Spain! Spain! Spain!: How have I never wanted to visit here???

Let me just put it out there that if you’re ever thinking about traveling to Eastern Europe you HAVE TO visit Budapest! It is a beautiful city with a really rich history. It has many beautiful landmarks and it’s easy to get around. On top of that the people are way nice, there's good food AND everything I found to do was actually really cheap (if you know where to look that is). I just had a remarkable experience there so let me share it with you…

I got to Budapest after a 5 or so hour bus ride from Brno. Not bad. Since it was about 10pm all I was focused on was being in a bed.

A few weeks before I had decided this would be a good opportunity to try couch surfing (I’d never really tried it “properly” before, just met with people but not actually couch surfed) and yay for new experiences. I found a girl to stay with, Réka, who was my age and from Budapest. She met me at the bus station and we headed to her place. We talked a bit but soon went to bed since she had classes in the morning and I had a tour to get to.

Since I had no experience with actual couch surfing I didn’t really know what to expect but Réka was SO great. We had breakfast together that morning and then we both headed our separate ways. The whole trip was a lot of that since I caught her on some of her busiest days of the year, but that’s ok, it’ll just mean I’ll have to come back and visit!

Me and Reka in front of the river

The tour I was headed to was actually Margareth’s idea and she invited me along…remember who she is? The girl I met in Vienna with similar travel plans as mine. Just to give you a bit more info on her since I did say she was super interesting and all…she’s Brazilian and lives in Dublin and just happened to be travelling for fun for a few weeks. The best part about it, she has an awesome Irish accent. Not super heavy but just enough to remind me of my Irish friend Nikki.

Margareth and I ate lunch in the cute little restaurant

Anyhow, I was running super late but I did make it just in time! We did the Free Walking Tour of Budapest and they did a fantastic job. There were so many of us we had to go in 3 groups and the girl we got was great (Emma). She showed us ALL the big landmarks that any tourist would want to go see, gave us plenty of history on Budapest and was just overall was funny and helpful…always a good combo on a tour. Here are some of the sites we saw:

The chain bridge (one of many bridges in to cross from Buda into Pest or vice versa). You will know you're on it when you see the fabulous lion statues!

This is a church that's right across the river from Parliament. It just super unique and there really weren't any other buildings that looked like this. I'm not sure if it has any interesting history but at least it looks really nice!

HERE is Parliament. Its absolutely beautiful from the outside! I've also been told the inside is amazing as well...I was supposed to go do a tour inside but I ran out of time...another great excuse to go back and visit Budapest.

Here's the chain bridge from the viewpoint on Castle Hill.
How pretty!

I honestly don't remember what this building was...maybe the royal palace?

And of course here are the guards protecting the building...this was at the "shift change"

AMAZING! This is the view that overlooks the chain bridge as well as Parliament.

Photo opp!!!

There's the huge eagle statue on Castle Hill. It looks out over the river...Also in this pic you can see the guards changing shift + lots of tourists

This is a famous church (cathedral?) at the top of the hill, near the viewpoint. Now let's take a closer look at that roof...

How cool is that?

The Fisherman's Bastion. This just looks so fairy tale-like.

I just can't get over how beautiful this plaza was

Just another statue on a horse...so typical

Parliament again with the church right across. Its so impressive!

Here's the statue of the King's daughter (I think it was the king...at least it was someone with power). It's actually quite hard to tell if its a girl or a boy but our tour guide eventually told us...

I always seen to take pics of statues but never seem to remember their importance...

Our tour guide, Emma, was showing us the love locks and explaining how it works. You are supposed to write the names of you and your significant other, lock it to the railing thing and your love will last forever. How cute.

I've actually ran across some of these in other European countries as well...in Riomaggiore, Italy and Prague, Czech Republic. They're always fun to see though

This was seriously the biggest lock I've ever seen in my life!

St. Stephen's Basilica

Just loving life :)

The metal man with the big belly. You're meant to rub his belly for good luck BUT be careful. If its hot the day you go, his belly may just burn you!

An old historical building turned into a Four Seasons

The art on the gate was beautiful!

The OPERA!

Well that was the metro stop...this is the actual Opera house.

This is the restaurant where we ate

At the end of the tour it was already lunch time and Emma showed us a great spot to eat lunch. It was just a lunchroom type setting but it was my first time trying Hungarian food so I was excited. And I was SO right to be excited because it was good! Little did I know but Hungarians love garlic! AND like to make spicy food. WHAT?!?! These are all very important details if you know me at all.

YUM

During the tour, Margareth mentioned to me that she was doing a cave thing later that day and invited me along. I didn’t really understand what it was, hence me calling it “cave thing,” but I had no plans so I was down. Little did I know that we were going to be CLIMBING through caves. Again…what?!?! Now these caves weren’t like the typical ones you go to visit where you can walk through in flip flops and there are bridges everywhere. We literally had to have hiking/running shoes (which Margareth’s hotel was nice enough to lend me!) and we wore full jumpsuits with helmets. Neither of us had any idea of what we were getting ourselves into still but we were both super pumped.

We thoroughly admired our glamorous outfit on the way over to where the caves started. I didn't expect this but the entrance to the caves would be a metal door…this is getting better. We had to turn on our headlamps (on the helmets) and then headed inside…beginning our journey.

do you see the entrance???

The pics I took aren't even doing the tour justice so I just recommend you try it. But I will tell you a touch about it… the started out easy, walking on rocks that had piled up, then sliding down some, then climbing up and eventually climbing through small holes either going feet first or head first. The holes were just enough to fit us all through but we definitely had to contort our bodies a bit to fit through.

Climbing down into the caves...

So exciting!

Just waiting for everyone to get down from the ladder so we could really start

About to climb through that hole in the background

You're almost there!

We were just having TOO much fun...yay for climbing through caves and getting super dirty

A couple of Italian girls that were joining us on the adventure...

You know you want to be there!

I don't know if you can make out what this is...its the legs of someone pulling themselves through one of the holes

We even made a stopping point at one hole which our guide called the Winnie the Pooh hole. The name comes from when Winnie the Pooh goes to visit rabbit but has eaten too much honey so he gets stuck and can’t fit through. We all got the opportunity to try and fit through the hole and a few of us took it. The guide showed us how “easy” it was but of course she knows all the tricks, right? Margareth went through, almost got stuck but DID make it through! So next it was my turn…and I turned out to be a Winnie the Pooh. I got stuck!!! My hips just didn’t want to corporate with me but I think if I have the opportunity I’ll try it again. I’m determined to make it through!

looks so easy right?

officially stuck...and super sweaty

After 3 hours of climbing through the caves we were all nice and sweaty :) but it was SO worth it. I would do it again in a heartbeat…and probably will whenever I go back to Budapest.

EXHAUSTED

Me and Margareth were beat by the end so we headed back to her hostel…before we headed back out again. Our intentions were to hang out with some friends made from the walking tour but we got to the bar and left within 30min. We were just SO exhausted. AND we had another “big” day coming up the next day.

We had made plans to visit a bathhouse/spa in the morning so my morning was pretty much the same as the day before. Woke up, ate breakfast with Réka and headed out. I met Margareth and we headed out to the Szechenyi bathhouse (one recommended to us on the free walking tour). Even though I was starting to come down with something…again (the entire night before I was waking up constantly coughing up my lungs and NOT sleeping) I figured the bathhouse could help with that. And I’m pretty sure it did, or maybe it was the medicine. Either way it was nice to be able to spend a few hours hanging out relaxing in pools, saunas and steam rooms.

We probably would have spent a few more hours there but we were getting hungry and Margareth had to catch a plane later that day. So we headed out in search of typical Hungarian food. We headed towards the Jewish district (the walking tour guides mentioned to us that was where you could find cheap and good food) and found a little bar. We were the only ones in there which USUALLY isn’t a good sign but not in this case. We got to eat the typical parikás and a typical Hungarian salad…and it was tasty!

Paprikas is basically sour cream and paprika mixture w/ meat...and this one was on noodles

The salad was various pickled veggies

The place was just super cute inside as well so we took a few pics inside, ate our food and then headed out.

It looked like it had a train station theme

The tables were decorated with tickets, pics, etc.

What a great idea

The rest of the day was pretty chill and I wasn’t trying to do anything crazy since I was feeling a bit under the weather. So we headed back to the hostel to grab Margareth’s things and just hung out there using their internet for a bit. I also snapped some pics of the place because the staff was just too cool and the place itself was awesome with an open air bar, really colorful everything and just an overall great atmosphere…SO if you’re looking for a nice hostel in Budapest check out the Casa de la Musica Hostel

After leaving the hostel we just ran a few “errands”…postcard sending, medicine buying (yes, MORE medicine) and coffee drinking!

Then Margareth’s shuttle finally came so she left and I headed…to a birthday party! I would have just headed back to Réka’s place but I mean, come on, there was a birthday party going on. It was at the same bar as the night before and I was quite glad since it was a super interesting place.

The Szimpla Bar

The place was just SO colorful and had tons of great decorations. Its hard to see in the pics because it was dark. I guess you'll just have to go experience it for yourself...

Can you tell what this is of? The sky. It's an open air bar (part of it) so you can literally look up and star gaze...or in our case, cloud gaze.

And WHAT did I find in the bathroom? The best name ever.

Me and Ed (the bday boy) hung out at the bar for a while and chatted about some pretty interesting topics. I ended up heading out “early” (midnight) because I was pretty tired from not really having slept properly the night before.

The next day was my last day in Budapest and there were a few things I had yet to check out. Since Réka had classes in the morning I ventured off to a graveyard. It was on a list of cheap things to do in Budapest so I figured why not. And it was well worth it.

Usually I’m not one to wander around graveyards but this one was so unique and I’ve never seen anything like it before. Instead of telling you about it why don’t I just show you some pics?

Afterwards I met up with Réka and we went to get some lunch nearby her school. YUM

We also had time to take a short trip to “The Shoes” by the river. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a snippet from Wikipedia:

“The Shoes on the Danube Promenade is a memorial created by Gyula Pauer and Can Togay on the bank of the Danube River in Budapest. It honors the Jews who were killed by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest during World War II. They were ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away. It represents their shoes left behind on the bank.”

It’s actually quite beautiful to see and really moving as well. There’s just so much history in Budapest and you feel so many emotions just walking around and learning about all that’s happened. I just can’t wait to go back and see more…and eat more Hungarian food :)

As you can probably tell that was pretty much the end of my trip in Budapest. Being the foodie that I am, I do have to mention one more thing…On the way to grab my bags I stopped in a little pastry shop to grab some goodies for the road: