Hungary for Budapest

The plan for this two-day weekend was to visit Andrea’s family in Hungary – we left Friday afternoon and arrived late on Friday night, and were back to Gaming by Sunday night.

This was the first trouble we had with the Gaming train. We waited at the station for a while, but it just didn’t show up. Luckily we were able to catch the bus which ends up being a little faster anyway to Pochlarn, then we caught the train from Pochlarn to Vienna and then Vienna to Budapest. Right when we arrived in Budapest, Andrea’s aunt Szilvia (pronounced Sylvia) was there to meet us. We took a taxi from the train station to Szilvia’s “flat” (a small apartment she was renting). We definitely felt like little ducklings the whole weekend since everything was planned for us. Szilvia was SO sweet and she really did an amazing job planning the weekend for us! The apartment was super small but it worked :) It had a tiny kitchen, one reasonably sized room and one bathroom, so basically a three-room apartment. And we all slept in one room together. We arrived in Budapest about 10:40 so by the time we were in bed it was about 12:15 since we were chatting and getting to know each other :) Saturday morning we got up and ate breakfast and were out the door by 9:30. Budapest is divided into two “sides”, one conveniently called “Buda” and the other “Pest” ;) they are divided by the Danube River. Szilvia bought transportation tickets ahead of time for us so we would have them to use right away in the morning. Szilvia lives on the Pest side so we took the tram to the Chain Bridge and walked across to the Buda side. The Chain Bridge is famous for being only the second permanent bridge to be constructed over the entire length of the Danube.

Pest side:

Buda side:

It was an absolutely beautiful day to be exploring Budapest! Here are a few pictures while we were walking up the hill:

After crossing the bridge, we walked to the “Castle District” and climbed the hill to the Buda Castle at the top to see a gorgeous view of the Pest side. We walked down the other side of the castle overlooking Buda and went to the “Hospital in the Rock” Museum for a 1-hour tour. This hospital was constructed out of the rock: caves became rooms, and passages became corridors. It was opened during World War II first as an air-raid shelter for bombing and later into an emergency surgical hospital for air-raid defense and medical treatment. It was used during World War II, the Hungarian Revolution and the Cold War. Today it is a museum opened to the public but within two days time and preparation, it could become a fully functioning hospital once again if needed.

After the tour, we visited St. Matthias Church located in Fisherman’s Bastion courtyard.
Here’s the courtyard:

St. Matthias Church was the coronation church of Hungarian kings since King Matthias. It has been consistently enlarged and rebuilt over the centuries, was transformed into a mosque when the Turks conquered Buda, and after the reconquest of the city belonged to the Franciscans and later to the Jesuits. Between the years 1874 and 1896 is was completely reconstructed into a neo-gothic style. The designs in this church were absolutely beautiful, some of my favorite architecture of all the churches throughout Europe!

Then we took the tram back to the Pest side and tried to get a tour of the Parliament Building but tickets were sold out :(
Here it is:

We then headed to the city center were the Advent Market of Budapest was going on. It was so fun! It was filled with vendors, tables and food, and a dancing stage where we watched traditional dance for a bit. We stopped for coffee at the Gerbeaud Confectionary in the square which is one of the largest, most traditional and famous café-confectionaries in Europe. It was so cute inside and it was nice to have a little rest, and a caffeine boost :)

Afterward, we met Szilvia’s brother, wife and new baby who were out walking :) We went to mass at St. Stephen’s Basilica at 6 for Sunday obligation – St. Stephen’s is a neo-Renaissance-Classicist style church and the largest church in Budapest. It holds the mummified right hand of Hungary’s first Christian ruler, St. King Stephen. We walked back through the market after mass and Sarah bought some Hot Wine. It felt SO much like Christmas! Then we took the tram to Menza Restaurant for some traditional Hungarian food for dinner. We had to wait a little while to be seated, but while we waited we listened to some musicians and singers playing on the stage outside in the strip with lots of other restaurants and bars. I ordered Goulash which is traditional Hungarian soup :)

After dinner we saw some of “Budapest by night” as Szilvia called it. Before going to bed we watched a slideshow of pictures of Budapest from the bag of gifts Szilvia got for Andrea :)

The next day we were out the door by 9:30 again and walked a little ways up the hill to the Church in the Cave

We kept walking till we got to the top of another hill called Gellert Hill where we saw another spectacular view of Budapest, and the Citadel which is a white-stoned fortress from the 19th century crowned by the Liberation Monument of a huge woman holding a palm leaf of victory

We needed to get up early to stop at these last important places because Andrea’s uncle was going to be picking us up at 10:30 at her apartment to take us to the countryside to visit more family! Well, we were at the top of the hill still when he called Szilvia, so we hurried down and back to the apartment. Her uncle was SUCH a nice guy! He was totally thrilled to see Andrea, and Szilvia was wonderful the whole time because she translated as much as she could since he couldn’t speak English. It took about an hour and a half to two hours to get to her great uncle’s house.

The family had lunch all ready for us! Szilvia continued to translate since she was still the only one there who could speak both Hungarian and English. We were so spoiled that entire day. I can’t even describe how kind they were to us. We couldn’t even communicate with them but that didn’t matter, they were thrilled to be serving us! It felt wonderful to be having a home-cooked meal for the first time the entire semester too :)