We awoke after our decently-late evening, when we spent time with several American tourists, as well as the proprietors and employees of the Maverick Hostel. We headed out the door after we packed and secured our belongings in the lobby with James’s “Pac-Safe,” which is essentially a flexible metal cage that surrounds his pack and Erin’s valuables whenever we leave our baggage in an otherwise-unsecured hotel or hostel luggage.
We started our tour of “Budapest” by walking back to the bridge we had sight-saw the evening before. Budapest is divided into two sections: the Buda side is the hilly side and the Pest side is the flat side. The two sections are separated by the Danube River. We headed straight across Erzsebet Hid (Erzebet Bridge) to the Buda side of the city, where we saw the monument to St. Gellert and its accompanying waterfall.
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| The Statue of St. Gellert high atop the hill. |
We thought the path up to the statue of St. Gellert might be on the way to some of the sights we had in mind for our afternoon, including the Hungarian Gellert Baths. So, we started climbing, and got half-way up the precipice to examine the waterfall. We also looked around, and realized that we had made a lot of progress straight up – but very little to either side. Back down we came.
We then turned the corner, and nearly immediately discovered the Hungarian Gellert Baths site Erin had been interested in. Seeing as how it was Erin’s birthday, and she wanted to visit to the baths, she headed inside, and James waited in the lobby, patiently reading his Kindle.
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| Inside the Gellert baths - this is one of the larger baths. |
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| Erin enjoying one of the outdoor heated thermal baths. |
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| Another one of the outdoor thermal baths. |
The Gellert baths were quite interesting. The building itself was a maze of different baths (or essentially "thermal" pools), some hot and some cool. (The baths ranged in temperature from 26 degrees to 38 degrees). There were private women's baths, joint baths for both sexes, and outdoor baths. Erin decided to try all of them while she was there (to make sure she got the her money's worth, of course). They also had steam rooms, saunas, and special spa services such as massages and body wraps.
After Erin came out, fully refreshed and with a smile on her face, we headed up the hills again. That is, we started our ascent to see Budapest’s “Citadella” or “Citadel.” We made it to the top of the Citadel, after stumbling upon several parks, and some Indian and Argentinian tourists. Once on the top of the Citadel, we took the opportunity to pose for and take some pictures at the highest point in the city we’d achieved:
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| Erin and James after their long walk up the hill. |
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| One of the spectacular views afforded by the summit. |
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| Tabitha made the climb too... and behind her are Buda and Pest respectively. |
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| James posing like one of the statues on top of Gellert Hill. |
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| Erin posing like one of the statues on top of Gellert Hill. |
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| Buda and Pest personified as a King and Queen joined as one city: Budapest. |
We descended from the Citadel, and saw some lovely views of the Budapest Castle on our way:
Because we had to leave for our train to Bucharest, Romania that evening, we were pressed to head into town for Erin’s birthday dinner. We headed back across the bridge and began to wander the old-town portion of the “Pest” side of Budapest.
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| We saw this unique method of new-car transportation as we crossed the bridge back to "Pest." |
Eventually, we found a restaurant that advertised two fully-authentic Hungarian meals. Sufficiently exercised (and bathed), we sat down to eat our delicious meals, both of which incorporated some type of Hungarian goulash (for Erin, it was goulash soup):
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| Hungarian Goulash Soup (near) and Chicken Pancake (far). |
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| Erin's Paprika Chicken Dish (near) and James's Hungarian Goulash (far). |
After dinner, we wandered the city, seeing some of the majestic buildings in Pest – some of the churches, government buildings, and some of the outdoor sculptures. Tabitha even got into the action:
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| Tabitha makes an inanimate friend. |
We eventually packed in our sightseeing for the day, knowing full-well that we had to hurry to catch our overnight train to Bucharest, Romania. We headed back to the Maverick Hostel to pick up our bags and say our goodbyes. We then stopped at a grocery store to pick up some supplies for the long journey. There were two interesting, albeit unusual, things about our trip to the grocery store.
First, when we were eating our fancy “Erin’s Birthday” meal, there were only two other groups of people in the restaurant – an elderly couple, and a mother and her two children. Strangely enough, we had seen the mother and her children twice more after leaving the restaurant, in Budapest’s streets. In the grocery store – you guessed it – sighting number 4. This is not a small city; perhaps all the tourists take the same routes.
Second, James was exploring the sugar-free (read: diet) energy soda options, and stumbled upon the mother of all diet-energy-soda surprises.
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| The drink was called "Bomba" - which is Erin's maiden name! |
This would be our longest train yet – we were scheduled to leave Budapest around 7:15 pm, and would not arrive in Bucharest until noon the next day! We had (wisely) booked “couchette” spots for this trip, but unlike our previous couchette experience, this train’s car was filled with us and four additional travelers. We were in for an interesting night.
On an side note, we received some very nice pictures from Erin's stepmother Theresa. Thank you for sending along the pictures - they made us smile.
