Wrapping up Budapest

Our last couple of days in Budapest, our sleep is getting worse as the air con doesn’t work in the apartment bedrooms so we are all a bit cranky.  Gareth goes off for one of his long walks around the city while the kids and I chill in the apartment.  We are off to a ruin bar this afternoon, it was the one thing I really wanted to experience.  Old buildings next to each other that are in ruins from after the war, have been re-imagined (not restored) using materials that are recycled into an area of various seating and bars for afternoon drinks.  The atmosphere is very cool, parts of this area are dark and dingy, the rooms could have once been maybe a bedroom or pantry, other areas large and light with a DJ booth and could have been a lounge.  There are open spaced areas with no roof cover and to make use of the multi storey space old materials like a spiral staircase are used to get up floors or old stairs with scaffolding.  One of the bars looked to be made out of someone’s old garden fence, and I thought the toilet seat covers for actually seating were awesome.  If you think about abandoned places where nature takes over, some of the vine plants come up over the exposed areas between buildings to give a bit of shade from the sun.  These places are well worth the visit for a drink with friends.

One of our last full days in Budapest, we trek back over to the Buda side to have a good look at the castle.  On Gareth’s previous walk, he had worked out that if you walked further down the road there was a free escalator to take you up to the castle rather than waiting in line and paying for the Funicular.  There is a lot of work going on around the castle to “restore” buildings.  Seems they have a very different idea about restoration.  Some of the buildings they have decided are not fixable, so they are demolishing them and rebuilding exactly to what they looked like in the 13th and 15th centuries.

Leaving Budapest, you are left with the impression of grandiose of a bygone era, the structures here remind you of the power and the downfall.  But with cheap accommodation, cafes all set up to encourage digital nomads and young people, it's reinventing itself for the future.  Something not so apparent in other European cities.