Biz trip in Budapest

Recent business trips have been to places like Grenoble and Stuttgart. Not that I want to put down either of those places, both have their charms. But when I was called up to do customer support in Budapest, I thought, well, if I have to give customer support somewhere, Budapest would be quite high up on my wish list of places in Europe to go...

After a rather challenging organizational phase, myself and my dear colleagues Philippe and D.B. (the international man of mystery who does not want his true name to appear on my blog) were off on Tuesday night. We arrived rather late, picked up the rental car, and sped down to our Ibis hotel, located a few kilometres outside the city centre.

Things didn't start off well, as we slept rather badly due to thin walls and the tourist buses that headed off early in the morning. Philippe's laptop also broke down. In spite of our hotel not being very central, we decided to head into town for dinner. The area around the hotel didn't look particularly good as far as eating out was concerned, so... Before dinner, me and D.B. decided to check out the Parliament building which was located just by the restaurant we were planning to try.

The Parliament building is a rather impressive edifice, possibly the most popular tourist destination in Budapest (at least on the Pest side). The imposing Gothic revival building was completed in 1889, a few years after the city of Budapest was created by uniting the three cities of Buda, Pest and Obuda (old Buda). It's THE dominating landmark on the Danube river on the Pest side.

Having gaped at this architectural wonder, we headed off for dinner. Our first choice restaurant was unfortunately fully booked, but we found a relatively authentic-seeming Hungarian restaurant not far away. We tried a few of the main Hungarian specialities - pancakes (panascinta), goulash and of course the local beer and some Unikum (kind of a Hungarian version of Jagermeister) to finish off the meal. A good start to our business trip, then ;-)

The next evening, we decided to head into the town centre again for dinner. We chose another restaurant on the Buda side, just by the river, called Magyar Qtr. It was a bit of a modern bistrot-type place, serving Hungarian food with a modern twist. Interestingly enough, they served a lot of dishes - including starters - based on strawberries. This time we finished off the meal with Palinka - the other Hungarian staple liquor.

After the meal, we checked out the riverside by night time. Our short walk along the Pest side of the river, taking in the chain bridge, with beautiful views towards the Buda side, confirmed my already well-established opinion that Budapest is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Having spent one summer in Hungary nearly 20 years ago, I have very good memories of Budapest. Mind you, it's rather changed since 1997 (for the better, based on what I've seen so far!).

The weekend was approaching, but alas, that did not mean a trip back to France for us, as we were told by our customer and bosses that we needed to stay the following week too. Not something we were very happy about -  but I say again, if one must be stuck somewhere doing customer support, it might as well be Budapest!

As it was Friday night, we decided to splash out on a real gourmet meal. Following recommendations we got from the hotel staff, we headed off to Aszu Etterem. We struggled a bit to find parking near the restaurant due to a big concert taking place at the nearby park, but eventually managed. Really loved this restaurant - everything was top-notch here - the food, the service (the waiter even spoke French!) the wines. And the prices were more than reasonable, we would've paid at least twice as much for the same meal in France, I reckon.

After the meal, we walked around for a bit, and stopped for a beer. Our nightly walk took us past the impressive Synagogue. It's actually the biggest synagogue in Europe (and one of the biggest ones in the world), able to seat up to 3000 people. The synagogue is a reminder of one of the great tragedies of human history - at least 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazis during World War II. (most of them in Auschwitz).