Let's Go to Budapest!!

Well, time to say adieu to Edinburgh and catch a plane to Budapest, Hungary. I've never been to Hungary, and was really looking forward to my visit. 

Boarding the river boat on Monday afternoon, my plan was to arrive in Budapest on Saturday afternoon, settle in to the hotel, do a little walking about and then find a nice place for dinner. The plan for Sunday was to take a hop on hop off bus tour and visit some of the popular sites around the city. The cruise had a tour planned for us on Tuesday morning, so I intended to skip the places we were to tour then and concentrate on other highlights Sunday. 

My plan mostly worked. While I arrived in Budapest, my luggage did not! I ate up more than an hour of my afternoon standing in line waiting to file a lost luggage report. I couldn't go outside to let the Tauck rep know what was happening so of course I worried and fretted about that the whole time. 

Report filed, and assured that my suitcase would be found and delivered to my hotel within 24 hours, I exited the baggage claim area and found that my Tauck rep was still there waiting. Score an A+ for them! 

By the time I got to the hotel and checked in, it was early evening and I was hot, sweaty and tired. It was in the high 90's outside. Without much of a change of clothing available, I opted to order room service and call it a night. 

At 1:30 AM the front desk called me and said my luggage was here and did I want them to bring it up? I said yes of course, put on a robe and waited for the bellman to bring it. When he arrived with it he said something to me in Hungarian and pointed to the zippers on my bag. My lock was gone, replaced by a zip tie. He had a pair of scissors and indicated to me that he'd be happy to cut the zip tie off. Considering that was the only way I was going to be able to open my suitcase I said "yes please". 

By that time I was quite awake, so I opened it up to see if I could figure out why my lock had been taken off. My whole bag had been rifled through. Very upsetting. However, everything seemed to be there, just massively rearranged. I sighed and decided to go back to bed and deal with it in the morning. 

Sunday morning dawned and I awoke feeling rested, even with the middle of the night interruption. I dressed for the day, went to the included breakfast buffet downstairs, purchased my ticket for the hop on bus and headed out. 

I will say that doing the hop on bus is a really good way to acclimate yourself in a new city. First of all, you get a cool map with the city and the sights highlighted and the routes that the bus takes. They also have audio headsets that are available in a bunch of different languages which makes it easy to sit and listen while looking out at the city. Everyone is quiet!! The audio guide is very good at explaining the upcoming stop and why it is important, etc. 

I mapped out my plan at which stops I'd get off, what places I wanted to see, and I have to say, it worked out perfectly. The only lousy thing about the day was that it was almost 100 degrees. Soooo hot and muggy too. It didn't stop me from going and doing but it did make me tired and cranky. This is when it's good to be a solo traveler because no one has to put up with my crankiness. Haha!

I visited the Citadel with the Liberty statue, which commemorates those who lost their lives for freedom. It's on top of a tall hill on the Buda side and afforded fantastic views of the city and the Danube. 

I found the Buda side to be prettier and seemingly more relaxed. Lots of cafes, green hills and quieter traffic. The Castle is also on the Buda side. 

Separated by the Danube, the Pest side of Budapest is laid out in a logical grid but it is fast paced, heavy with cars and trams and buses and feels more like a busy and noisy city. The Parliament is located on this side, sitting right alongside the river, and you will also find Heroes Square, St. Stephens Cathedral, the Terror Museum, the Great Synagogue (2nd largest in the world), and the pedestrian shopping street and markets. And gobs of hotels and restaurants. 

I visited all of these places and enjoyed each of them. The architecture of the buildings and the history of this city was wonderful to explore and learn about. Budapest is a very picturesque city and I'd highly recommend it.  The only negative is that I didn't find the people to be all that friendly. No one seems to smile much. I would pass people in the street while walking and make eye contact and smile and they'd just completely ignore me. I'd speak to someone and ask if they spoke English and they'd answer "yes" but then would answer with a scowl. One young woman taking our tour tickets inside the Parliament Building kept rolling her eyes at everyone as they passed through her to have their ticket scanned. "Welcome to Hungary now go home" she seemed to want to say. Yikes!  I wanted to stick out my tongue at her but I was worried she might not let me in, so my manners won out and I behaved. 

Just outside the (gorgeous inside and out) Parliament Building (snotty ticket taker notwithstanding) is a memorial to the Jews of this city who were marched to the riverbank here, told to remove their shoes and then shot, their bodies then pushed into the river, during WW2. There used to be a very large Jewish population in Budapest, but the war changed all of that, decimating the population. The memorial represents their shoes left behind on the riverbank. It is both beautiful and heartbreaking, as you might imagine.