Two Days in Budapest

For spring break we spent a week and a half in central Europe. Our first stop was Budapest, Hungary. We took a red eye.. it's our new way of travelling. Since our trip to Morocco last year we have started to take evening flights that enable us to sleep on the plane and get to our destinations bright and early in the morning ready to start the day.

Budapest is divided into two sides with the river Danube running through it, there is the hilly Buda and the flat but bustling Pest. We found a hotel, D8 (yup that's its name) on the Pest side close to the river and the famous Chain Bridge. The hotel was wonderful. Highly recommended. We got there around 9am and while check in was hours away they said they could have it ready in half and hour. We left our bags in their care and headed out to grab some breakfast.

We ate at À la Maison which was a short walk away. The breakfast was delectable!

After breakfast we came back to the hotel to check in. Afterwards our first stop was Dohany Street Synagogue. We are walkers and wanders.. so on our way there we wandered to a square that had set up stalls and shops.

We purchased a beautiful dried fruit wreath from here the next day. 

The synagogue was closed so we headed towards St. Stephan's Basilica. On our way there we stumbled upon Gozsdu-udvar a sort of covered street market. 

We finally made it to St. Stephan's Basilica and got in line to go inside. There was an entrance fee and we paid to go up to the tower. While there was an elevator to take you half way up my crazy kids wanted to climb the 364 steps.. else it would just be boring, D exclaimed! We huffed and puffed all way up to find ourselves starting at a stunning view.

After that we decided to skip the interior of the basilica and headed straight to the gelato place, Gelarto Rose across the street. There was a line. Now the questions was, is the line crazy long because Instgram made this place and their pretty rose gelato's famous or is this gelato going to blow my mind.. we took a chance and it...  

blew our minds.. so so so good. The flavors were so.. flavorful! We tried the lemon, strawberry, cinnamon, chocolate, pistachio and raspberry. Amazing!

Next we crossed the Széchenyi Chain Bridge and headed over to the Buda side of Budapest.

That's me on the Buda side with the bridge behind me. It was not as impressive as I had imagined.. and so so crowded there was barely any room to walk. It was our mistake in not grabbing some lunch before we left Pest as the options on the Buda side were a lot more limited. In the end we sat down to grab a meal at YBL Bistro. The whole experience was okay. The service was so slow. The food was fine.. not bad. We were able to try a Hungarian specialty, chicken paprikash. 

Afterwards we headed to Buda Palace. We skipped the funicular, the walk up wasn't hard.. we didn't go inside the palace.. we wandered around for a bit then walked a short distance to Matthias Church which has a lovely tiled roof. We didn't go inside. Right around the corner was the Fisherman's Bastion (Halaszbastya) a panoramic viewing terrace with fairy tale towers. It was very picturesque. But thanks to the age of the selfie it becomes so much more difficult to get a decent picture.

We headed back to the Pest side of town. It was our first day and we had planned on having an early dinner. We ate at the Aurum Bistro close to St. Stephan's Basilica. We had another chicken paprakish and a beef goulash with buttered noddles and the most amazing lemonades I have ever had.

The next day we headed to one of Budapest's main shopping streets, Vaci which was minutes away from the hotel and had breakfast at Cyrano Etterem.

After breakfast we continued to walk along Vaci st. which was lined with eateries and branded stores. Not too interesting.. we walked till be reached the Central Market Hall. It was mostly meat and cheese vendors, some produce and lots of touristy souvenirs. Meh.

We didn't spend too much time there and soon found ourselves heading towards the Liberty Bridge. A much better bridge than the Chain Bridge.. still picturesque and without the hordes of tourists.

The rest of the morning we spent exploring the Gellert Hill breathlessly walking the many many steps to the Citadel and the other various scenic view points. Many many steps!

And look we found a playground too

With our stomachs grumbling and I craving some more of that magical Budapest lemonade we made our way down the hill.. walked over Elizabeth Bridge and back to Vaci St. We ate pizza's at Vendetta Pasta e Basta and lemonades!!

Bellies happy and full we grabbed a taxi to Margaret Island. Its a small island situated on the Danube just 1.6 miles long. It is a recreational island with a musical water fountain, parks, a pool etc. We opted to rent a surrey bike and took a tour of the whole island.

Instead of a taxi we opted to walk back from Margaret Island enabling us to walk by the Hungarian Parliament Building. The building is enormous and magnificent. There are millions of photographs of it on the internet but they can not convey the grandness of this building.

For dinner we came back to Vaci St. and had Italian food at Cucina. The next morning we were catching a train to our next destination!

Notes -
The is no Uber in Budapest.
There are plenty of taxi's who are supposed to take payments via credit card but refuse to.. so you need to have cash.
Hungary has its own currency for Hungarian Forint and it's a little discerning because everything costs hundreds of fornit.
All the menu's list allergens in the food which is great when you are travelling with someone who has allergies but they also will tell you that they cook openly and particles may transfer. So eat at your own risk. Thankfully D's allergies are mild and we were able to get through all the meals problem free.
The portion sizes were refreshing.. it was enough food to finish in one sitting. But we did miss the unlimited coffee refills at breakfast time. The teeny tiny cups of delicious cappuccino just didn't pack enough of a kick.
While it seems like we walked back and forth and all over the place but all the main touristy places are very close to each other and very walkable.

We had one regret.. we couldn't find enough time to be able to visit one of Budapest infamous thermal baths. I thought we would be able squeeze in a few hours but we couldn't. :(

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