Gooood-a in Buda, and the Best of Pest

We’ve just boarded our train to Vienna after a busy few days in Buda and Pest. They’re actually two separate cities and Pest is pronounced “Pesh.” Clearly, we learned a lot while we were there.

After a 7 hour train ride from Praha, we jumped into a taxi to drive up the Hilton Budapest. We were a little bummed out because it was raining, but luckily I had just purchased a cute, new raincoat before we left so it wasn’t too much of a catastrophe. We were surprised to find that our hotel was up a gigantic hill. (I think they should rename the hotel the Hill-ton but that’s just me.) I mean, there were stairs cutting through the middle but it sort of seemed like we were going to waste most of the short time we had in these cities trekking up and down it. Once we got to our rooms though, we definitely saw the perks of being atop a baby mountain – the view was incredible, even in the rainy weather. We were looking out right across the river at the famous Parliament building. I must have literally 1000 pictures of the view from every angle in Buda, and while none of them could quite capture the beauty of looking at it in really life, there has to be at least one that comes fairly close.

We dropped off our stuff and decided to head out for some lunch, as we were all pretty hungry from a busy day of doing nothing on the train. We had made some friends on the train, or rather, some people came into the compartment car we were sitting in on the train and kicked Dad out because they had three of the six seats reserved, and then they started talking to us. They gave us a bunch of advice and recommendations, a piece of which was that Buda is much more expensive and residential and made Pest sound overall like the place to be. Once we had seen our view, we were pretty sure they were wrong, plus we were dissuaded from making the journey to the center of the cities because of the rain, so we settled for a restaurant right near the hotel, even though it might cost a little more money.

I got a Hungarian fish soup, allegedly made from fish out the Danube. It was pretty good, but it had skin on it which I try to avoid so it was a bit of a challenge to navigate. We paired our food with the local Hungarian beer, Dreher, which was actually very good. In fact, Mom herself was a big fan, something which rarely happens when it comes to beer. It was at lunch where we had our first of many experiences with Hungarian service. Now, it might be because we’re Americans, or a cultural thing, or just that we encountered a few people who shouldn’t have ended up in the service industry, but some of our waiters we not at all personable. Dad began referring to these waiters as Als (after Al Bundy), which I have a feeling would have made them even grumpier had they gotten the reference.

Nothing perks up my spirit like a good meal and some beer, so I was rejuvenated and inspired to explore a bit, even with the crummy weather. We walked around the Buda area and made our way towards the beautiful National Gallery, which houses a lot of 19^th and 20^th century Hungarian art inside. The building was once the famous Buda castle. It seemed the perfect museum day, but obviously it’s closed on Mondays. Typical. Anyway, the benefit of walking around on a day with a drizzle is that there are no other tourists around trying to take pictures in front of the monuments and buildings and views you want pictures of and with. Since I had brought my camera along (you never know when a Kodak moment is going to sneak up on you!), we got some great photos in the rain. The rain even stopped as we were taking pictures, and what’s more, we found two alternative routes down to the bridge! Things were looking up. The original stairs cutting down one side of the hill, as recommended by our taxi driver headed back down to the white bridge – I really liked that all of the bridges connecting Buda and Pest were different from each other – which didn’t seem to be all that pedestrian friendly, implying that we would still have to walk all the way back around to the Chain Bridge (with its clearly defined pedestrian/bike path) to get across. This sounded arduous. During our rain exploration we discovered a pathway that led right to the Chain Bridge and a cable car that did the same! Great success.

Feeling better and better as the day wore on, we retired back to the Hilton to check out the Executive Lounge. Now, this hotel seemed fancier in almost all respects than the Hilton Prauge Old Town, so we weren’t totally sure what to expect. Frankly, I liked the first Exec Lounge better. I felt slightly underdressed as it was filled with actual business people doing actual business, and it didn’t even have any normal water – the still water was flavored so it tasted like flat seltzer aka the worst. Although some of the staff was very helpful (they gave us dinner recommendations the first night), we also felt they were reeeeal judgy over the fact that we came to the lounge after getting back from a day of adventuring, before heading out for dinner, and after eating…okay, perhaps it was excessive, but still.

They recommended a restaurant called 21 for dinner, conveniently located right down the street. As we wanted to save Pest for the next day anyway, this seemed a great choice. I ordered a rosé because I was feeling fancy. I was very surprised, and somewhat torn as to whether or not to drink it, when it arrived and the glass had “Chapel Hill” painted onto it. Strange, but true. I ordered a chicken crepe in some sort of sauce which was delicious. In attempting to figure out the menu, we started talking to the people sitting next to us. It turned out that a young man and his grandfather were on a twelve day trip driving from place to place – it was a tradition they had for some time and seemed adorable and fun. Although Grandpa was a little hard of hearing, he was very nice. The younger guy did something in computers so he and Sean had a lot to talk about, and Grandpa started talking to Mom about his life, wife, and how he could persuade his grandson to cut his hair – he thought the long locks on a 27 year old probably gave off the wrong impression, and he was probably right because the grandson was really nice and smart, etc. – and Dad was talking some about business, some about healthcare, and all sorts of other random things. I didn’t have a lot to contribute to most of the topics so I spent most of the meal deciding whether or not I had judged the grandson because of his hair (I had), and whether or not I had changed that opinion nearly immediately when I realized he was British (also true). I also tried to figure out how people could make one little glass of rosé last the entirety of a meal and made a mental note to start sneaking water in with me in my purse. The biggest highlight was likely the bit I overheard about how there was allegedly some old King’s mummified hand from the 15^th century in one of the churches. I was hoping we would stumble upon it during our stay – maybe we would even run into these new friends there since it was something the grandson was hoping to take Grandpa to see. Overall, it was a great meal.

We turned in for an early night, eager to get a good start the next morning. I had my walking tours to guide us, but had a bit more difficulty navigating the map the hotel had given us as there were no English translations of the landmarks. We made our way down our newly discovered path. After making only one wrong turn, we found ourselves in front of the Chain Bridge. We were impressed with how quickly the Danube flowed as we crossed over No Man’s Land between Buda and Pest. After successfully making it to the other side, and nearly being run over more than once when crossing the street, we decided to head straight to the impressive Parliament building we’d been admiring from our windows (using only appropriately marked crosswalks). I taught my mini history lessons about the statues surrounding the building to no one as the rest of the family meandered through with no particular direction or knowledge of who was who. (I guess they felt my two to three sentence blurb about each of them wouldn’t have done much to clarify.) We found our way to the back of a line and got into it. As a recent college graduate I know that whenever you see a line, it’s best to get in it and send a scout out to figure out what it’s for rather than waste your time figuring it out before holding a spot. It turns out it was the line to purchase tickets for the tour. The next tour wasn’t starting until 12 and it was only about 1030, so we stepped off (the now much longer) line and promised to come back the next day to see it. (Never made it back – oops.)

I had one more Pest tour from NatGeo, but I was yet unable to locate any of the landmarks from it on our map, so we instead tried to follow the advice of our train friends and head towards the famous “Vaci Utca.” Vaci Utca is a pedestrian street filled with a bunch of shops, restaurants, and bars, and as we were feeling a bit lacking in the shopping department we thought this was a great way to start off our afternoon. On our way to Vaci, we stumbled upon St. Stephen’s Basilica, only to realize that this is the church with the hand in it! Dreams really do come true. We stepped inside and had a look around. It had incredibly high ceilings and was truly beautiful. The hand on the other hand (HAHA), was pretty whatever. You couldn’t really see it. To add to the disappointment, we didn’t even run into Gramps there! Sad times. Luckily, we were able to go to the top (via elevator, woo!) and check out a panoramic view of Budapest. It was pretty windy but very impressive.

We made our way to Vaci Utca to find that it was mostly stores like H&M and Zara and Mango. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of those stores (actually, Mango I could do without), but we were hoping for something a little more…Hungarian. It was a beautiful street though and we stopped to find something for lunch. We actually ended up at an Italian restaurant and got some pizza and beer. The pizza was actually really good. We had another Al Bundy waiter, so we didn’t think he was a great person to ask about our course of action for the rest of the day. We spent lunch making a gameplan and had decided on a general itinerary for next day. We headed back to Buda for the afternoon, taking the cable car up. Mom was not excited about it, but Sean, Dad, and I found it to be pretty cool. We went to the National Gallery which housed some pretty neat exhibits. We somehow got into the temporary modern art exhibit even though we didn’t have a ticket for it – I’m glad we did as it was likely my favorite part of the museum. The one piece I didn’t get (okay, I didn’t get a lot of them, but the one piece I really didn’t get) was literally a giant piece of rock. Perhaps the artist is saying Hungary Rocks? Unclear.

My goal for the afternoon was to go to Ruszworm, a famous pastry shop and coffee house that was right around the corner from the hotel that had been around since 1827. We stopped back in the lounge to plan dinner and the next morning, but made sure to head back out before my beloved pastry shop closed. (This is why I belong to the super fat – see entries on China for more details on my pending obesity.) Dad got some homemade ice cream, I got a crème puff, and Sean got some deceptive chocolate cake that had some stowaway fruit hiding in it. Everything (except for the weird fruit) was incredible!  Mom weirdly didn’t feel like a pre-dinner dessert was appropriate so she meandered around and looked at some of the local touristy souvenir shops. We had wanted to swing by the St. Matthias church that was literally next door to the hotel, but it was closed by the time we got back. I have no regrets about my choice. We took a gander at the catacombs under the hotel (it was built around the remains of a 12^th or 13^th century church) and then got ourselves ready for dinner.

We decided we wanted to do dinner on the Danube, and so we headed to the Columbus boat to enjoy a meal out on the river. We were overlooking the bridge, gallery, and Parliament, and were there right at sunset, so we really couldn’t have asked for anything better! The only downside was that there were some spiders hanging out on the railing right next to my chair, so I sometimes had trouble maintaining my focus on anything else. The food was incredible. Mom and I split a spring vegetables salad with feta cheese and bacon and a hake fish in some sort of sauce with shrimp and potatoes. Sooooo good. Sean got feta and red pepper stuffed chicken with rice and Dad got some beef in a pepper sauce. It was a great meal all around! Feeling fully stuffed, we made our way back up the hill and to bed.

Yesterday was our last full day in Budapest, and armed with my maps and guides, I intended to make it a full one. We had researched some flea markets – Budapest is apparently known for them – and found one the coincided with the end of one of my walking tours. Could it be more perfect? We also found where the New York Café was on the map, and the famous Turkish baths. They conveniently made a sort of rectangle starting at the Chain Bridge, so it seemed pretty doable. We walked down Andrassy Ut, the super fancy street of Pest. We saw the “Broadway district,” some fancy stores, the famous Opera House, and more! Our walk ended in Hero’s Square, which is essentially what it sounds like – a big square filled with statues of National Heroes. Behind the square is City Park, which had a couple of key points we wanted to hit – a castle, and the flea market. We wandered around and found some stands but were really disappointed. It just didn’t seem like a “flea market.” We looked up the market one more time, only to discover that it’s only there on weekends. Bummer #1. We then made our way to the castle, diligently following the signs, only to find that we were, in fact, going towards the agriculture museum that happened to be housed in something that looks like a castle. Bummer #2. I was feeling like a failure (a feeling which I reeeeeeeeeally don’t like) as we headed out of the park and back on our way to civilization. (We were off the map at this point.) Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something familiar – it was the logo of my future company! We walked over and found the Budapest office, so the walk seemed worth it after all. Dad and I took some pictures in front of it as in just a few weeks we will officially (once again, since I interned there last summer) be colleagues there.

Feeling good again, we started heading towards the New York Café. I know what you’ve been thinking since the first time you read the name – really? New York Café? You’re from New York. Get a little cultural competence, will you? This place, however, was recommended by our well-traveled friends on the train, as well as by our taxi driver, and it was even labeled as a must see on Mom’s map that she’d acquired from a random person trying to persuade her to take a tour or something, so we thought it would be a good stop to make. We were getting really hungry on our way, and since the Café is really known for its coffee, we decided to stop for lunch first and then head to the café later for a drink. As we were a bit off the beaten path, we were having some trouble finding something to eat. Once we found a restaurant with an outdoor patio we were happy with, we realized it was a Mexican restaurant! Leave it to the Pages to find one in Budapest. I don’t think we’ve ever been on vacation without getting Mexican, and I’m glad that we didn’t break tradition here.

We excitedly sat down and decided what to order to drink. Since even Mom wanted beer, we decided to be economical and go for the “beer giraffe.” Sean and Dad thought it was a typo but I stand by my thought that it was no misnomer – it was one of those beer towers and I think it bears a resemblance to a giraffe’s neck more than anything else. We got a lot of double- and triple-takes from people passing by on the street. I think we really upheld the American image of drinking in large quantities at somewhat inappropriate times. Regardless, we also ordered some tacos which were a little weird but actually pretty good, and continued on our way.

It turned out that the ornate, self-proclaimed “Most Beautiful Café in the World” was a mere 15 minute walk away, so we perused some nearby stores before settling in for coffee at New York Café. It was in the lobby of some fancy hotel and I really don’t think they were exaggerating with the aforementioned claim. It had painted ceilings, beautiful chandeliers, pretty chairs and everything else you can imagine. When I say we got “coffee,” I mean we got dessert that had a hint of coffee in it. Dad and I got Iced Coffee with Crème Brulee flavor and Vanilla Ice Cream, Mom got the same without the flavor, and Sean got a Moroccan coffee. My fullness was irrelevant as this was innnnnncredible. I’m so glad we went and wish they actually had a New York Café in New York.

Our next and final stop of the afternoon was the famous Turkish Baths. I had clearly labeled them on my map and we got to the location only to find that they weren’t there. It turns out my source (Mom’s random map from the guy) or my transferring abilities fell far short, as the baths were back in the park where we first started. I was saooooooooooooooo mad. In fact, I’m mad just thinking about it right now. The lesson here is always triple check. Bummer #3.I brooded for a little, but didn’t let it bring me down for too long.

We headed back up to Buda to do some souvenir shopping (since we had no flea market) and see some other remains (you know, your classic 13^th and 14^th century church remains, etc.). We had a drink in the famous Fisherman’s Bastion, overlooking the bridge and Parliament and found a place for dinner. We didn’t find anything particularly great in the souvenir department, which was a letdown but we realized (when we were about the pay the bill for dinner) that they only accepted cash so we ended up being able to get rid of our remaining Hungarian bills anyway.

We watched a bit of the Spain vs. Portugal game (viva España!), but got a little bored after 70 min of 0-0 so Sean and I found this weird Hungarian show that seems to be about a fat piece of Cinnamon Toast Crunch who’s caught in a white abyss of nothingness attempting to get to some lounge. We’re pretty sure it’s propaganda, but we’re not sure what for. We went to bed pretty early so we could catch the train we’re currently on to Vienna. It’s nicer than our last train – they’ve already given us a free Kit Kat – so we’re pretty sure it’s going to be an easy ride. Although it’s sad that we’re already headed towards the last leg of our journey, I can’t wait to see what Vienna has in store for us!