Buda or Pest?

There are two stops when you arrive in Budapest, either the Buda or the Pest side.  Turns out we don’t know which side we are on, and it takes us 5 days to finally work it out.  Nevertheless, what we do know is google maps and how to find ticket machines and ride the metro.  Something else we forgot to check and assumed (incorrectly) is that Hungary is part of the EU.  It’s not, and they use Forint as the currency.  Yay for cards on phones.

Budapest is where all the young people are, and the cafes are well set up to welcome the digital nomads, but whoever said Budapest was cheap must have been here a long time ago.  Compared to the EU countries it seems very pricey for restaurants and tourist attractions.  There are however a bunch of things you can do for free if you are willing to walk the city.  While accommodation was cheap here compared to the rest of the trip, we have paid some very high prices for food.  In saying that, the quality of food and variety has been so much better.

So far the Turkish chili eggs and Hungarian pancakes have been the highlight, and something we will want to make on our weekends.  Budapest seems to be much more culturally diverse in its food, and it's a welcome change from the last couple of months.  What is odd is that they all do single shots in your coffee unless you ask for double.  It’s almost impossible to understand any bill from a restaurant, but Gareth finally works it out that our double shot americano are costing us $9NZD each… WTF?!

Here more than anywhere else I have noticed the “influencers” doing their videos.  I’m trying very hard not to judge, but the version you will eventually see on tik tok or IG is going to be very different from the reality that I witnessed.  Unfortunately here, I have seen so many diners all dressed up, and on their phones the whole time, never talking to each other and sipping the same drink for an hour.

It has made me think of all the restaurants that we have sat at over the last 3 months, where we have made eye contact with each other, talked, laughed and shared food.  The hidden positive of western Europe has been that no one leaves a phone on the table as it becomes a prime target for thieves.  So with no phones coming anywhere near our dinner time, we have connected on a much more positive level.  

With nothing pre booked for Budapest we made our own walking tour for the first day.  We start with the closest building to us which is the Hungarian Opera house.  And after searching all through Europe to see if there was an opera, ballet or play we could take the kids to, we randomly stumbled onto this one - La traviata.  We managed to score tickets for the following night and the kids are pretty excited.  

The next stop is St Steven’s Basilica, and as you round the corner, it can’t be ignored.  We have been to many churches, palaces, and monuments, but this one is just so dominating.  While others have been on a much grander scale (Sagrada Familia or St Peters comes to mind), I think it may be the closed in feeling of the surrounding square.  It feels like an oxymoron, the square in front is so large, and the buildings around are nowhere near the height of the basilica but it felt very imposing.

Last stop on our impromptu tour is parliament building, and a theme of grandiose imposing architecture continues.  It doesn’t matter from which angle you look at this structure, it's amazing.  I can’t wait to see it from our river cruise at night all lit up.

We looked at getting tickets for the parliament building, but at $45NZD each,  and all sold out for the week online, it's not happening on this day.  Fingers crossed we can get tickets on another day, but we still have to wander through the Buda side (Buda Castle, Fisherman's Bastion), go to the glow in the dark pirate mini golf (you’d think it was for the kids, but actually its for Gareth) drink at ruin bars, and do a night cruise down the Danube!  So who knows.  There is also a temporary immersive Van Gogh experience on, so I’m starting to wonder how we can fit it all in, when Budapest was supposed to be about relaxing and recovery of sore tired and fatigued bodies.