After visiting Prague and Cesky Krumlov, we still hadn’t had enough of Eastern Europe. We had found great history, food, and hostels in each location, so decided to extend our time in the east with a visit to Budapest.
We hopped on the night train from Prague, happy to find a couchette all to ourselves, for less than we paid to share a couchette with 2 other people on our first night train to Switzerland. There were a few noticeable differences on this train however. First, we didn’t have to reserve the train so we just paid cash on board. Second, the conductor checked our rail passes and kept them for the rest of the night (we were a little worried we wouldn’t get them back). Third, there were four locks on the compartment door and the conductor told us that we needed to use them. But the fourth difference was the biggest of all. The train was routed through Slovakia, a country for which our Eurail pass is not valid. We reached the border around 6 am and a few minutes later we heard a knock at our door. A little nervous to undo all the locks the conductor had told us we needed to use, we asked who was there, but nobody answered and the knocking continued. Still half asleep, we opened the door to see the conductor and the Slovak customs official standing in front of us.
The conversation went something like this:
“So your pass not valid through Slovakia so you need to buy ticket. It will be 33 euro for the ticket,” and then, smiling eagerly, “or I give you discount, 15 euro if you don’t want receipt.” As we fumbled clumsily for our money belts, he changed his mind after a few seconds. “Actually 20, give me 20.”
So we bribed our way into Budapest.
When we got into the city, it was dreary and cold and rainy and dismal. We made our way over to the hostel, a really cool place run by a 33 year old Hungarian woman who looks 10 years younger than she is, and her boyfriend from Indiana who came to Budapest planning to stay only 3 days and is still there 6 months later. The hostel was overbooked, so they asked if we could share the pullout couch instead of having separate beds, and we’d only have to pay half price. We happily agreed.
As mentioned, it was a pretty disgusting day, so we asked them for some activity recommendations and they suggested the Szechenyi Baths. Budapest is full of thermal baths, and these ones are apparently the best. Fed by natural springs, the Szechenyi Baths is a very large complex of indoor and outdoor pools, all different temperatures and sizes, for sitting or swimming, still water and jets, everything. There was even a circular section where swirling water creates a whirlpool that carries you around and around. It was wonderful. We spent the entire afternoon into the evening there, playing in the pools and people watching.
Max and I had some differing ideas about what we wanted to do our first night, so we decided to separate and meet up later. I was really interested to see what the Danube embankment was like, so I walked down to the bridge near our hostel to check it out. All the lights were lit up along the riverside and the castle was illuminated looking over the river. The view was great, but it was close to 10 pm by the time I got to the bridge, and the lateness and the darkness and the unknown environment were freaking me out a little walking around alone without Max, so I headed back to meet up for drinks with him and some people we'd met in the hostel.
The next morning was also disgusting, worse than the first day, bitter cold and pouring rain. We didn’t leave the hostel until lunchtime so I was cranky, and we were hungry, and wet and cold the moment we stepped outside. We still wanted to do some sightseeing, and I was really curious to see the river in the day time and with Max, in a setting in which I wouldn’t be so focused on being scared and alone. We didn’t get far because we were so hungry and cold, but we came across an enormous market with lots of traditional Hungarian food and wares. We had some yummy goulash and pastries and checked out the traditional Hungarian wares for sale.
After lunch, we decided to brave the bad weather and make our way over to the Parliament building (our Frommer’s guide said that the tour was amazing and the author had done it 6 times, so we thought it would be worth it). We decided to take public transportation to evade the freezing rain. Budapest, like Prague, lacks strict ticket enforcement, and we had yet to pay for a ticket in either location because it just wasn’t necessary. In our haste to escape the rain, we hopped on a tram with only about 4 other passengers, and a ticket controller. The train was already moving as he started to approach us, and we were cornered!
Without tickets, we were supposed to pay the fine. It seemed that the only English words he knew were, “You must pay 6,000 forints,” and he kept pointing at a sign on the tram to support his argument. We countered with “We don’t have 6,000 forints.” The conversation went on like that for about 5 rotations of these phrases until we came to the next stop and he declared with exasperation, “Get out.” We talked to the hostel owner later on and she told us that she never pays for public transit in Budapest and has never had a problem because the ticket controllers have no real power. She said things go like this:
“Give me your ticket.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Pay me the fine.”
“I don’t have the money.”
“Give me your ID so I can write you a ticket.”
“I don’t have it with me.
“Let’s go to the train station and you can use your credit card.”
“I don’t have one.”
“I’ll call the police.”
“So call them.”
And they never do, and according to her, no one gets in trouble. She tried the same routine with a ticket controller in Rome and spent 8 hours in jail.
But back to the day. After being kicked off the tram, we decided to walk the rest of the way to Parliament, only to find it closed. By this time, we were a little fed up and unwilling to explore in the rain any longer.
We haven’t exercised the entire time we’d been traveling, so we decided that this would be a good time to seek out some squash! Unphased by our experience with the ticket controller, we took the tram across town to the Hotel Grif. Max bargained down the receptionist for a 30% discount on the court time and a 50% discount on the racquets, and we had a great time (indoors, thankfully). After squash, we made it back to our hotel room early and were in for the night.
Having accomplished very little our second day in Budapest, we were determined to cover a little more ground on our third day. Though still bitter cold, it was no longer raining so we made our way over to Parliament first thing to pick up tickets for our afternoon tour and then headed to the House of Terror. The House of Terror is a museum dedicated to the victims of fascism and communism in Hungary. It houses various relics of the Nazi and Communist regimes in Hungary from World War II until 1991, including a full size tank, and details the history of the era on full page leaflets in every room (the reading was a little overwhelming – Max commented that he probably read more in that museum than he had for some classes). The most chilling part of the museum was the basement, where dissidents had actually been imprisoned during both regimes. Even the elevator down to the basement was horrifying – we were forced to watch an account of the executions as told by the guy who cleaned the gallows as the elevator descended slowly through a big black dark room where all of this had really occurred. It was wet and dark, and you could see where prisoners had slept on wet boards (no blankets) or been forced to stand for 12 hours at a time. It was a lot to take in, and I was pretty excited to get out of there by the time we left.
I thought Parliament was cool, but Max hated it. The building was astoundingly grand and beautiful (it was built by the Hapsburgs) and we got to see the crown jewels. The dome was even significantly 96 meters high to commemorate the founding of the country in 896. But the tour was really short, and not overly informative, and especially having just come from the House of Terror, Max was unimpressed. The tour also never addressed what happened to the building during the Nazi and Soviet occupations, which was pretty fresh in our minds and seemed to be a pretty important part of Budapest’s recent history.
The next thing we did was one of the weirdest and coolest activities we’ve done so far. Buda Castle sits on a hill overlooking the city and inside the hill beneath the castle is a labyrinth. The rooms were apparently formed by thermal springs, which were then made into cellars during medieval times. The rooms were connected to form an underground network of tunnels during World War II, and were also used by the Nazis and Communist officials for their secret operations (and for fun, Max says). Now they are open to the public. They were bizarre. It was really dark in there. There were also weird statues, and some of them had spears, and it was really unclear why they were there which made everything weirder. But the scariest thing of all was the music. Some rooms had light tapping, some had tinkling bells, and some rooms had deep, menacing drumming. The scariest room was almost completely dark, was full of statues with spears, and there was loud primordial drumming. I was afraid the statues would come to life and sacrifice us in some pagan cave ritual.
But it still got scarier. At 6 pm, they turned off all the lights and gave us lanterns, one per group. At first, I thought having our own light source actually made it ok because I could see where I was going. At that point, we had our own lantern, and they hadn’t actually turned off all the lights. But then they did. I walked around with Max like that for about 10 minutes (we had already been down there at least an hour!) and decided I couldn’t take it anymore and had to get out. Max wanted to stay, and he wanted me to take the lantern so that he could explore in total darkness. He actually stayed for an impressive 10 minutes, but even he was a little scared after that (and he bumped into something because he couldn’t see anything at all).
The city at night.
We couldn’t leave Eastern Europe without partaking of the legendary nightlife, so we asked our hostel owner for a club recommendation and convinced an Australian couple from the hostel to come out with us. A few beers later, we were dancing the night away to electronic reggae on the graffiti covered rooftop of an old warehouse building. It lived up to the hype.
The Australian girl told us that it was supposed to snow in Budapest the next day, and that solidified our decision to leave Eastern Europe to seek the warmer weather of Italy by way of Austria. Next stop, Vienna!
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