Budapest, Hungary

Budapest, Hungary. This was the furthest east we made it on our European adventure and it took some extra travel time to make it- but it was so worth it!!! I would LOVE to travel back here again some day! One day just didn’t seem like enough with all this city had to offer. Not only was it one of my favorite destinations from our trip, it was also one of the more affordable areas- so much cheaper than Paris or Vienna or London. It may not be as glamorous as the other cities, but i thought it was full of excitement!

The first thing I had been reading about in my Lonely Planet book was the potato pancakes they make in Budapest for all different meals. They sounded great to me so when we arrived the first evening and checked into our cheap hotel I had reserved with points, we dropped our bags and headed out in search of them. I’ve discovered that trying to find ANY of the recommended restaurants in Lonely Planet can prove to be very difficult! We thought we found where this place was located on the map and took the trolley in that direction. We got off at the correct stop- and were totally lost. There were a million streets in a million different directions! We set out down one and after walking a while realized we should have reached it by now. We stopped and pulled out our map again and thankfully a very nice Hungarian saw our distress. He informed us we were headed in completely the wrong direction and guided us back to the right way again. Moral of the story we eventually made it and the potato pancakes were indeed delicious! It just took a lot of effort to get there. We didn’t grab any photos of them but it was a small hole in the wall place and you paid per pancake- they had TONS of options both sweet and savory.

From there we walked in the direction of the Danube River so that we could get a nice view of the Parliament Building lit up at night and catch the subway home from that stop. It was easy to find this, just walk towards the river! Near this train stop there was also another one of the potato pancake restaurants. That one would’ve been much easier to locate, but oh well! We admired the views for a while and saw the Fisherman’s Bastion that we wanted to explore during the day. It was nice just walking around for a bit to relax and we felt completely safe the whole time.

The next day we headed to our top activity: the Szechenyi Bath! It was AMAZING! There are many of these bath houses to choose from in Budapest but Szechenyi is the most popular and well known. It’s beautiful and I was very happy we chose it as it had many outdoor pools to explore which ended up being my favorite. There are others famous for being a bit prettier on the inside, so it kind of depends on what you want. We also had an option to purchase our tickets with points so that made me want to visit this one as well.

We didn’t do any sort of fancy package that they offered, just the basic locker to store our stuff. Guys and girls lockers are separate so Pablo and I split up to ditch our things and then met up out by the pools. You don’t even need to take your shoes around with you from one bath to the next so it’s literally just hopping in and out of pools the whole time. Each pool is set at different temperatures so you can pick the ones that are most comfortable for you. You can also do hot and cold treatments jumping into freezing cold water and then into a really hot pool. Pablo tried this though I opted NOT to.

In addition to the indoor and outdoor pools, there are also saunas located throughout the facility. Again, Pablo gave these a try but I lasted all of 1 minute before I was pouring sweat and miserable. It can be a little confusing finding your way around the whole place as the maps didn’t always make the most sense to me. But it was a lot of fun to relax in the warm water after all our long days of walking and carrying our packs. We probably spent about 2 hours there and I could’ve stayed even longer enjoying the nice warm water!

One recommendation I would definitely pass along would be to go first thing in the morning when it opens. It was not very crowded at all but as time went by more and more people began filling it. While we were walking to the baths, it was literally down pouring on us. I was getting so upset and thinking we weren’t even going to be able to enjoy because of the rain. But weather changes quickly in Budapest apparently because by the time we had changed out clothes and headed outside to the baths the rain had stopped! Along the way we stopped at the Hero’s Square to check out the statues and sculptures. This was pretty close to the baths and was interesting to look at. There was no one else around at all, probably because we were up early.

Our day wasn’t over yet as we still had two more of my favorite things from the trip coming up! We headed to the Central Market Hall for lunch, a market that is all indoors but the different levels have different offerings from hot lunch food to groceries to souvenirs and household items. This is where we discovered langos, another Hungarian food I had read about trying. Basically it’s like a giant piece of fried dough, covered in garlic, cheese and sour cream. SOOOO DELICIOUS and so bad for you.This place was jam packed at lunch time and it was really hard to find anywhere to even sit and eat. But after standing for a bit a table opened up and we snagged it quickly. It was next to an elderly German guy who was on his own travel adventures and we had a nice time chatting as we ate.

After finishing up our food we bought some paprika (famous in Budapest) and headed to our last stop of the day: The Fisherman’s Bastion. This is right along the river, across the river from the Parliament Building. By this point in the afternoon not only had it stopped raining but the sun was out in FULL blast. It was soooo hot we did not feel like walking up to the Bastion at all as it was a bit of a hike up stairs. Instead we opted to grab the bus which we had to run to catch as we saw it driving by. But we made it and soon were on our way.

The Fisherman’s Bastion made it on my favorites list just because it was such a cool looking building. While we had seen many churches, palaces and castles up to this point, this was something entirely different. It was under some construction while we were there, but it was fun to explore it and listen to the street musicians playing around the area as well. We bought a handmade table runner from an elderly couple selling them in the shade on the stairs and some ice cream cones to try to cool off from the heat. We grabbed some fun photos and then headed out to catch our train to our next destination: Salzburg.