Back in Budapest!

C’est les vacances! Holiday time! The first destination of this summer’s main holiday was Hungary. I was rather looking forward to this trip, since I haven’t been back to Hungary since the summer I spent working there, in Pecs, all the way back in 1997 (damn, time sure does fly, eh?). I was expecting a few changes to have occurred during the last 15 years…

After a bit of a delay with our connecting flight at Warsaw, we finally arrived in Budapest airport, from where we took a taxi to our flat in Pest (Pest is the new “half” of Budapest, located on the north side of the Danube, Buda being the old half, located on the south side), where we met up with our good friends Philppe and Aniko (Aniko, being Hungarian, was the designated guide for our trip). We arrived pretty late, but there is always time for a drink, so we made our way to a place Philippe and Aniko had scouted for us. It was a brilliant place, a so called ruin pub (basically an old abandoned building converted to a big bar, or rather a bar complex). There was even a nice old Trabant in the yard for decoration (one change I noticed immediately – the Trabants that ruled the streets in ’97 are pretty much completely gone – kind of sad from a nostalgia point of view, but good for the air quality, no doubt).

We started Saturday by checking out some of the classic sights of Budapest. After a brief walk through posh Pest, we crossed the Danube and made our way towards Varhegy, or castle hill. This little hilltop is where the Royal castle, and plenty of other historic buildings, are located. We wandered around there for a bit, and I and Philippe also tried our hand at some archery (I have to admit that Philippe beat me fair and square). After checking out the fisherman’s bastion (from where you get some pretty nice views across the river towards Pest, including of the famous parliament building), we made our way back down from the hill.

For the afternoon, we made a (as it turned out, misguided) attempt to go to the famous Szechenyi Bath. One of the cool things about Budapest is the spas that litter the town, really nice places with hot & cold swimming pools, saunas, often built with pomp and class. Szechenyi Bath is the most famous of the lot – I was really looking forward to going, since I didn’t make it there during the summer I worked in Hungary. We made the ill-fated decision to take only enough money to pay the entrance fee, and leave the wallets at the flat. Unfortunately, I thought the 500 forint bill I took was actually a 5000 forint one, which meant that we didn't have enough cash to get in… What's even more unfortunately is that we only realized this when we were about to pay the entrance fee (after about 1 hour's worth of waiting...). Well we did at least took in the imposing Heroes square, and walked down the Andrassy utca, “the Champs Elysee of Budapest”. This disappointment called for a stop at Gerbeaud, one of the most prestigious coffee houses in fancy Pest. This “cake and coffee” institution dates back all the way to the 19th century (apparently they have also opened a café in Tokyo). We certainly appreciated the cakes!

We were gutted enough about missing out on the Szechenyi Bath, that we decided to have another go at it on Sunday. And this time, we brought our wallets ;-). And good that we did – it was an absolutely fabulous experience! Hot pools, warm pools, saunas of various temperatures, all built in fabulous neo-baroque architecture (the baths date back to 1913).  Apparently the place is the biggest spa in Europe. As a nice bonus, we did a test to find out our biological age – turns out me and Mathilde are just out of our teens! (Mathilde came out as 21, me at 23).

Feeling all clean and relaxed, it was time for lunch. We chose a nice restaurant by a lake in the park next to the baths (with the very un-Hungarian name Robison’s), where we had a go at some Hungarian specialties (especially the goulash soup was a real delight). We then spent most of the afternoon walking around Pest, checking out the opera, then making our way towards the impressive parliament building. This giant construction took almost 20 years to complete and was, if memory serves me right, the largest parliament building in Europe or something like that, at the time (illusions of grandeur, perhaps, considering the size of Hungary?).

From there, we carried on exploring Pest, heading towards St. Stephen's Basilica. On the way, we came across a rather curious scene – a bunch of Germans were shooting a movie or something. It was pretty cool to follow the proceedings (especially for a movie fanatic such as myself!) – it was quite fascinating to see how much effort and coordination went into shooting what in the film will probably end up being about 20 or 30 seconds of footage (the film looks to be set in the 1^st half of the 20^th century, so a lot of effort went into accurately depicting the period feel).

Unfortunately, by the time we got to the Basilica, it was closed for visitors, so we had to content ourselves with observing the impressive exterior. The rest of the day we spent strolling about Pest. After a salad dinner in the flat, we checked out yet another Budapest ruin pub (this one located on the rooftop of a building, with quite nice panoramas over the city).

That brought an end to the first part of our Hungarian visit – as we continued our exploration of the country by car. A very nice couple of days indeed – and a nice shot of nostalgia for myself. I can confirm it, Budapest has for sure changed a lot over the last 15 years, and for the better, as far as I can tell. But I do miss those Trabants ;-)