Budapest is a bit of a wake-up call after the order and cleanliness of Poland and Prague as this city seems much larger and rougher around the edges. We’re staying right in the middle of the action in District VII, the Jewish Quarter, and the action goes on 24/7 right outside your window. Decent apartment once more, and on the 2nd floor, but you’d better have earplugs if you want to get much sleep. Abby is used to my snoring, and is an earplug veteran, so she does OK but I’m not and I’m still recovering from my sickness.
The antibiotics, which are working, are also doing strange things to my system so I don’t get much sleep in Budapest. There are some things I heard in the middle of the night coming from down on the street that I’ll find hard to forget. Not that anyone actually died down there, as far as I know, but imagine the soundtrack to a movie adaptation of Dante’s Inferno and you’re close.
This City is ready to party but we’re hardly in condition to comply. Looking back on this, as this is written later, this is where we were at our lowest physical ebb on the trip. Sickness aside, the lack of real exercise, walking not being enough, plus the restaurant food and excessive booze on the road and the usual travel stress adds up to a big, fat mess – I look like I’ve been inflated. Abby is hanging in there but it’s tough.
Given all that, we step out our door and, bingo, here’s Godzu Udvar, a complex of dozens of bars and restaurants in a semi-outdoor arcade. It’s all well done, albeit very mainstream, but we can only sample a tiny bit of it before retreating to our apartment. As it turns out the next night, there is cooler nightlife to be found in the famous “ruin bars” such as the original and best “Szimpla Kert”. Even for veterans of Portland’s cooler than thou hipster bars of the 90s and 00s, Szimpla Kert is something else. It’s in what was an abandoned Soviet period factory with a large open courtyard but now filled with mismatched and quirky furniture, found art, colored lights and all manner of bars with different themes.
I only wish we could have given it justice but we still manage to drink enough that we have to stagger out and find something substantial to eat before crashing out. As always happens, the ruin bar phenomena is not what is used to be, as tourists are starting to outnumber the locals, but the cool kids are working on things in the rougher neighborhoods so I’m sure Budapest will remain an excellent hip nightlife Mecca into the future. Cheap, too and we can recommend the Hungarian wine.
Unlike our previous stops in Poland and Prague you need transportation here, so a Metro pass is a must. Line #1 here is the oldest European underground outside of London and is rather charming – Everything seems to be made out of wood, metal and leather and the trains and stations are tiny. There’s no electronic gates, and the tracks are barely below street level, so you get out of the train and you’re almost immediately out onto the street, although you have to suffer the steely gaze of the inspectors who frequently spot check for tickets. In fact, line #1 is actually a UNESCO World Heritage site!
We use Line #1 to visit and tour the Opera House which, unfortunately, is under renovation but It’s still interesting with a big focus given to the rivalry between Vienna and Budapest in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with Budapest always being on the short end of things. At the end we get a 10 minute mini-concert with two elegant ladies belting out arias.
Hungary has had its flirtations with totalitarianism in the past, and it’s happening again now, so our visit to Heroes’ Square is conflicting. The vast open space of the plaza and the giant hyper-nationalistic statues don’t leave me with a comfortable feeling but then, I feeL the same way about parts of Washington DC. Probably, who’s in office has a lot to do with it.
Over near Heroes’ Square there are the Széchenyi Furdo (medicinal baths), the largest in Europe, and we give them a go. A memorable place as you feel like you’re in an elegant sanitarium in the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, along with several hundred of your close friends. As well as the iconic outdoor pools there are multiple indoor ones along with steam rooms, sauna, massage etc. All humanity is there on display in speedos and other inventive bathing gear. If you come to Budapest you have to do it.
All this so far has been in Pest, the Eastern half of the city but we, belatedly, make a token visit to Buda on the Western side of the Danube and climb Castle Hill, disdainfully regarding the tourists queuing interminably for the curiously tardy funicular. There are some ginormous views from the top and the castle puts on a good free show with appearances of horsemen and marching guards.
Couldn’t get into the Frido Kahlo exhibit, and we’re castled out anyway, so we make our way down the back of the whole shebang through quiet gardens towards the Metro, making a fortuitous stop at a local, tiny bodega where we get a good run-through on Hungarian wines from the owner.
We’re so wrecked by travel that we barely manage dinner out before giving up and returning to the flat to rest up. Budapest would be worth a return but, for now, Slovenia is in our sights, along with the light at the end of this tunnel of sickness. Maybe we will make it out of this in one piece after all.
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