The 3rd weekend of May, I travelled with my host family to Budapest for the long holiday weekend. It was Pfingsten Sunday/Monday or Witt Sunday/Monday. A religious holiday that demarks the creation of the faith. Nevertheless, it’s a reason to not work in Germany, which I find great. Actually, I don’t think that there has been once complete week of work in May.
Monika in particular was really excited about our trip. She had bought a travel guide a week in advance and had already started planning sights that we would visit and learn the city. Detlev, also excited, decidedly took a more eased approach to the trip. I had done absolutely no planning, packed my bags very late the night before and even didn’t have time to fully dry my clothes.
The following morning, we all awoke and we had planned to take the S-bahn to the airport to avoid paying for parking as well as the hassle of parking the car at the airport. Luckily for me, I travel daily to the airport from Oberursel and know the way quite well. I also didn’t have to buy a ticket as I have a semester ticket. However, Detlev, Monika and Nele all needed to buy a ticket. It was happy to show them my daily routine and show them how I have the whole thing memorized like on the back of my palm.
We arrived at the airport with time to spare. We had checked-in online, and I insisted on showing Detlev that I would go paperless and check-in using my cell phone. Nele, also interested in aviation, found it embarrassing that her parents had absolutely no clue in these new advancements in airline ticketing. I even showed Detlev how to check-in online the night before. He was quite impressed. I found it funny that this technology has been around for so long now, and only now is my host family even aware that it exists. Is this the fault of poor marketing by Lufthansa or just being out of touch on the part of my host parents?
I successfully got the email on my phone with the digital barcode. We proceeded together to gepäck aufnahme or baggage drop-off and check-in our baggage. I told Nele she should pack lightly as we wouldn’t need formal clothes and would only be there for a couple of days. In typical Nele fashion, she packed the smallest lightest bag, but had effectively distributed her things into the bags of her parents as well. Her bag was the size of a large purse, yet she still checked it in.
At the airport, I directed my ‘family’ to the gate and we looked for the newly delivered Lufthansa Airbus A380. It was there in front of the new Lufthansa Technik Hanger. From far away, it doesn’t nearly look as big it really is. I found the plane quite ugly, and think that Whale Jet is a quite fitting nickname. We boarded our flight to Budapest. We were one of the last on. We flew an Airbus A320. The flight lasted approximately 1h30min. Nele and I sat together, while Detlev sat in the back, and Monika a few rows behind us along the aisle. She read her Budapest guide book.
During the flight, we had the distinct pleasure of having a group of 30 year old Bavarian guys sitting behind us. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 8:50am. The Bavarians, were fully decked out in their lederhosen, Bavarian hats and traditional white shirts. Normally, you see people sport their Bavarian ‘costumes’ during festivals, like Oktoberfest. Since these guys our from some Dorf (i.e. village), and now live all throughout Germany, they plan a trip yearly to some unfortunate destination. I think that they were already extremely “happy” off their beer that they had drunk that morning. Although not raucous, the Bavarians proved to be very entertaining to listen to during the flight. The Canadian couple that sat next to them during the flight kept questioning them and asking them what they were saying and talking about. Talk about annoying. Anyways, the Bavarians pretty much shocked the retired Canadian couple from London, ON.
I had to continuously ask Nele for a translation of what these guys were saying. The words all made sense to me, but the meaning was totally lost in their dialect.
When we arrived in Budapest, Ferhigy Airport is pretty small. The gate is like 20 meters from the baggage claim and boom your already outside. I was already noting similarities to other communist airports which are inadequately small. The arrival procedure was actually really convenient, and within minutes we were on our way.
Monika’s tourbook has suggested that we buy a 72 hour long metro ticket which is valid for all transportation. The cost, 12€. That’s really reasonable for German standards, but in a very frusterating example of ticket machines not complying, we weren’t able to buy the tickets. After Nele and I spending several minutes unsuccessfully pushing buttons on the machine, we decided to go back inside and purchase the tickets upstairs at the post office.
It’s too bad that we did by the tickets, taking a taxi would have been a much more enjoyable and relaxing what of getting into the city, and the price, as we learned upon our return to the airport for departure, a mere 12€. We took a bus from the airport to the last metro station, although it’s also possible to take a suburban train into the city, the connectivity is worse. Therefore we listed to the advice of some young Hungarian who spoke very good German and told Detlev to follow him until the metro station and then take the subway into the city.
Like in Russia and most likely other former Soviet countries, you have to buy a new ticket when switching modes of transit. Thus, we had to pay another 320 Florint, or 1.30€ for another ticket. Luckily, the subway in Budaspest runs quite frequently and is arrived within minutes of us getting there. The metro is exactly similar to the wagons in Russia. Probably built in Russia and relics of the soviet era, the train whisked us into the city. Notable, the metro is Budapest is slower than in Moscow, but also much quieter. The wagons are much older and are painted in differed colors of probably lead paint. Baby pink, lemon-grass green, and other pale unusual colors.
Hungarian is a very difficult language and has basically zero similarities to other European languages. Thus, it was really difficult to understand what was being said on the intercom and we had to play “match the words” to figure out where to go. Luckily we ran into no unexpected problems, and arrived at the Blaha Luhza Ter station, which was steps away from our hotel.
After orienting ourselves after exited the subway, we checked into our hotel without problems. The hotel was quite impression and had a closed off courtyard which made for a huge atrium. The hotel was styled in the neo-classical style. We stayed on the 4th of 6 floors, and had two rooms. I shared a room with Detlev, which wasn’t nearly as bad as Monika and Nele told me it would be. Naturally they shared the other room. I had made sure to request back in Frankfurt separate beds. The room was quite large, with 4m high ceilings and a very luxurious bathroom. We also had space for a large walk-in closet.
The girls and the guys split off from one another each respectively going to their own rooms, and we settled in. By the time we arrived at the hotel it was only 11:30am. We still had the whole day ahead of us. We read some of the brochures that the hotel staff had given us, and then decided to walk towards the old city and get on the red tourist bus and take a tour of the city to get oriented.
Budapest is a city of 2 million inhabitants and was destroyed by a flood in the early part of the 19th century. For this reason, all of the medieval areas of the city were destroyed. The city was rebuilt in a very grandiose fashion. Most buildings date from the middle part of the 1800’s. Budapest also sits along the banks of the Danube river. Pest is the flat side of the city where the old town and central areas are while, Buda is where one can find the castle, bastion and citadel.
The weather was absolutely perfect. This spring hasn’t been very forgiving to Europe, and we were fortunate to have partly sunny skies with temperatures in the low 70’s or around 20°c. Thus, sitting in the open top bus was great and the view pretty spectacular save the times tree braches would whiz by our faces.
Budapest is the cultural and architectural city of central Europe. Similar to Prague, it hosts a long list of famous museums, operas, orchestras, universities and culinary treats. Luckily the soviet regime had minimal impact on the architecture of central district, and many buildings still showcase the splendor of their original designs. However, noticeably, the city was still quite decrepit. Hungary isn’t particularly wealthy, and despite having joined the European Union, has had limited funds in restoring old buildings. Most of the restorations have been completed due to private investment, and many buildings still stand baring bruises from past wars and lack of maintenance, even in the central areas. The city is also quite dirty in air quality. Many of the buses and cars are old and don’t have the strict emissions requirements as in Germany.
There are several bridges in Budapest that connect Pest to Buda. These bridges were all rebuilt after World War II since all of them, including the oldest was destroyed during by the Germans during the war. However, they were all reconstructed according to the originals plans except for one which was designed to be modern and beacon of forward progress to the city.
The first evening, after the bus tour and seeing the famous Unesco world heritage sites of the city. There are actually two in the city. The famous Andrassy street and the Buda area with the palace, bastion and coronation church. We ate dinner at a vinology bar specializing in Hungarian wines. The food was not very tasty, but we were invited to a enormous cheese platter of Hungarian cheeses which was very delicious. Afterwards we too the funicular to the top of the Buda Mountain and got a glimpse of the ‘skyline’ of Budapest.
We walked the entire way back from the Buda Mountain to our hotel, probably a 4km trek. Detlev was pretty tired, but we wanted to stop for dessert at the famous Gerbaud Café. Unfortunately it had just closed as it was nearing 11pm, and we decided to just head back to the hotel. Luckily, our hotel houses the famous New York Café, a place of meeting during the early 20th century for the famous literally groups and salons.
There I had famous Estrahazy Torte and an iced coffee. The coffee is famously good in Budapest. The Turks had brought it over when then invaded South Central Europe in the 18th century. Although Vienna claims to have had the first coffee house in Europe, I think the Cafes in Budapest can easily rival what Vienna has.
Despite Budapest being quite affordable, the cafes turned out to be one of the most expensive pleasures of the trip. Understandably, many visitors frequent these cafes.
Some of the other notable things we did in Budapest with my host family was hike through the Buda caves beneath the city, visit the Coronation Church, stand atop the Fisherman Bastion, travel aboard the tourist bus and ship, bike through the Margritte Island park, walk down the famous Vaci Street and visit the famous Budepest market.
We also went swimming at our hotel thinking we’d get the famous Budepest bath experience. Some Turkish baths are still in existence in Budapest. However, our hotel had a wellness area which was much more inline to a spa rather than a bath house, although the Turkish steam room was refreshing.
Fortunately, our breakfast was also included in our hotel rate, and it was spectacular. A traditional ‘American’ buffet breakfast meant that I could load up on food so that I wouldn’t have to go out in the city. The food was very good and served the traditional fare as well as some Hungarian classics.
Our visit to Budapest was wonderful and I highly recommend the city to anyone. Despite the difficulty of the Hungarian language, the people mostly could speak English and were friendly in helping us around. The city is also an ideal size and easy to walk through. I found that the three days that we spent there were sufficient to get a taste of the city and for the Hungarian culture.
And if you’re wondering if I tried the famous Hungarian Goulash. I did. Let’s just leave at that. I’m not a soup fan though, so perhaps that’s just my personal taste and preference. For the entire weekend, I budgeted $115 or 25,000 Hungarian Florint. That’s excluded the hotel and fight which together was €205 per person.
1 comment:
I never check in online. There's something comforting about standing in line and going through the same process everything you're at an airport. It's hard to break old habits.
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