One more week in Budapest

So one more week in Hungary then... Unfortunately, our bosses decided we'd had enough luxury for one trip, so they moved us from our fancy Continental Hotel to more "reasonable" accommodation - that is a Best Western Hotel, located near the magnificent main train station - which dates back to 1884. (Wikipedia tells me it's built in the "Eclectic style", whatever that is...).

The Best Western Hotel was another Budapest institution steeped in history - this was the biggest hotel in Budapest during the communist era, and hosted many important people from the communist block. The place has obviously been revamped since, and I certainly preferred this place over the Ibis hotel where we stayed during the first week (especially as the location was more central).

The week was pretty uneventful, as we continued exploring Budapest at evening after work. My opinion about the fact that Budapest is a pretty cool place was reinforced. I met Steve again, with another fellow Finn, in Gozsdu Udvar. We tried some Jewish/middle-eastern food in a rather nice restaurant in the Jewish quarter called Mazel Tov (located in a rather nicely redone warehouse building). We also had a nice "team building event" with our customer in a Hungarian wine bar (yes, Hungary produces rather decent wines - the most famous one being the sweet Tokai white wine) - in Gozsdu Udvar again (where else?).

On our last night, I decided to head off for a bit of a private walk before dinner, to put my SLR camera into good use. After exploring the impressive train station for a bit, I made my way over to Városliget, the city park. It's a pretty impressive public park, measuring 302 acres in total. It's home to the impressive-looking Vajdahunyad Castle (it was built here in 1896 to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of the Magyar invasion of the Carpathian basin - the architecture has been inspired by several Hungarian landmarks from all over the country).

The park is also home to the famous Széchenyi Thermal Bath - possibly the most famous bath institution in Budapest (no time to visit this time, I'm afraid). Next to the park is also the grandiose Hero's square. The square was also built in 1896 to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the Magyar invasion. The square is populated  by statues of the leaders of the seven Magyar tribes and other important leaders - the tomb of the unknown soldier is also located here.

From Heroes Square, I walked down Andrassy Utca, an impressive boulevard lined with impressive townhouses, and quite a few embassies. I then made my way back to the hotel, from where my colleagues joined me as we headed over for our last dinner in Budapest (snif). For the occasion, we selected a Ukrainan (!?) bistro - purely based on trying to find a well-rated restaurant not too far from the hotel. It was a nice enough place, located on an atmospheric little square - a pity the food was a bit disappointing (no complaints about the Russian vodka ;-) ).

After dinner, I continued my photography tour on my own. Budapest is quite an enchanting city by night as well. My walking tour took a parallel street to the river towards the North taking in some major sights like the Budapest Opera house and the impressive St. Stephen's Basilica (the Roman catholic cathedral of Budapest).

Of course I'd seen the impressive Parliament house already by daytime, but the place is certainly sufficiently impressive to also merit a night-time visit. And indeed, the parliament building is possibly even more impressive by night time, lit up as it is. And I got the place all to myself, basically, as there were no tourists around this time at night.

The Parliament house done, I walked back the way I came, along the Danube this time. A very impressive sight as well, at night. I got some pretty splending views towards the main sights on the Buda sight.

All in all, a very nice way to finish off a rather tiring, but rewarding visit of one of the prettiest and liveliest European capitals. Must come back for a proper touristy visit!

A weekend in the Hungarian capital

If there was one good thing about us having to stay in Budapest for one more week, it was the fact that we could leave our Hotel Ibis for something more central and classy. So we were rather happy to check out of our hotel this Saturday morning.

OK, so the flip-side of the coin was that it was Saturday, and we had to go to the office again. We were, after all, here to work, rather than enjoy ourselves, right? ;-) Anyway, after "another day at the office", our Hungarian associates were kind enough to take us out for a meal to, as Kamillo, one of our hosts put it: "a restaurant for programmers, not managers". Sounds like my kind of place ;-) So The place (located on the Buda side, where we had not yet ventured)  was indeed excellent. Good, hearty Hungarian dishes for rather reasonable prices. And plenty of beer to go with it ;-)

After the meal, we headed to the hotel - which I confirm was a rather classy affair - Continental Hotel Zara. It's located in an impressive, almost scarily Gothic historic building, which to house one of the most prestigious spas in Budapest. The rooms were rather classy compared to what we had in the Ibis hotel. There was even a spa at the rooftop. So pretty darn classy, then! Needless to say, it was way out of the budget range for our travel policy (but I think seeing as we had to stay for one week more, a gesture like this was the least they could do).

Anyway, enough about the hotel - I had beer to drink! The plan was to meet an old mate from Guildford, England for a few drinks at his favourite haunt, at Gozsdu Udvar. Gozsdu Udvar is a kind of covered pedestrian street, filled with bars and restaurants. It kind of summarizes why Budapest is such a great place to go out and have fun. Steve, who moved to Hungary a few years ago, certainly seems to have acclimatized well to his life in Budapest! (he even gets a discount at the bar we went to!). Needless to say, we had quite a few beers catching up on the good old times in Guildford ;-)

I woke up on Sunday, kind of surprised to find I didn't even had a bad headache ;-). After a rather classy breakfast at our classy hotel, I met up with D.B. and Philippe to head out for a bit of a walk. A bit of a walk indeed, as we decided to walk all the way across to Buda to pick up the car, which we'd left by the restaurant the day before (drinking and driving is a bad idea in Hungary - they have a zero promille limit for that!).

We (or at least I was!) were once again struck by what a pretty city Budapest is. The Pest side has managed to retain pretty much all its historic buildings, and these days (unlike 20 years ago, when I first came here), they are in a pretty good state of repair. Still, Budapest still has still retained enough of it's exotic post-communist charm (not sure that's the right word for it) to be a pretty refreshing and different place to visit compared to Western European cities, which can sometimes be boringly similar.

Where Budapest is at its most  beautiful is, of course, by the Danube river. On a sunny day like today, Budapest really looked stunning as seen from the Margit bridge. The Pest side is, of course, dominated by the stunning Parliament building. And on the Buda side, the beautiful Castle Hill, which groups a lot of the Buda side's historic attractions (including, of course, the castle). We walked across to the Buda side, and walked up towards Castle hill.

Our walk first took us up to the fisherman's bastion. The fisherman's bastion is a rather fancy terrace constructed next to the Matthias church. The viewing platform with its 7 towers (representing the seven Magyar tribes that originally came to Hungary) is so named after the guild of fisherman that was responsible for defending this stretch of the city walls during medieval times. The views from up there towards the Danube river are rather stunning.

After checking out the impressive Gothic Matthias church (we didn't go inside, as there was an entrance fee...), we carried on along castle hill to the castle. Again, we didn't really have time to visit, so just admired the impressive exterior, and the continued beautiful views over the Danube.

We continued our scenic walk by passing through the Citadel, which is located on top of Gellert Hill. It's a rather interesting military structure dating back to the 19th century - looks like something that could've been built by Vauban. From there, we finished our Buda-Danube side walk at the famous Art Nouveau Gellert Hotel - a luxury hotel known for its spa (which I visited when I came here about 20 years ago). The hotel looks a wee bit run down actually, even if it's still a sight to behold.

From there, a 20 minute or so walk down a rather nondescript boulevard brought us back to the car. After a spot of shopping in a shopping mall (the hotel laundry service wasn't available during the weekend, and at least I was out of clean underwear!), we headed back to the hotel for lunch. We picked a nice burger restaurant called Tuning Bar & Burgers. As the name suggests, they specialize in burgers - and some excellent ones at that! Yummie.

The rest of the day we spent chilling out - I took the opportunity to do a bit of swimming in the roof top pool. A bit of sport was just what I needed !

For dinner, we headed to a nearby garden restaurant - where we once again had rather excellent food. I must say, that the Budapest culinary offering has rather improved over the years. And it's still great value for money!

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).

Hungarian Road Trip

After a couple of days spent exploring Budapest, it was time to see what else Hungary had to offer. We’d booked a rather cheap car for the purpose – a Skoda that had seen better days, but did the job for us perfectly.

After leaving Budapest, we headed south, direction Lake Balaton. Lake Balaton is the biggest lake in Hungary, and one of the biggest ones in Europe – and a favourite summer holiday destination for Hungarians (and a fair few Austrian and German as well). Before arriving at the lake, we made a stop at Veszprem, one of the more historic and picturesque towns in Hungary. The old town is rather picturesquely located on a hilltop, with its cobblestone streets and historic buildings, dating back to the 18th and 19th century. Our walk took us through the old part of town, into the more modern part of town. We found a nice enough eatery, where we had lunch (more goulash soup, yippee!).

Our next stop was Tihany, on Lake Balaton. Tihany is a peninsula jutting out into the lake, classified as a historic district. Tihany is also the name of the village that sits on the peninsula, which is famous for its Benedictine abbey, founded all the way back in 1055. The current baroque church dates back to the 18th century. I and Philippe decided to pay the entry fee and check out the church and the museum, which is kind of interesting from a historical point of view. The views from the church over the lake are pretty cool too. Having checked out the church, and visited the nearby tourist shops (and let’s not forget the marzipan museum either – I liked the miniature marzipan version of the abbey), we made our way down to the lake.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find a good beach for swimming (the lido, which would’ve done the job, was closed for some unknown reason). But the stroll around the lake was still pretty nice. For dinner, we decided to go for some real traditional Hungarian food, in Ferenc Pince Csárda. It was a very good choice indeed – everything was pretty much perfect (the wine, cuisine, the views over the lake, and the company of course!). Should you ever find yourself at Lake Balaton, dear reader, I seriously recommend this place!

We started the next day with a very refreshing swim in the lake – I mean we couldn’t very well visit Lake Balaton without having a swim in the lake, could we? We then made our ways northwards, direction Pannonhalma. We had planned to visit the famous monastery, but decided to abort our visit due to our somewhat busy schedule (we did have a nice walk around the monastery though).


We arrived at our final destination for the day, Esztergom, late afternoon. After checking in at our hotel, we started visiting the place, whilst we still had some daylight to enjoy. Esztergom is one of the famous “Danube bend towns”, located just north of Budapest, on the right-hand side of the Danube (which forms the border with Slovakia here). The main sight at Esztergom is the famous cathedral, the biggest in Hungary, and the seat of the catholic church of Hungary.

So naturally, we started out visit by checking out this impressive building, rather dramatically situated on a hill, overlooking the Danube and the town. The church is a truly impressive sight, especially when seen from the Danube. We started by gaping at the impressive interior, and then walked up to the top of the church. The views from up there over the town & the Danube were truly astounding. We finished our visit by checking out the big bell, and actually heard it strike as well.

After a brief walk in the old parts of Esztergom, we decided to cross the Danube into Slovakia – why not have our apero in another country? The walk across the bridge was well worth the effort, as we had some pretty amazing views of the cathedral and the old town. The town on the Slovakian side of the border, Sturovo, isn’t very interesting from a tourist’s point of view, but well, at least we can say we’ve been to Slovakia now (and no complaints about the beer we had there, either!)

For dinner, we decided to go for yet another traditional Hungarian restaurant, the Csulok Csarda. Like the night before, we ate well, and in very cozy surroundings. But still, I have to say, I preferred the restaurant at Tihany.

The next day, it was time to head back to Budapest – as Philippe and Aniko had a train to catch to the west of Hungary. We did have time to make a brief stop at Szentendre, another one of the Danube bend towns. Szentendre for its artist connections – and for good reason. It’s a truly picturesque town, with its cobble-stoned streets, numerous churches (including a few Serbian Orthodox ones – the seat of the Hungarian orthodox church is located here). It’s a pity we didn’t have a lot of time to spend here, but well, unfortunately we were in a bit of a hurry.

We arrived in Budapest, and had time to drop off our rental car and have a coffee, before Philippe and Aniko had to catch their train. After saying our good-byes, I and Mathilde continued our exploration of Budapest on our own. We decided to spend the afternoon exploring Memento Park – a rather interesting little place dedicated to the communist past of Budapest. Basically it’s a park outside Budapest, where they have put some of the “grandiose” statues from the communist era. There was also a rather entertaining ÁVH (the Hungarian secret police during the communist years) training film for secret agents.

Thursday was sadly our last day in Hungary. We decided to go for a bit of more communist nostalgia, and visit the house of Terror – a kind of museum dedicated to the victims of the communist regime – rather fittingly located in the former ÁVH headquarters. It was a pretty good museum, a bit more serious than Memento Park, and interestingly also draws parallels between the activities of the fascists before and during World War II and the communist regime that followed. Not a very uplifting way to end our visit to Hungary, perhaps, but I think a needed reminder of a rather dark period of Easter European history… (although I think sometimes the message was rubbed in rather un-subtly…).

All in all, it was a fantastic nostalgia trip for me, and I believe Mathilde also enjoyed our short escapade very much. A huge thanks to Aniko for showing us around her country (and to Philippe for posing for all my silly photos)!

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 ;-)