Just Landed in London: Budapest

This is the last leg of the trip. Honestly I was most excited to go to Budapest among the other cities on this trip. But by the time, we got to Budapest, I was tired of traveling. I wasn't used to long trips. All previous trips were between 3 and 4 days. This time I was going for 10 days. To make it worse, our airBNB in Budapest was below expectation. The reviews were great, no signs of anything bad. The apartment has a window that was facing the inner courtyard, which was damp and musty. The air circulation was poor. The apartment was smelly. My sister told me later after we got back to London. She thought the bathroom was dirty. She didn't say anything to me because she knew I already couldn't stand the place.

Anyway, I was excited about Budapest because my mom said Budapest was the prettiest city she had ever seen in Europe. She took a boat tour on Danube at night when both cities, Buda and Pest, were lit up. Since then, I was always curious and couldn't wait to go here.

We got there almost around lunch time, so we hit a local restaurant before sightseeing. We stayed in an apartment closed to the parliament building. It's about a mile or so from the main square.

I had Beef stew with potato dumpling. I can't remember what my sister had. Something served with rice.

Steak with fried onion... or fried onion with steak

Good beer

After lunch, we joined a walking tour. It was freaking hot, closer to 40F with the heat index. We were ready to melt. Our tour guide was Dori, a college student. She's pretty good, but not as good as Adam from Prague. We saw their cathedral but didn't even go in. I think we tried but they had something going on. Since we saw so many churches already, the excitement to see another cathedral has worn off. Hungary, as an ex communist country that was controlled by Russia, shared a lot of similarities to Czech Republic. You can wipe off close to 40 years of communism. The mentality and personality of the people were different. Dori told us the Hungarians at work are different from the ones outside of work. At work, they liked to complain a lot, not happy and depressed. Outside of work, they were fun and like to have fun. She also told us that their language was very logical. It made it difficult to learn Hungarian but also it trained them to apply logic in everything, hence they were really good at science and math. The tour started in the Pest side, then we crossed the bridge, and went to the Buda hill, which was the castle district. We climbed lots of steps to get up there. They also had a funicular to go to the top. I took lots of pictures.

St. Stephen Cathedral. On the way to the tour meeting point.

The famous Chain Bridge

Dori, our tour guide

One of the communist buildings from the 80's. Poor built, lack of heating and ugly (I used Dori's word)

They also have locks of love, but attached to a tree guard, not a bridge.

The architect

A bit of history lesson. The Széchenyi Chain Bridge is a suspension bridge that spans the River Danube between Buda and Pest, the western and eastern sides of Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Designed by the English engineer William Tierney Clark, it was the first permanent bridge across the Danube in Hungary, and was opened in 1849.

Buda is the former capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and the western part of the current Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. Buda comprises about one-third of Budapest's complete territory and is mostly wooded and hilly. Buda Castle, Citadella and the Hungarian president's residence, Sándor Palace, are also in Buda. The last place was lightly guarded by two soldiers, not gated or anything. It was in the middle of a tourist spot. Dori said, the president didn't have any power, he was only there to shake people's hands and smiled. The PM has the power.

Pest. The castle district.

From the steps going up to the Buda Hill.

The Parliament

More Danube and Parliament pictures.

Buda Castles

Later that night, we went on the boat cruise. At first, I regret that I didn't pick a later time since the sky was still light. I wanted to be able to see the bridge and the parliament completely lit up. But it actually worked out. By the time we passed the parliament again. It was beautifully lit up.

It looks like it was floating on the river.

Chain Bridge at night

National Gallery in the back ground.

We took some pictures as we were walking home

It looks like I photoshop these two images, but no... They're real.

The next morning we went to the Central market and toured the Parliament.For a small country like Hungary, they sure did spend a lot of money to build a beautiful Parliament. Lots of gold inside. We flew early afternoon back to London. Home sweet home!