is a Hungarian flag in every corner of the building. On the east side, there was the Hungarian revolution memorial in 1856 and Francis II Rákóczi statue . We sat on a bench in the garden while enjoying the winter wind and beautiful scenery around us.

After taking plenty of time to sit on the bench, we headed to the Christmas Market and music festival in Budapest while we were looking for souvenirs from this city. We strolled the Christmas market until midnight and enjoyed the beautiful Christmas ornaments in the city. We took several pictures before we went back to the Hostel. We need energy to charge after the incident today. Hahhaha

Before heading to the Hostel, we went to SPAR (Supermarket you usually find within Europe) to buy some groceries because we plan to cook in the Hostel. We bought pasta, bread, pasta sauce, Nutella and some fruits for our next trip to Bratislava.

Christmas Ornament and Budapest’s words

Day 2 ( Buda )

When the night passed and morning came. We got ourselves ready for the day. We went to the kitchen and cooked Pasta for our lunch and made bread and coffee for our breakfast to begin our last day in Budapest. We ate our breakfast while having a conversation with the other guest. After we packed our stuff, we said goodbye and thank you to the Hostel’s receptionist during our stay in the Hostel as we went to the Budapest Nyugati Railway Station to board out our suitcase on the Railway station. After we got our suitcases safe with a 3 euro locker, we went to the Buda side.

The Chain Bridge

But sadly today's weather is not good. Windy and rainy in the morning until afternoon. We put an extra scarf to wrap ourselves in this cold day. Our first destination was Fisherman Bastion and Buda Castle. So Budapest was a combination of two areas, Buda and Pest. Buda area was on the hills while Pest is in the lower area. And both of the areas are separated by the Danube River with a beautiful Chain Bridge. On the first day, we had already explored the Pest area, so this second day we are exploring the Buda area. We took a bus from Pest to Buda to the Fisherman Bastion. It was a Neo Gothic and Neo Roman architecture building beside Mathias Cathedral. And the weather worsened there. We went to the Cafe nearby to grab a cup of  Coffee to warm up our cold day. After a while, we went to the Fisherman Bastion balcony with 1 Euro. In the balcony we got mesmerized by the scenery in front of us. From the Buda area, we can see a whole Pest area. The parliament building itself was a magical sightseeing but sadly it was shadowed by the haze. 

Fisherman Bastion

After a while, we went to the Mathias Cathedral. It was a beautiful Cathedral with a green, orange and white color on the rooftop. There was an owl show in front of the Cathedral.  But we decided not to explore the inside as we headed to the Buda Castle 500 meters away from the Cathedral. 

Mathias Cathedral

The Buda castle is still operating today. You can visit and have a tour of the entire castle and the museum. And we are lucky we can see a guard changing ceremony as in Buckingham Palace. From this Castle, we can see the mystical Chain bridge across the Danube River. After a lot of sightseeing we decided to wait for our bus to bring us back to the Pest area. After riding about 5 minutes by Bus. We went again to explore Chain Bridge to kill our remaining times in Budapest while waiting for our Train to Slovakia in the night. 

Tips :

• Make sure you bought a Tram and Metro ticket if you do not want to waste your money. 

• Almost all Hungarians (middle aged/old people) cannot speak English well.

• Budapest is an affordable city with beautiful views you must visit.

With love,

Elviera 💛