Budapest is my kind of city: beautiful men, great architecture, lots of theatre options and an ice cream shop on every corner!!
My first view of Budapest was not the best. Our train finally arrived in Budapest at midnight Sunday night. Train stations are never pretty places usually, especially late at night. This one was no exception. We hit up an ATM and tried to but metro tickets. Come to find out that the ticket machine only takes smaller bills than we had. So I went all the way back through the station to the ATM to pull out a smaller amount. Back to the ticket machine where we finally got our tickets and we were on our way.
Found our hotel with hardly any trouble. We are on a cute little residential side street two blocks from Vaci Utca and one block from the Great Market Hall. Our hotel room is great - vaulted ceilings, big windows that open up to the main street, and yet another chandelier.
Yesterday we took a three hour walking tour of the city to try to get our bearings on the place and to get some history. I'll save you from the boring historical details that I always find interesting. Couple of highlights: Rather then saying occupiers, Hungarians call invaders from their history "guests" and when the Russians liberated them from German Communism in 1956, they simply "forgot to leave for about 40 years".
We toured the castle district, but it wasn't anything awe-inspiring, minus the view across the Danube to the Pest side. The Buda castle was built in the 1950s and houses 2 musuems now. Fisherman's Bastion was pretty cool though. During the invasion by the Turks, each group of city people was responsible for protecting a part of the wall. The fisherman were responsible for the part of the wall still remaining known as Fisherman's Bastion. I took some great photos there!
Last night we stayed on our side of the city, Pest. We went to a Hungarian Folk dance performance. It is tourist oriented so I was expecting something cheesy but fun. I was very pleasantly surprised though! There were about 15 musicians and 8 dancers. It switched between straight up musical performances (Franz Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody, etc) and choreographed dances. Everyone was so talented that I didn't want it to end. And the theatre was a local theatre but absolutly beautiful. It was a great night!! Perfect ending to a first day.
I alreay love Budapest and we still have the rest of the week here. I like the smaller view of Vienna but I love that the majority of Budapest's buildings were built in the late 1800s. Every street corner is filled with great architectural details. The whole city is a photograph waiting to be taken! I love it!
