from buda to pest

view from the citadell

budapest was a lot of fun! we saw a ton in a very short period of time and got to experience a lot, both touristy and just normal stuff you would do if you lived there.

here are my pictures: BUDAPEST

friday afternoon, ezra and i took the train to budapest and got there at night. we were met by ezra's friend ferenc, with whom we stayed for the weekend. we did a quick drive by of the sites at night (pretty lit up buildings and all) and making a stop at heroes square. We then spent the night out on the town, walking from one place to the next. saturday we drove out to Visegrád castle along the danube river at the very top of the long island that splits the danube. it had gorgeous views of the surrounding area. we had some typical hungarian food and then visited the city of Vác, ferenc's home town which was much quieter than Budapest and seemed quite quaint. It was fun to see the large number of people skateboarding and doing stunts of sorts in the main square.

Vác center square

Sunset on the way back to Budapest

It was a little chilly, and as the sun was setting, we headed back to Budapest where we spent the night partying with ferenc's friends. I didn't understand much of what was said, though some of them were able to speak some german or english, enough to allow me to follow parts of the conversation.

Matthias Church

sunday morning, since I was the only one of the group who had not seen budapest prior to this weekend, I wanted to see the sites. after some rolled eyes, we figured out a plan that would let me hit up the main sites in a few mere hours. We walked to the budapest castle, which was cool. Rather than the type of castle i am used to, this was a much larger walled in area of the city where people actually lived and there were shops and restaurants (more a modern version of the castle cities that existed way back when). The main site at the near end of the castle was the Matthias Church. From the castle wall there was a gorgeous view of the river where you could see parliament and most of the city. After the castle, we walked down to the rivers edge to see a closer up view of the gorgeous parliament building.

Parliament with boat bus going by

While looking at the parliament, and with perfect timing (right on cue to ferenc's conversations), the tour bus that also floats as a boat in the river slowly made its way in front of parliament. comical site. we headed back to get our bags and make a brief stop at the mall so i could buy shoes! (and while this seems like a dumb thing to do on a trip to a new city, i needed new good shoes for my up coming trips and the prices here in austria are super high!! hence the reason for looking in budapest where i found shoes that were only 40% of the cost of the shoes i found here in austria, so totally worth it). next stop, the citadell. driving by the budapest castle another time, across the chain bridge and around parts of the city to get to the citadell allowed me to see much more (even if it was a a very fast speed). the citadell was cool, mostly because of the view that we had of the whole city. you could see the pretty parts of both buda and pest and the more ghetto like areas where you could see all the low rent buildings that were built. we also at this traditional pastry type thing (very similar to the one that we had in prague) freshly made with coconut. yummy. running out of time before our train came we did one more round about through the city, down Andrássy avenue to heroes square and then off to the train station, with perfect timing.

View of Heroes place while driving down Andrássy Avenue

It seemed perhaps a little bit rushed, but considering we saw so many different places in 2 days, it was amazing. and it just made me want to go back to budapest to see it again (perhaps at a slower pace). but hey, i gotta leave stuff for my next euro trip :)