Budapest

Chain Bridge from our Hotel

In the morning we took the U1 back to the Hauptbahnhof and caught the 10 o'clock train to Budapest. There was a crush and a couple of mohawked punks were in our reserved seats. They acceded to our demands that they vacate, but left their suitcase. Frieda was suspicious of them and wondered half-seriously if there was a bomb in the bag. But in a few minutes they returned for it, revealing they were just absent-minded. 

After traversing a verdant landscape of small farms, we got into town about 1. The cold was now working its way down into my chest, making my bronchi hot and scratchy. Fortunately we had decided to luxe it up a bit so a driver for the Sofitel in Pest picked us up at the station and guided us through the crowds of refugees. Our room wasn't ready so we left our luggage and took a walk across the nearby Chain Bridge. On the Buda side we had a spritz at a cafe called, oddly, the Meat Boutique. As in Prague, they were using sparkling water to make them, and consequently they lacked the prosecco punch they have in Venice.

Buda Castle from near our Hotel

Right away we both felt that of the 3 cities we had visited on this trip, Budapest was visually the most dramatic and this was confirmed when we returned to claim our room and got a look at the view from our 3^rd floor window. With the cold, I was feeling fairly miserable, but nevertheless we went back out, walked down the Pest bank of the Danube and then cut inland to a delightful little square called Vörösmarty ringed with sidewalk cafes. In Prague there were many restaurants with outdoor seating, but not many cafes like these. Here, like Vienna, like Paris, there was a real cafe culture. Frieda drew 50,000 florints out of an ATM (about $180) and we headed up Attila to Sas Utica where there was a restaurant named Evidens recommended by the driver who'd picked us up at the train station. We sat outside because it was still quite mild at 6 PM. I had some chicken soup for my cold, some paprika chicken and Hungarian beer for the rest of me. Frieda had goulash. It was all quite delicious, even though I had to blow my nose every few bites. I'd taken a Tylenol but it had done nothing to staunch the flow. After dinner we strolled back to Vörösmarty and sat at another cafe that advertised “Homemade Ice Cream.” I ordered chocolate and an espresso. The ice cream was rich, thick and creamy. When we were done we headed down the famous shopping street Vaci Utica, which takes off from the square. It was teeming with stylish young people whose exuberance made me feel better. All in all, everything, the dastardly cold excepted, was delightful. 

Vaci Utica

 

The bed in our room was supremely comfortable but the cold wasn't any better in the morning. Not only that, but Frieda began showing symptoms as well. We had breakfast delivered by room service, then headed for the funicular to Buda Castle. From the National Museum we walked down to the Fisherman's Bastion and the Matthias church. The former offered spectacular views of the Parliament and the rest of Pest, but was jammed with tourists and tourist-parasites. Later in the afternoon we went looking for some ruin pubs, bars that have been built inside dilapidated buildings, the hip thing in Pest. We dropped anchor for beers at one called Anker that sported a large courtyard full of young people hunched over their cellphones. The windows of the 2 upper stories were blown out, twisted ends of rebar left hanging from jagged concrete, which gave the sense of being in a war zone or in some post-apocalyptic environment. We decided not to eat there and instead wandered up a street parallel to the boulevard Andrassy into the theater district where we found a bistro. We both had goulash that didn't measure up to what we'd had at Evidens, but there was a couple from San Jose sitting next to us so we amused ourselves chatting with them. Also it was another lovely, mild evening so we were sitting outside and the theater next door was attracting plenty of elegantly dressed people to ogle. Afterward we returned to Vörösmarty for ice cream and expressos again, and lingered there savoring the enchantment of Budapest. Even at 10 PM the temperature remained mild. But finally we were forced to reluctantly head back to the hotel to get some sleep. We had to get up at 6 to catch our flight back to the States. 

Fishermen's Bastion

 

We both agreed that were we to do the trip over, we would spend more time in Budapest, which seemed the most congenial city of the 3, even though it's a lightweight in the art department. Frieda liked Vienna a bit more than I did, Prague a bit less, but we were both bewitched by Budapest.

Pest