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!
