Budapest (2)

On a sunny Spring day you have a wonderful view over downtown Budapest from up the Várnegyed (the Castle district).

The Várnegyed is huge, up there you do not only find the massive castle, but also the National Gallery, the Castle Gardens, the Halásbástya (in German the "Fischerbastei") and of course - maybe the most famous building on the hill) - the Maýás-templom, (in German "Matthiaskirche").

But before you venture out to discover all these place of excitement you should invest a couple of Forint and ride the Sikló up to the castle hill. The stretch of the funicular is ridiculously short, but it was built and opened in 1870 and it gives you this feeling to do something that people a loooong time ago have done just the same, maybe riding up to the palace with their families on a Sunday afternoon. And if you listen closely you can still here the whisper of people having fun almost two centuries ago...

And then you are right inside the castle district and enjoy the great view. Getting out of the Sikló on the left hand side you wander into the Gardens where you find the castle and the national gallery. You should reserve more time if you want to visit extensively, because it would take you at least half a day. (This is what the travel guide says, I doubt it. If you REALLY want to go see all that you can find there you might want to book a day.)

We did not have that whole day so we wandered off into the opposite direction to find nice and surprisingly quiet little lanes and then of course the Máyás-templom.

It looks surprisingly modest from the outside, but legend has it that the founder of Hungary, King Stephan I., has also founded this church by his very self in 1015 (which is probably more fiction than fact). During the Turkish occupation the church even served as a mosque, but still it has been there since at least 1250 (which is proven), and it´s maybe most popular chapter in History happened when Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elizabeth of Austria were crowned as King and Queen of Hungary here. Franz Liszt had written his famous "Hungarian Coronation Mass" right for this event, and another legend has it that the people calling "Ferenc! Ferenc!" in front of the Máyás-templom actually ment the composer and not their new king. I think I mentioned before that Franz Josef was not very well-liked in his new kingdom...

Inside the church it was also surprisingly quiet. I wonder how it must have been like on the day when the Royal Couple was crowned....

What upset us a bit was the fact that you have to pay extra to be able to climb up the few stairs of the Fischerbastei. You are high up and then they want you to pay extra just for a few meters more after you have paid for the church anyway? What we also found very surprising that also just a few meters away from the Máyás-templom they built a huge hotel which is almost towering over the church and steals a lot of the feeling. I mean, who allowed this crazyness to be built?And as long as we are at it, why not IN the church itself?

With this in mind but also with a lot of good memories it was time for some hot tea and some postcards to be written (none of them has unfortunately arrived at their receiver´s so far. Is it me or the Hungarian mail?) Then we returned to Kettenbrücke and to our hotel to prepare for the events of the evening.

I had been to the Cafe New York years ago, and at that time it was almost a landmark of Budapest but also a little run down which I felt sorry about. Meanwhile it was closed and stood empty, but finally a very rich 5*group bought it, invested lots of money and brought it back to its former glory.

If you want to eat there: Be careful, now there is a cafe and a restaurant, when I wanted to book a table from home I could only book in the restaurant, which is great but there is a huge price difference. Anyway, dining there is an experience in itself, they make an enourmous fuss about you, and salt and bread was never served more exclusively to us before. And the amuse gueule, and the soup...

I think they really liked that we went along with the orchestration, went "ooh" and "aah" and really enjoyed the waiters making a grand huge fuss about us. The food of course was excellent. It comes like this...

And it got almost kitchy when the piano player started a potpourri of "Phantom of the Opera", *sigh*... It was a perfect evening (for at least half the price that you would pay for something similar in a "Western" country, even though it still was insane) and we really really enjoyed it. But I am not sure if we will be going there again, because expectations would be enormously high, and it could not get any better. Still: Take the chance if you are around!

Budapest (1)

I had thought our trip to Budapest would never happen. Actually we wanted to go past September but due to illness, work and other things we postponed it again.... and again... I felt like being in permanent online communication with the hotel. "We are coming.... no, we are not... we are coming..." But finally it worked, and on a fab morning we set out. (It actually reminded me to our trip to Prague a couple of years ago when we also were lucky to catch the first streak of Spring.)

Our hotel was the Mercure, which I can really recommend because the location is perfect. Right in the middle of old town in the pedestrian area, so you have no traffic but still can park your car right underneath the hotel. The rooms are okay, don´t expect too much, remember this is behind the former "iron curtain" so things run a bit different in Hungary. But it was very clean with nice staff and a huge breakfast and the price was reasonable too.

This is the Vörösmarty tér with the famous Café Gerbeaud, almost next to our hotel, from where we started our exploration. I had been to Budapest years ago in Wintertime, but our host was from the warm parts of Japan and said it would be too cold to go out and do sightseeing, so the visit was one big party but I did not have the chance to see anything of the city. So this time I wanted to do all the touristy stuff.




















The fountain at Deák Ferenc tér. It is a nice square and park, also many buses have a maior stop there. Besides there is a tube station that connects you with the rest of the city. The church is the famous Szent István Basilika, the biggest church of Budapest.

If you are in this part of town you might want to proceed to Hösök Tere (Heldenplatz in German) which was built as a symbol for the more than 1000 year old history of Hungary. (And additionally they wanted to make a point that Hungary is older than the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy. Oh well...)

In fact for an Austrian walking in Budapest is a bit strange. Everywhere you find places, streets and monuments that are called like similar places, streets and monuments back home in Vienna. Kettenbrücke, Heldenplatz, Stephansdom.... And there are many famous cafés which the travel guide recommends for all the tourists - still being from Austria we have many famous cafés ourselves so we just don´t bother as much. And then you read in your travel guide that the Hungarians hold a grudge against Austria because they were not allowed to build an opera house as big as the one in Vienna. Hm. I did not expect Budapest to be so much home but also so controversal for me.... It must be something in my genes.

Anyway, here you see the University of Economics with my master of Economics right in front of it. Take the tram No 2, it will take you on a tour right next to the Danube, down to many places of interest.

Next to the university and the Danube is the Központi, the Great Market Hall. Here you cannot get rid of the impression that the Hungarians prefer their meat with meat - I have never seen so many meat stalls in my life! I would say it is like 85 percent of all the market stalls. Then you find vegetables (very traditional, carrots, potatoes, onions....) and now and then a tourist stall where you can mainly buy things with Paprika! (I bought some of it too and tried a Paprikahendl at home - it was the BEST!!) 

Views  from the Erzébed hid (they sure liked Elisabeth, the whole place is almost a shrine for her!) and the Szabadság hid (former Franz-Josefs hid, they did not like him so much, who can blame them).

In the evening we went to the CYRANO, a very fine restaurant in the pedestrian area very close to our hotel. I had made a reservation a couple of days from home which turned out to be good because the place is classy but with not so many tables. It was a really good evening we spent there and the food was excellent! I am not much of a meat eater myself but the Wellington for main course, I must say, was the best meat I ever had in my whole life. I definately would go there again. And the Pina Coladas for starters were very nice too - not too much alcohol, no cream and lots of pineapple juice!

Budapest by night, here the view from behind our hotel over to the castle and Széchenyi lánchid (Kettenbrücke). It is so pretty with the river running right through the city center which makes it strange to think that somehow the Danube is so much more linked to the image of Vienna even though it does not even run through city...  Good night, Budapest, we had an excellent day!