Looking across the Danube to Margrit Island and the Parliament buildings on the Pest side of Budapest in the rain.

Time flies when you’re having fun!  I’ve been trying to find time to sit and write for days now, but it seems that often when I have time I do not have internet access.  Tricky problem that one.  While I have been busy my days were also sometimes approaching a bit relaxing.  I’ve heard that relaxing is what vacations are for, but generally that doesn’t seem to be how I travel.  Hmm… I may have to work on that.

Day 28 – Saying goodbye to family and starting to explore Budapest (click here for more photos of Day 28)

My home sweet home in Budapest - Home Made Hostel. It's a bit tricky to find but well worth it.

With our river cruise over and our extra day in Budapest passed it was time to say goodbye to my parents and brother.  Tony had to get back to work and my parents would be making their way back to Vancouver.  Once they had left for the airport I got on the underground to go to my hostel for the next few days.  I checked into Home Made Hostel, a funky, laid-back place that I would recommend to anyone in a heartbeat.  I actually spent most of the day just working on my last post (as I was so far behind).  Besides that I grabbed lunch and then later I had dinner in the hostel.  On Tuesdays the hostel makes a traditional Hungarian meal for all of its guests.  That night they made a potato stew with sausages.  It was very tasty!  Maria, one of the girls that works at the hostel had mentioned that there may be wine.  As I was curious about Hungarian wines I brought a red and a white for everyone to try.  Plus it’s a good way to make friends!

Potato stew with sausage - very yummy!

Much later I headed out with Rueben, from Spain, and Rom, from Denmark (and South Africa and Edmonton – it’s a long story) for drinks.  Anna from the hostel was supposed to join us but got caught up with new guests.  The three of us had a beer in a very Hungarian pub first.  It was very close to the hostel, down in the basement of a building, and no one else spoke English.  Though our conversation didn’t always contain much English.  Rueben speaks little English, and Rom has a funky Dutch/Edmonton accent, and I speak nearly nothing besides English.  But we got along and understood each other enough to get through drinks there, then Rom and I followed Rueben to Szimpla (pronounced ‘simpla’ for the Canadians in the crowd).  Szimpla is a ruin bar.  It’s partly in old buildings that will be torn down at some point, but also in an open plaza.  It’s pretty huge!  But there’s music and fun decor and lots to see.  Generally people just hang out and chat and have a very mellow sort of evening.  We sure did.

Inside Szimpla.

This one is nearly impossible to explain. The machine was in the women's toilet, and some girl had stuffed this rubber chicken in and was trying to take photos, so I did too. No, I have no idea what the machine was for.

Day 29 – A walking tour and a caving trip (click here for more photos of Day 29)

Locks on the lock tree. Want to make sure your love lasts forever? Inscribe you and your love's names on a lock and attach it to the tree, but be classy - no combination locks!

This day was jam-packed full!  I posted the blog that I’d spent most of the previous day working on, and by then was getting really close to when I had to be in the centre of town for a tour.  I hustled myself out of the hostel and onto the metro (did I mention that Budapest has the second oldest underground railway line in the world?  Built in 1896 – and it often feels that old!) and managed to make it to the right stop that I had enough time for breakfast at Gerbeaud’s – one of Budapest’s oldest institutions.  Fortified, I headed out on a walking tour of Budapest guided by Agnes.  The tour was free, she only gets paid by tips, but it was amazing!  Agnes is a wealth of information and you learn a lot of wonderful things about Budapest and Hungary, though she does not shy away at all from the bad things too – from Communism to pickpockets, homelessness to rampant bureaucracy, food and drink (no to goulash, yes to palinka) – she covers it all.  I think the thing I’ll remember most is that Budapest can be a hard city to live in.  Everyone is trying to make a buck.  I know this is true anywhere but we ended our tour by learning that one of the backpacker kids along with us wasn’t actually a tourist, he worked for a competing company and was there spying on how Agnes works.  So if you find yourself in Budapest and would like to go on a tour please choose the Free Budapest Walking Tour.  They actually do three tours – a general overview of Budapest, a Communist tour (there are good and bad things about Communism in Hungary), and a tour of the Jewish Quarter.  I only managed to make it on the general tour, but when I am back in Budapest I’ll do the other two.

Agnes with a Trabant. A car made in East Germany that sometimes took as long as 18 years on a wait list to get. How do you double the price of a Trabant? Put fuel in it.

After touring around Budapest it was time to tour below it!  Though our guide was a bit late we did manage to make it to the caves.  Now, I’m pretty sure that all 24 of us were expecting a tourist’s tour of some caves under Budapest.  Stroll around a bit, maybe wiggle through a crack.  We were all wrong.  This was a caving adventure like you would never get as a tourist anywhere in North America, that is for sure!  We started by descending a 10m steel ladder, then slithering down part of the cave on our butts, then we were wiggling on our bellies, inching forward like worms, trying to keep up with our guide.  I guarantee you, if any of us had not seen someone go through just before us, we would have sworn up and down that we wouldn’t fit.  I often carried my camera in my teeth as there wasn’t much extra room in the pocket areas.  It was amazing, invigorating and a hell of a lot of fun.  My main buddies in my group (were we split into two groups of 12) were Nevaeh, from Singapore/England, Matt, from the States, and Doug, from Canada!  Every single one of us left with a real sense of accomplishment.  Even Nevaeh and I, who didn’t do the last hard part (Nevaeh had very slippy shoes and I was starting to feel tired – our ‘easy way’ out, wasn’t all that easy so I can’t imagine the hard way!).  Matt and Doug did go through ‘the sandwich’ though, an uphill slope that in one place is just wide enough for the helmets we were wearing if your head was turned sideways and you pushed a bit.  Seriously.  If you want to go here’s where you find the information.

Nevaeh and I having a short break in one of the larger rooms.

Scalloping in the limestone roof from the warm water forming the caves.

There's a reason you can't see the rest of Doug, the passage was really that small!

Of course we were all starving by the time we got back into town.  I managed to convince the group I was with that we should try langos (pronounced ‘langosh’), a Hungarian fry-bread with garlic, sour cream and cheese, as none of us had tried it yet.  I’m happy to say after slithering around on your hands and knees and belly for 2.5 hours langos is freakin’ amazing!! (I think it would be good anytime, but really good then).  We ate our langos on the street and then headed into the ruin pub next door called Instant (pronounced ‘Inshtant’, yes, I know, pronunciation in Hungarian is a bit tricky) for beer.  The bartender convinced us we should have palinka (Hungarian schnapps) too, who were we to argue?  We’d just conquered caves after all!  We had our drinks, explored Most (‘mosht’) and Szimpla too before I bagged out and called it a night!

Enrique, Erik and Matt with langos!

Matt watching our palinka being poured.

Day 30 – The House of Terror and a quiet afternoon (click here for more photos of Day 30)

I started the day by going for coffee and breakfast with Rom, followed by a visit to the House of Terror.  I did not take any photos here, partly as you are not permitted in most of the museum and also because it is just not a very pleasant place.  The House of Terror is a museum that documents the Nazi and Communist reign of fear in Budapest.  While Hungary did initially side with the Germans in WWII they did wind up under the same veil of fascism that took hold anywhere the Nazi’s were.  The Jewish community suffered greatly, but so did everyone else as well.  The Russians forced the Germans out, after 3 months, 200,000 deaths, and the destruction of all of the bridges, many of the buildings, and the whole interior of the Buda Castle.  Unfortunately it didn’t take long for the Communist forces to pick up in many ways where the Germans left off.  The building that houses the House of Terror was used as a prison and a place of torture under both regimes.  It is not a pleasant place to be, but you do learn a lot about the history the people of Hungary have.  As a note – Agnes says that the 70′s and 80′s, though still under Communist rule, were much more pleasant, and that Hungary enjoyed a lot more freedom than most other Communist states.  I’d love to go on her tour and find out more about this part as that was not part of the House of Terror exhibit.

After that I strolled around town to try to get a pedicure.  What I found is that Budapest is not like Vancouver, where you can stroll into almost any shop and sit down right away.  Hmm… Vancouver definitely has some differences.  Anyhow, I kept walking, found some lunch, strolled back to the hostel, napped, got up for a bit of dinner, went back to bed.  Day 30 was pretty mellow.

I had lunch across the street from the Liszt music school. Lunch was accompanied by piano, opera, flute and possibly some other instruments - they blended together in a very pleasant way.

The wall of my room at Home Made Hostel. Yup, the wall. I told you the decor was neat.

Day 31 – My last day in Budapest and my first night train! (click here for more photos of Day 31)

The last thing I had left on my list that I really wanted to do before leaving Budapest was to visit the Baths.  Budapest has a lot of baths, as they have really wonderful geothermal springs to feed them.  I went to Széchenyi baths up in City Park.  I went by myself and was a bit apprehensive.  I’d never been to baths before and realized while there that I really don’t like not knowing how to do something properly.  I think I would have been more relaxed if I had gone with someone, even someone who hadn’t been before either, because then at least we could look silly together.  Looking silly all on my own however… well, I was worried.  I gave myself a good talking to though, because I knew if I didn’t relax I wouldn’t enjoy the experience and the baths are all about relaxation and enjoyment!  So I visited some of the pools.  Then I went for a massage, hoping that I would be able to get more directions from my masseuse.  The massage was very nice, though all I managed to get was directions to the sauna.  I did start relaxing.  I just watched people and realized that  everyone just sorta strolls between the pools (several different temperatures), and the saunas (also different temperatures, and the showers (you guessed it, also varying temperatures).  I still think it would have been more fun with someone, as bathing seems to be a social thing, but I did enjoy my experience and will happily go back in the future.

Széchenyi Baths in City Park - the place is huge!

Past that really my day was spent getting ready to leave Budapest.  I was booked on a night train to Switzerland and was looking forward to it.  (I’ll tell you how that went in my next post… good thing I didn’t have a firm schedule though…).  So I said goodbye to Budapest though I anticipate returning in the future - there are a few things that I’ll do when I go back – there are other caves to see, including many near the Buda castle, there are other baths, and there are always new people to meet.  Köszönóm Budapest!

Oh yeah - and this is what my knees look like after caving. My elbows are similar. Heck, I even have a bruise on my belly! All well worth it though

PS – Budapest is pronounced ‘Budapesht’ – say it with an ‘s’ sound and they’ll spot you for a foreigner in an instant!