Monday 12th September 2022
A 2 hour delay at Luton Airport, for no apparent reason other than our plane was late arriving, so ended up spending about 5 hours at the airport all told. Wizzair finally got us to Budapest at 8.30PM (local time), where we had 3 different phonecalls with 3 different men to arrange our pre-arranged hotel transfer. First man told us where to wait and to give them a call when we had our bags, second guy said who are we, and third guy said he would be there in five minutes - he was!
It was nearly 10.00PM when we arrived at Hotel Clark just near the end of the Chain Bridge. A welcome Prosecco was a nice touch whilst we completed the check-in paperwork. After a quick bit of unpacking we went for a little walk alongside the Danube and round the local area, watching some locals doing do-nuts in the street at 11.30, and encountered some giant soldiers.
Tuesday 13th September 2022
Tried the fancy Nespresso coffee machine in our room with mixed success - the Americano was quite prepared to overflow the small cups but the Lungo worked well. This was followed by an excellent breakfast of cereals, egg benedict/royale, croissants, coffee and juice before heading back to the room for showers.
We set off on foot to the funicular, which is maybe 50 metres from our front door, and 3000HUF (£6.70) gave us return tickets to the Castle District. The castle itself is closed for renovation (or a total rebuild) but we visited St. Matthias Church, which is a stunning building covered in extremely elaborate decorations and designs. The Fisherman’s Bastion gave us very impressive views down over the river and the Pest side of the city, and the bell tower and many other grand buildings filled the hillside. We stopped at a self service canteen for really tasty ham salad croissants and home-made lemonade, then continued with our exploration of Old Buda. The biggest problem was dodging all the Instagrammers striking a pose at every opportunity.
Finally making our way back down towards the river via the many paths and steps through the Castle Gardens to where we had spotted the giant soldiers the night before. The soldiers were outside a museum dedicated to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and World War One.
Heading back to our ‘hood for coffee at Lanchid Sorozo, a bar just round the corner from our hotel. We then tried to book a table at the rooftop bar for this evening but it was fully booked, so we booked for Thursday night instead and headed back to Lanchid Sorozo to book for tonight. The bar was covered in posters and album covers (some signed) from some of the British rock acts who had performed in Budapest e.g. Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd. Transylvania stew, sauerkraut, sour cream with bread/pork medallions, paprika potatoes and a bottle of merlot was thoroughly enjoyable, apart from the moment when Stan took a mouthful of “pepper” which turned out to be a chilli! He was a big brave soldier and carried on without too many tears.
Later we walked the other way along the banks of the Danube to see the Parliament buildings all lit up, before heading back to our room for the complimentary bottle of wine and the first two episodes of The Walking Dead on Netflix. We also noticed that all the lights on the impressive public buildings were turned off at 11.00PM
Wednesday 14th September 2022
There was rain before we went out, but after breakfast we walked alongside the Danube again, crossed the Elisabeth Bridge before making our way through the more commercial streets of Pest where we noticed beggars for the first time. We never saw any on the Buda side. We reached the huge Central Market Hall at the end of The Liberty Bridge, and spent some time wandering around the three large floors of paprika, sausages, unidentified meats and fruits, and tacky souvenirs. We only bought one thing to go on the wall before heading off for coffee down the road.
We navigated our way, with the help of Google maps, towards St. Stephen’s Basilica, but just before we got there spotted a small sandwich bar with a huge selection of small slices of bread with all sorts of toppings on display. We opted for our first ever taste of caviar with egg and tomato, and beef and onion accompanied by orange Fantas as we stood leaning against a small counter - and all for about £4.30
This kept us fuelled for the 364 steps up the basilica tower to the lookout point, with views across the city to the Buda side and everything in between. The basilica was named in honour of the first King of Hungary and it contains his right hand which is now almost a thousand years old.
We then followed a slightly roundabout route to get to the House of Terror, which was a museum of all the torture and murder committed by the Hungarian Nazis during WW2, and then the Communists during the period following the war up to the collapse of the iron curtain in the early 1990s. The same building was used by both regimes for interrogation and imprisonment.
Heading back towards the Elisabeth Bridge we found a restaurant called Hungarian Hell’s Kitchen which had a traditional Hungarian band playing just inside the doorway who played a few tunes we recognised including Blue Moon. Paprikas chicken with gnocchi/rose duck on potato roundels were delicious although the gnocchi was smaller pieces than we are used to. For a moveable feast we headed just a few doors further along the road for chimney cakes we last experienced in Prague.
We slowly made our way back to the hotel taking lots of night-time photos as we went.
Thursday 15th September 2022
Setting off down the Buda bank of the river towards Margaret Island we stopped at Steakhouse Cafe for flat white/chai latte.
Just before we crossed the Margaret Bridge we spotted an amusing sculpture of a clockwork Trabant car on the wall by the river. The first half of the bridge took us to a turn onto the island itself so we wandered down to see sports facilities, 4-person bikes, ordinary bike hire, and admired the dancing fountains and sculptures. Crossing the second half of the bridge onto the Pest side again we set off in search of Raoul Wallenberg’s statue (a Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Jews from the clutches of the Nazis.) and discovered it in a park which appeared to have all its gates locked. We eventually got in through one of the unlocked gates to discover Raoul was naked and battling a giant snake!
We seemed to be on some kind of eclectic sculpture hunt today, and next up was Columbo (Peter Falk had some Hungarian ancestry.) Before we could find him, we found a nice restaurant with street tables and ordered goulash soup (served in red metal pots), bread and lemonade - absolutely gorgeous!
Leaving the restaurant there were a few spots of rain, which had picked up a bit by the time we found Columbo (on Falk Street) so umbrellas were out. Posed mimicking the sculpture but as we moved away the rain really got going and we had to hide in a doorway as the streets soon started to flood. We were joined by a Chinese couple who squeezed in with us to shelter from the storm. Waiting for occasional lulls in the rain we worked our way along the Pest side of the Danube till we reached the Hungarian Olympic Park with all the medal winners names carved in stone along with the Olympic Rings in the colours of Hungary’s flag.
Another quick dash from one shelter to another took us to a coffee shop playing God Squad rock, but they didn’t manage to convert us.
A bit further along we reached the very impressive Gothic style Parliament Buildings, which are apparently the biggest in Europe. We sheltered for a while in the entrance to the visitor centre as the monsoon had really intensified. After a while there was another slight lull so we moved on to The Shoes (Holocaust Memorial) A row of shoes in the style of the 1940s right on the banks of the river in memory of the Jews who suffered at the hands of the Nazis.
Moving on the rain was getting even heavier, so we hid in another doorway as a thunder and lightning bolt nearly made us poo ourselves. The roads and paths had now turned into rivers and lakes and we were both completely soaked. We squelched along ducking into doorways now and again as we made our way to the Elisabeth Bridge, back down the Buda side to our hotel. Fortunately the worst of the storm had moved on now as we watched trams overflowing with passengers and steamed up windows passing us.
Cleaned up and went for our pre-booked meal at Leo’s rooftop terrace only, only to find our lift wouldn’t go to the 7th floor - so we tried getting off at the 6th hoping there would be a set of stairs. Ultimately we had to resort to going back down to reception to ask how we get to the restaurant, for them to take us outside and pointed us to next door (D’oh!). We had only walked past the entrance a few times. On getting to the right entrance we were told that our reservation had been made by the hotel reception staff for 5.30 and that they were now full - could we wait until 8.30? - No, that’s too late, Bye - Oh just had a no-show - OK, now will be fine! So up the separate lift we went and were shown to our seats with a fantastic view of the The Danube and half of Budapest all lit up in the dark of the evening. Unfortunately, there was thumping music and insufficient lighting in the restaurant so we could barely hear each other talking and couldn’t see the menus. An iPhone torch helped with reading the menus, but photos of the view were sadly affected by the reflections of the bar in the window. Having decided to stay despite the sound and vision issues we ordered saffron risotto and salmon, passion fruit, wild rice a bottle of local wine and some desserts which was all really good, so it was definitely worth it.
Back down to earth and we headed for our favourite local bar just a couple of doors down and had a couple of more drinks before we were asked to leave at closing time.
Friday 16th September 2022
Breakfast - shower - pack - check-out. Paid the tourist tax, but were let off the minibar bill. That’s a first!
Once again we walked along the Bled riverside and over the Elisabeth Bridge to the Dohany Street Synagogue/Hungarian Jewish Museum where there is the Emanuel Tree of Life. We didn’t really have time to queue and take the full tour so we had to make do with viewing the holocaust memorial through the gates.
Circling round to make our way back toward the hotel we found some street art including Rubik’s cube, and stopped off for a very average coffee and then found ourselves near the deli shop next to our hotel. We then spent a bit of time sat next to the roundabout enjoying our sandwiches and Tuc biscuits.
Back in hotel reception to collect our case and wait for our driver to take us to the airport we were given complimentary coffees by the reception staff. Our driver arrived just as we received our coffees but agreed to wait for us as he was quite early. At the airport, Stan was grudgingly given a printed boarding card as for some reason there wasn’t an electronic one on the Whizz app. Strawberry frappes and sandwiches from the airport Costa to take on the plane which was more or less on time. Then a non-stop drive from Luton to home.