Budapest: a day and a half in the Pearl of the Danube
- Budapest, Hungary
- Mar 23, 2016
- 8 min read
It’s every city hopper’s nightmare: you’ve got three days in total, you leave late on the first day and return early on the third. That gives you just a day and a half in one of the lesser-known capitals of Europe. Where do you go? I don’t know. You just go. Go go go!
The Transavia flight from Rotterdam to Budapest only took about two hours. Still, my mother and I only arrived at the airport around 2 PM. From there, we still had to get to the hotel, which would take about an hour. The transfer at Kőbánya-Kispest didn’t quite go according to plan: we got lost on our way from the bus to the metro. I tried to ask a person of staff for directions in English, but he refused to answer until I asked him in German. Apparently Hungarians prefer German to English: that’s some useful information! A short while and some directions in German later, we were on our way to Keleti Pályaudvar. Keleti Pályaudvar turned out to be a gorgeous station on its own, but the surroundings were… a little vulgar, to say the least. Sex shops everywhere. Welcome to Budapest, I guess.
Thanks to Google Maps, we quickly found our way to the hotel. By then it was getting too late to go into the center of Budapest, so I turned to TripAdvisor to find a decent restaurant. I found a popular one pretty close to the hotel, which also seemed to be the only one close to the hotel. Downside: most of the time it was very crowded, so you had to make a reservation. I didn’t quite have the time for that, and we were getting hung(a)ry (heh heh), so we just went to try our luck. We were glad to find the personnel spoke English and was happy to cooperate, and if we were quick, they had a small spot for us. We were peckish but didn’t feel like we could have a whole meal, especially since the reviews of the place said the portions were massive, so we asked if we could share one. That was also no problem. I started to like the Hungarians! We had veal paprikash with egg and bacon dumplings, a typical Hungarian dish. Very tasty indeed. After our meal, one of the waiters even taught me how to say köszönöm [English: thank you]. That would come in handy. Köszönöm, people from restaurant Paprika!
We decided to make it an early night and got up early the next morning: it was the only full day we had in Budapest, after all! We got on the metro and went to Kálvin Tér station, to visit our first stop for today: Központi Vásárcsarnok [English: Central Market Hall]. The Central Market Hall is a huge hall that’s buzzing with life. On the floor level, the hall is filled with food stalls. Fresh fruits, veggies, meats and more: everything looked so good and fresh, my hands were itching to start cooking! We didn’t have a kitchen here though, so I just brought some massive radishes for the homefront and some garlic paste for myself. Strong stuff, but totally delicious. The top floor is reserved for souvenir stalls: it’s fun to walk through, but the items are rather cliché and prices go through the rather high roof. Tourist trap alert!
The Central Market Hall is right in front of one of Budapest’s famous bridges, Szabadság Híd (English: Liberty Bridge). It’s a beautiful, greenish structure that has a lot of gorgeous details, like the massive birds on top of the curves. Via this bridge we crossed the Danube and took a gander on the other side. We could go up to a little chapel on the mountain, but that would’ve taken us quite some time, and time was precious. Instead of that, we ran into a little chapel on the side of the mountain. It’s called Sziklakápolna Pálosok [English: Rock Chapel ‘Pauline’], and it looks like it was cut out of the mountain wall itself. Loved it!
Most of the sights to see were on the other side of the Danube, so we crossed the Liberty Bridge once again and started walking along the river. Sometimes the path was rather narrow and difficult to walk on, but no matter: we like a good challenge! We walked past the Erzsébet Híd [English: Elisabeth Bridge] and the Széchenyi Lánchíd [English: Széchenyi Chain Bridge], all the way to the Országház [English: Parliament Building]. The Parliament Building is a very imposing, humongous building in Revival-Gothic style. Stunning, and very, very big. Very big indeed!
On the way to the Parliament Building, just after the Chain Bridge, we came across the famous Cipők a Duna-parton [English: Shoes on the Danube-bank] monument. It’s a heartbreaking piece of art that displays a row of bronze shoes of all styles and sizes in various positions. The sad story behind the monument is an event during WWII: Jews were forced to take off their shoes and form a line on the bank of the river. The reason for lining up was that they would fall straight into the river after being shot, so the Nazi’s didn’t have to clean up the mess. Sick.
As the wind along the Danube was rather nasty and cold, we decided to round the Parliament Building and explore a little more landinward. That brought us to some more WWII monuments and eventually to the Catholic Szent István Bazilika [English: Saint Stephen’s Basilica]. The Hungarians don’t quite shy away from big buildings, for this basilica was also - you guessed it - massive. The architecture in Budapest is absolutely amazing! The basilica is easy to enter and for a small fee, you can travel to the top of the dome and enjoy the view. That wasn’t as easy as it looked: we took an elevator to the first floor, and the idea was that we could take an elevator from there that would bring us to the top.
For starters, the place we got off from the first elevator was quite empty and creepy. It made us wonder if we got off at the right place, but it was pretty much the only place we could get off, so it must’ve been right. The lack of people also creeped us out a bit, but very well. We crossed the floor and found another elevator. It was small and a bit raggedy-looking, but hey, who’s in for adventure? We are, of course! So we got on and pressed the only button available. We could feel the elevator go up – and then go down again! What the hey? When we got down… it actually went up again. Okay, that’s scary. Finally it stopped, and I didn’t quite care where, so I just got off. I was quite sure there were only two options, but I was wrong. The place I jumped out of the elevator was completely dark and there was a wall about a meter from the door. I was able to round a corner, but that was just as much of a dead end. I was very grateful that my mother was holding the door to this elevator of doom, ‘cause there were no stairs, and I’m quite sure my skeleton would not have been found for a couple of years in that damp little cranny.
Not until that possessed elevator would have claimed another innocent tourist life, anyway. We got back on the demonic bucket and prayed for it to go to the right floor this time. We ended up at the bottom floor again, where two girls were waiting to be trapped. I blasted off the elevator at the speed of light and yelled a warning to the young ladies – but they just laughed. Their loss. At least we got to live to see another day.
Even though we just evaded our certain death, we still wanted to enjoy the view over Budapest. So we bravely scaled the stairs of the dome, which, needless to say, were also massive. But what we found on top was definitely worth it! The view was amazing. The weather was clear enough and the dome is quite high, so we could see over the entire city. Also the city isn’t that big, so we could even see the mountains in the distance. Pretty, isn’t it?
After getting down and walking on for a bit, we encountered a few cute markets, some with Hungarian food stalls. We were getting a little peckish again, so we went to share a bread bun filled with goulash. The price of the thing was scandalous for what you actually got for it, but hey, we had food, didn’t we? Not the best we could’ve gotten, sure, but it was food nonetheless. And local. Anyway, after eating, it was getting darker and colder. Fate would have it that we had just wandered into a shopping area, and the shops were open until late – so shopping it was! I got a nice bargain on a pair of shoes, a dress and a skirt, and my mother was quite satisfied with her new suitcase. With our loot we decided to walk back to the hotel – it didn’t seem very far, but as usual, I stood corrected. It was pretty far after all. But we did get some nice views for our effort: for example, we came across Saint Elizabeth’s Church, a beautifully illuminated church near our hotel. When we finally reached the building, we decided to have a smoke before going to bed, but that wasn’t allowed near the entrance. Across the road we saw a little pub with a smoking area: why not have a beer while we’re at it? The bartender was about to close, but he was kind enough to pour us one drink if we promised to have it quickly. Fine with us!
When we got up the next morning, we already had to get ready to leave. When we went down to the reception to check out, the receptionist worriedly asked us if we were flying on Zaventem Airport. When we told him no, he was relieved and told us about the terrorist attacks on the Belgian airport. It was a terrible thing to hear, but there wasn’t much we could do about it, so we quickly left for our own flight.
Since we had a few hours left, we took a little detour through the park near the hotel. That was a good choice, for there turned out to be a little castle in that park. I was glad that we were still able to see something interesting before we left. It took a lot of time though: a little too much, because we had to go into a few buildings to ask around where the devil the metro station was at. But no matter, we found it, and we were at the airport in time. Our trip to Budapest was very short, but I think we got to see pretty much everything we wanted to see. I had a great time in the Hungarian capital!
As for the Star City Hotel: the place offered pretty much everything we needed for our short stay. The room was clean and quite spacious, the shower was reasonable (it didn't quite stay put, but the temperature and strength could easily be controlled) and the staff was very friendly. They were always smiling, often had a word of advice ready and were very helpful, 24 hours a day. The location is pretty good: it's just a few minutes by foot to the metro station of Keleti Pályaudvar. It’s even within walking distance of the interesting things near the Danube, but I’d rather advise taking the metro. It’s quite the hike, I can tell you that much.
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