Day 14 pt 2 & day 15: Budapest, Hungary

After a 3 hour train ride from Bratislava, we arrived in Budapest! We immediately headed to the Turkish Baths down the street...once in a lifetime experience, ya know?

 

The outside...looks unimpressive, yeah?

After the baths!

This is the outside part of inside of the baths...I quickly snapped a picture before I went and put my stuff away.

The facility is HUGE. This part is just one side of the outdoor portion. Inside, there are like 20 different smaller baths, all of varying temperatures. They have saunas, hot tubs, hot pools, cold pools and tubs...and you can switch between them as you like!

Mah Hostel!

The next morning, I checked into my hostel and met up with my friends from the group to do some sightseeing before they went off to their next tours.

We saw the Chain bridge, and headed to the Buda side of the city!

And there was a Ferris wheel!! 

It gave us some AMAZING views of the city!!!

Freakin sweet, huh??

So every city we've been to has had rails on bridges packed with locks, for the tradition of couples putting a lock on a bridge signifying their love and whatnot. And normally the locks are in a really nice area of the city, all romantic and stuff.

 But in Budapest, with like 4 bridges on the Danube, do they put their lock on a bridge? No. As Leanne says, they stick them on a weird gate in an effin random park.

But hey, whatever floats their boat. 

Lets seeee....we spent quite a lot of time on the Chain bridge and around the Palace on the Buda side. Oh- so Budapest is split into two areas...Buda and Pest. They're separated by the river. So the Buda side is known as the wealthy side, and they have the Palace and the Castle. Whereas the Pest side is known as the slightly poorer side. But they have Parliament and (in my opinion) a lot of the cooler stuff. 

The Palace as seen from the Chain Bridge

The Castle from the Chain Bridge

Me on the Chain Bridge!

Parliament from the Chain Bridge!

The Chain Bridge from the Palace

So apparently, every single on of Budapest's bridges during WW2... so that sucked. But cool tidbit to know. 

We hiked up the Palace stairs instead of paying 1000 HUF (~5 US dollars) to take the cable car up. Which I though was a good idea. Better views, and stuff. 

The girls waiting during a potty break

After the Palace, I headed down back to the Pest side, walking along the bike path and crossing the green bridge.

Along the way, I saw the Cave Church. It seems that it was originally just a home for a poor family, but then "The first modern entrance for the caves was constructed in the 1920s by a group of Pauline monks who have been inspired by similar rock constructions during a pilgrimage in Lourdes, France. Kálmán Lux, professor at the Budapest University of Technology was the architect in charge. After its consecration in 1926, it served as a chapel and monastery until 1951. During this time, it also served as a field hospital for the army of Nazi Germany during World War II." (Wiki)

As I was walking through town, got to see some pretty cool things. Budapest is actually quite pretty, once you get past the worn-down look. I looked up some stuff, and the Internet says that its a new fad to have things look old and decrepit. Which may explain why nothing is particularly new-looking or well taken care of in town. 

St. Stephens Basilica! So gorgeous!

I also desperately needed a new book, since I'm almost done with mine and I have 11 more days in Europe (Atlas Shrugged- READ IT!) But EVERY bookstore was closed! I was so upset! I literally walked by 6 book stores, all of them closed!

But something did catch my eye in one of the windows....  ;)

On day 16- September 8th- I met up with other friends from the tour group and went and saw Parliament close up! Its the biggest building in the city, and stunning. Its right on the river, too. 

These underground crosswalks are brilliant. Instead of having crosswalks across giant busy streets, they just built underground tunnels. America could learn a thing or two. 

Bryan and I went to the giant shopping mall in town to kill some time (and hopefully find a book for me- no luck though), and we ended up getting coffee and hot chocolate. I'm starting to think that I need to judge each European country by their hot chocolate. So far, Warsaw and Budapest are the best. Because this stuff was flippin awesome. Its like they literally took chocolate syrup from ice cream toppings, heated it up, and served it. It was so thick and rich and amazing. Ugh. I want more just writing about it. 

After that, I went to the train station next door and just read on the grass! The station is beautiful (from far away...close up its kinda dirty and has graffiti), and it was awesome to read in this plaza thing. 

California Coffee Company...we don't have that, do we? Never seen one. But here it is in Budapest!

I walked down the road a bit to get a close up of the Basilica...and because theres an awesome grocery store across the street. But the church is gorgeous, and the stonework on the ground is too! So I grabbed some lunch and read and enjoyed the view!

Again, I like birds. And pretty things.

Afterwards, I got some food for tomorrow, and headed to my hostel. I have a 12 hour train trip tomorrow across 3 countries...fun! Or maybe not so much. But I have my books (I did end up finding a shop near the basilica!) and food, and hopefully the train has wifi. Its always a 50/50 shot. Either way, it'll be an interesting way to spend my birthday, no doubt.

Later Gators!

Day 14 part one: Bratislava, Slovakia

Day 14 was one of travel...and a lot of it. We stepped foot in 3 countries in 3 days! We woke up- well, struggled and crawled out of bed- at 530am in Vienna to catch a train to Bratislava in Slovakia. After arriving, we had about 4 hours to explore before catching another train to Budapest. So this post is about Bratislava!

To be honest, Bratislava (or at least the tourist area) is pretty small. There's a castle in the town, which, once you climb to the top, gives you a view of the countryside. Apparently you'd be peering at the meeting of 3 country borders- Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia. A few of the group went up right away, but came down and said the view wasn't particularly amazing. It was mostly just forest. Which, of course, made me immediately think of scenes from Merlin- of battles in the forest and such. But that's just me being a nerd. 

So my friends and I decided to skip the otherwise unimpressive castle, and explore a bit and grab breakfast. 

There was a festival going on that weekend, which was cool. There was a stage set up in the square, and little booths set up everywhere selling crafts and such. 

The stage during set up

Inside the square

Some pretty things 

Poor little trike. With a little lonely balloon :(

This seemed like one of the main marketplaces in town

St Michael's Gate: When the town was first built, the only way in/out of the town was through one of 4 gates. The town was otherwise completely fortified by walls and moats. According to Wikipedia, "Micheals Gate was the centerpiece of a larger fortification system which included two rings of city walls, two bastions, a barbican and a falling bridge over the water moat."  It also dates back to the 13th century!

Now this church...I don't know what it is, but I just noticed that it has the Illuminati symbol above the door. That's the second thing I've seen with the symbol on the trip, so I found it interesting! 

Then, of course, theres the non- building stuff. Which is my favorite. 

We've seen these bears all over Europe, and have really wondered what they stood for...so I finally googled it:

The United Buddy Bears are an international art exhibition with more than 140 two metre tall fibreglass bears. Under the motto: We have to get to know each other better, it makes us understand one another better, trust each other more, and live together more peacefully more than 140 countries acknowledged by the United Nations are represented, promoting tolerance, international understanding and the great concept of different nations and cultures living in peace and harmony. 

Then there was this awesome bike rack...with one of the old big-wheeled bikes welded to each side. The wheels even spun! So Lucy and I each had our fun on it :)

Because of the fair going on, there were stalls that were promoting the artistic side of life for kids...they had painting, sculpture, yarning, stuff like that. We so wanted to paint! But when we asked, they said it was for kids only. There were one or two around the corner for adults...so we jumped on it!

We got to make these metal heart things... Don't know what we would use it for (maybe an earring holder?), but it was cool to make! We wove the metal and bent it on our own...although I struggled quite a bit.

After that, we just went back to the square and watched some of the performers in the festival. Then we hopped on a train to Budapest!