My LAX outbound flight departed March 18 at 8:30am so I had rented
an Avis car and zipped through Orange and LA county traffic. I do like either early morning or late evening
LAX departures to avoid traffic. Bill
and I scheduled our flights to meet at Schiphol airport outside Amsterdam.
While killing 3 hours in Schiphol I managed to sample some
early morning Jameson whiskey (very tasty) and spied a leather coat, to be
purchased on the return trip back thru this airport.
 |
| Quite Tasty! |
Bill arrived then we continued another flight to
Budapest. We researched the most
effective transportation to our hotel (MiniBUD) and were lucky to be the first
group dropped off at the hotel.
Our hotel, Danubis Hotel Astoria, was ideally located
at the intersection of the 2 main roads and included a great breakfast buffet included each morning. We couldn’t have picked a better hotel.
 |
| First Beer of the Trip |
 |
I didn't order 3 double espressos for breakfast. At least I didn't think I did.
|
Our adventure started with 5 days in Budapest. Some observations on Budapest:
- Everybody smokes, especially in an outdoor cafe. So it was always a challenge to dine or drink outside. We factored in wind direction and neighbors before selecting outdoor seats.
- Very little graffiti but a lot of cigarette butts.
- Very few dogs and everyone cleaned up after them.
Our daily walking explorations ranged from 6.5 to 10 miles. The furthest spot, Szechenyi Spa, was only 3
miles from our hotel. Budapest was much
more walkable than anticipated and we had no need for public transportation. We explored
the Central Market Hall where we had lunch twice: the Hungarian sampler plate
and later the Goulash sampler plate. We
were great at splitting all meals but getting individual beers.
 |
| Central Market Hall |
 |
Hungarian Sampler Plate. Yummy!
|
We wandered several times thru the Jewish
Quarter. The largest synagogue, Doheny, was just around the
corner from our hotel. It
had a very sad story of how the Nazi walled up the neighborhood into a
"Jewish ghetto” with nothing/no one in or out resulting in 10,000 deaths
in its 6-weeks existence. There was no
way to get rid of the bodies. The
memorial had an outdoor sculpture of a willow tree with all the names of those
who died on metal leaves hanging from it.
There were numerous statues and plaques around Budapest. Notable were:
- Shoes on the Danube artwork.
- Black Plague sculpture on Castle Hill. A tribute from the 1/3rd of the population
that survived.
1896 was Budapest's millennium. Much was built for that event.
Both the Parliament building and Saint Stephen’s Church
were exactly 96 meters tall indicating the balance of state vs church. Under
communism, parliament height was increased with a Russian star
to emphasize the state’s role is greater than the church.
We came upon a walking protest during a walkabout. Of course, we couldn’t read/understand the
signs so Bill asked a policeman what was being protested. The policemen responded the protests were for
governmental budget cuts for academic teachings of STEM topics. That was good enough for Bill to jump the
barrier and join the protest.
 |
| Bill being a protester. |
We rode the Buda Funicular up to the Buda Castle and
Fisherman’s Bastion. Fisherman’s Bastion
had an awe-inspiring view of the city across the Danube. Amazingly beautiful when Budapest was lit up
at night, especially the Parliament and St Stephens Church. The church at Fisherman’s Bastion had unique
roof tile colors in a pattern. These
roof tiles were nicknamed Chuck Norris tiles due to their strength.
 |
View from the Buda Funicular
|
 |
View from Fisherman's Bastion. Incredible.
|
We spent a morning at City Park’s Szechenyi Thermal Bath
Spa in Hero’s Square. It
had numerous indoor baths and 2 large outdoor hot baths. Each bath had a sign showing the water
temperature. Finding our way within the
building was not intuitive, and we had to ask for directions to get to the
outdoor baths. Of course, there was the
obligatory overweight male in a speedo playing chess. There was a lap pool as well as one ice pool. We spent time in one outdoor bath then tried
the other bath and discovered the second bath was much, much warmer. Ahhh. It’s
understandable why residents make a thermal bath part of their daily ritual.
 |
Thermal Bath Spa entrance
|
Afterward, we wandered about Hero’s Square, stopping to
have a post-bath beer and nosh.
There is a famous statue of Jesus holding a baby (his
mother) in the Matthias Church. This is
controversial because that may imply re-incarnation.
More Budapest pics are located here.
