Budapest at Best!

June 7th—We left the apartment fairly early this morning since we only had 2 days in Budapest. It was a warm, sunny day as we were leaving the apartment and walking towards the Great Synagogue. Our apartment is located in the Jewish Quarters so we were about a block away from the world’s second largest synagogue after New York’s. It was interesting walking into the synagogue because all the men, including Mike, were immediately handed a yamaka to wear. After walking through the synagogue, we went outside to the Tree of Life sculpture that was built on the site of mass graves of those killed by the Nazis. The willow tree makes an upside down menorah, each individual leaf lists the name of a victim, and pebbles represent prayers. We also walked through the Jewish museum which had very sad pictures of the victims in concentration camps. After leaving the synagogue, we walked down to the Vaci utca which is a hopping pedestrian boulevard that features Eastern Europe’s first McDonald’s. It was hard to convince the kids we were just looking at the McDonald’s not eating especially since it was getting close to lunch time. Speaking of lunch, we ended up walking to the end of Vaci utca to the Vorosmarty Square where Gerbeaud is located. Gerbeaud is the most famous restaurant in Budapest. We sat outside under big umbrellas which will become real important later on during our lunch. Gerbeaud is where we enjoyed our first Hungarian meal. Mike ordered a plate of Hungarian meats and I got a Hungarian salad. The part about the salad that made it Hungarian is that it had every kind of pepper (or to be correct I should call them paprikas) on it. Budapest is known for its paprika. It is used in a lot of different foods. Anyway, as we were eating, the clouds rolled in and it started raining. It wasn’t just sprinkling it was pouring down at times. This is when the big umbrella we were sitting under came into play. Since we weren’t prepared for the rain, we had no umbrellas, we decided to just stay put at the restaurant until the rain passed. This allowed us to order desert as well. The rain finally slowed enough to a drizzle that we were able to leave and start walking towards the Chain Bridge. The chain bridge is one of the world’s great bridges that connects Pest’s Roosevelt ter and Buda’s Adam Clark ter. It crosses over the Dunabe River that once separated the 2 cities (did you know that Buda and Pest were origainlly separate cities?). We enjoyed our walk across the bridge and up the funicular to Castle Hill. The clouds looked threatening at this point, but so far we had made it without getting wet. From Castle Hill, we walked past the National Dance Theater and the former Defense Ministery (that sill show war damage from WWII) on our way to Matthias Church. Before reaching the church, we got stuck in the rain again and took shelter against a building. It was at this time we decided to make a run for the church and get out of the rain. The church was pretty to see and a chance to stay dry for a while. Unfortunately, it wasn’t big enough to occupy our time long enough for the rain to stop. When we got back outside, we walked to the Fishermen’s Bastion. It looked like the façade of a fairytale castle. It was very impressive and we got some great views of the Danube River and the Hungarian Parliament from here. It is called Fishermen’s Bastion because in the Middle Ages, the fish market was just below here and it was actually guarded by fishermen. From here, we took shelter under a pavilion in a small park. We got some good laughs here because it was just us, 4 American’s, huddled under this pavilion until we looked up and were surrounded by an Asian tour group and a Hungarian band group also seeking cover. We quickly got pushed out of the way by the band group and were back out in the rain. Luckily, the rain stopped again and the band was setting up under this pavilion for a performance. Mike went to get us some snacks and we enjoyed the live music for a while. There were several people dancing around to the music as well. It was a fun afternoon, but we had had enough of fighting the rain so we decided to head back to the apartment. We weren’t at the apartment very long before we went to eat dinner. We went to a restaurant called Blue Rose. It is right next to the Jewish Synagogue so it’s not far from our apartment. We enjoyed more Hungarian food. Mike got goulash soup and I ordered beefsteak stroganoff. Both were very good! When we paid our bill, the waiter gave us a 10% discount for the next time we return and we told him we would be back tomorrow. When we got back to the apartment, we had an e-mail from our apartment we were renting in Salzburg. The e-mail informed us that the apartment had a leak and it was flooded so they wouldn’t be able to rent the apartment out. So, we had to do some quick searching for a new apartment.

June 8th—Today we were hoping for no rain, but nevertheless brought our umbrellas with us. We walked to the Great Market Hall. This is the popular Old World mall with produce, cheap eateries, and souvenirs. We first walked the bottom floor exploring all the heaps of paprika available. We were kind of doing some bargain shopping until we realized that paprika was being sold everyone and were getting confused. We settled on a booth where we got both hot and sweet paprika. We can’t wait to use it back in the States. We then wandered up the stairs where there are many places to eat and souvenir shop. We walked around the entire top floor looking at all the different Santa Claus’ available. We finally settled on the one we liked best. I never would have imagined that I’d find a Santa made in Hungary, but I did and am thrilled about it. It is absolutely gorgeous! After our purchase, we decided to eat lunch at the market. So, we went into a cafeteria style eating restaurant and again enjoyed some Hungarian food. Mike got “real” goulash and I got a stuffed paprika. Again very good! With our bellies very full, we left the Great Market Hall and caught the metro to the Andrassy street. This street is Budapest’s main boulevard lined with shops, theaters, and cafes. We strolled down the street and got a good feel for today’s urban Pest. Along the street was the Opera House so we walked into the entry of it, but did not take a guided tour. Once we reached Oktogon Street, we got on the metro and took it to the very end of Andrassy. This is where Millennium Monument is located. The monument was built to celebrate the city’s 1,000th birthday in 1896. From the monument, we walked into City Park. The kids immediately spotted a playground and ran to go play. It is in this park where the Szechenyi Baths is located. We weren’t sure if the kids were allowed in so Mike went to check it out while I watched the kids play at the park. When he came back, we were all so excited to know that we could all participate in taking to the water. Upon entering the bath, we got a personal changing cabin. This thing was about the size of a small entry closet. All 4 of us crammed in there to get our bathing suits on. The anticipation of getting in a heated swimming pool was almost more than we could all handle. The first bath we got into was about 30 degrees Celsius. It felt so good. We literally stayed in it all afternoon. The kids swam around. We were glad to see that Austin does remember how to swim. The other swimming pools we had encountered during our traveling have been too cold for him so he had a blast today. There was a center section of this bath that blew jets and when it wasn’t blowing jets, it had a current pool that rotated the water creating a kind of moving river. The middle bath was for swimming and was about 28 degrees Celsius and the other bath which was the warmest at about 38 degrees Celsius. Since I love “baths” so much, I had to at least go see how warm that other one felt. It was heavenly except for the old men in their speedos. J We had to drag ourselves out of the water because it was starting to get close to dinner time. We headed back to the apartment and quickly got ready for dinner. We decided to go back to the Blue Rose in order to use our coupon. We all enjoyed goulash soup tonight except Mike who had a cold, fruit soup. After dinner, the kids went to bed and the adults did some future trip planning. Luckily we found a replacement apartment in Salzburg, which is where we head tomorrow.