Friday afternoon it was off to Gatwick. First trip to Gatwick and it was pretty simple to get to. Strangely enough I bought a one-way ticket online via The Train Line - and the best place for me to catch the train to Gatwick from work would be to make my way to Elephant and Castle. Righto. Quite a straight forward process getting to Gatwick - First Capital Connect train takes you right to the Southern Terminal. The only thing I didn't know beforehand was that Gatwick had two terminals - a North Terminal and a South Terminal. Thankfully I wasn't pressed for time, so I made it all with plenty of time to spare.
Checking in at the airport was easy. Hand over the passport, hand over the confirmation, and sure enough a boarding pass follows shortly after. This was the case for me. Unfortunately this did not apply to the elderly woman next to me. I saw the lady hand over both her confirmation and passport... shortly afterwards she was denied boarding. Her passport expired 2 weeks ago. The look of shock and then disappointment was quite heart breaking. She was packed and ready to go, was probably her holiday for the year, and she was stopped at the check-in counter. She was directed to the booking counter so that she could rebook her tickets, so I hope that she'll be able to get to Budapest in the near future!
Upon arrival in Budapest it was a simple matter of hopping onto a shuttlebus to our hotel and getting rest for the weekend ahead. Accomodation was in town in a place called the Hotel Mamaison Andrassy, via a deal. Normally I wouldn't go to an upmarket place due to the prohibitive costs - yet this place was a steal for 30 odd quid a night inclusive a small bread and croissant breakfast delivered to the room each morning!
Saturday was a day full of walking. The day started off with a walk down to the Metro. As we weren't sure how far it was into the city we decided to head down the "yellow line" all the way to Vorosmarty ter, the start point of the Free Budapest Walking Tour.(Thankfully the Hotel is right near a Metro stop on the Yellow Line).
The Free Budapeset walk was great - the tour was led by a bubbly local guide, Anges.We started off in the Square then moved along to the River, walked across the Chain Bridge, trekked up to the Hungarian Eagle perched near the entrance to the Palace Museum, to finish up by the Fishermans Wharf. The walk itself was pleasant but Agnes just made the walk so much more interesting. She provided a touch of historical background without boring you and was quite honest about her thoughts - particularly about the modern Hungary. Very refreshing. It also helps that she was animated, passionate and keen to mix with all the tourists.
Getting around Budapest by foot is simply the best way to go. There are plenty of hop-on-hop-off bus stops around Budapest but you might not get to soak in everything unless you take it slowly. I found that some of the best parts of the walk were the view of the Palace from the Pest side (near the Princess statue), and the view towards Parliament House from the Chain Bridge. Now, the walking tour only really covered the Castle Hill site of Buda and the area around Volosmarty Square in Pest. That's plenty for a 2.5 hour walking tour though.
Once the walking tour was complete it was off to have a bit of a break in a nearby shop... hard to describe what it was - it was a little corner store on the bottom, bordering on a mini-supermarket, and upstairs it was a small cafe. Don't remember the name of the place, yet they served up some great hot chocolate... although that may have been due to the fact that I was a touch cold after walking around in the open for so long.A small group of us chilled out upstairs for a while before heading down to the Jewish Quarter by foot for some lunch (quick lunch at a place called Koleves Pub, where I had some goulash - soup-form).
The tour for the afternoon, the Communist Walking tour, was just simply amazing. As a tourist you could wander around, look at the sights, be happy with what you've seen and be done with it. However, one of the things you don't always get... is a sense of how those in other countries live or have lived. This tour was extremely informative, and I thoroughly enjoyed it - i'd even go so far as to rate this tour above the standard sightseeing tour.
Some of the interesting tidbits of information that was passed on was the fact that travel beyond Hungary is more expensive since the fall of Communism - travel to Soviet bloc states used to be extremely cheap, as the Soviet nations subsidised travel. Another interesting fact was that there were two passports under Communist Hungary - a red one for travel within the Soviet Union and a blue one for travel outside the Soviet Union! Obviosuly the blue ones were not something which would be available to many Hungarians.
Tales and facts weren't just the only thing that was great about the trip. One of the unplanned features of the walk was the sight of dogs frolicking in a grassy area in front of Liberty square, with a no dogs sign in plain sight. Policemen were standing nearby chatting away happily. Quite entertaining, and quite post-communist. Finally, at the very end of the tour was a bit of a show and tell and the thing I liked most out of all of the pieces on display was a board game - "How to be a a loyal farmer". Classic!!
Once the tour was done it was time for some dinner. We were recommended a place called Frici Papa. After being given some verbal directions we got totally lost. Not ideal. A quick search on google gave us some phony addresses... with an alternative search finally getting us to the place that we wanted to go. The search for dinner wasn't entirely a disaster as we worked up some hunger, ate a hearty meal (goulash again, non-soup form), and it was cheap as chips!
The evening was spent at Bar Instant. Quite an interesting place with some bizzare decor - an open (internal) courtyard with a top floor, plenty of rooms, low lighting, sports on the big screen television, and a school of fish floating around by the ceiling in the middle of the courtyard. The place was packed full of locals as well as a smattering of tourists... and the drinks didn't cost too much at all (although it could very well be expensive for Budapest, I wouldn't know!).
The remaining full day in Budapest was designed to be more pedestrian, as it incorporated a trip to one of the baths. As the Szechenyi thermal baths were the closest to the hotel, at a few minutes down the road by foot, that's where three of us ended up all morning. After stopping over at Heroes Square for a short time we arrived at the thermal baths. We were there for a good few hours.
After getting changed and moving into the first few rooms I must admit that it was a little uninspiring - just looked like a big bathroom with a few pools (all with slightly different temperatures ranging from 30 degrees to 38 degrees Celcius). However from this low initial impression things definitely got better, we moved out to a larger inside pool which sported some sparse decor before hitting the outside baths - which were awesome. This was where the party was at! A couple of large, attractive outdoor pools teeming with people. Was a treat to be outside in a warm pool with the sky above. The whole experience was thoroughly enjoyable.
The trip to Szechenyi was a real high point of the day, and the afternoon paled in comparison - a quick lunch stop, a visit to the Terror House, and a break at Gerbeaud Gasztronomica. The Terror House was informative as it detailed the nastier side of life under both a Nazi and Communist regimes. What was most shocking about the whole thing was the guestbook - written in Chinese was a comment along the lines of... Terrible, all lies. Talk about an intense comment!
As the flight back to London was Monday morning there was one more evening left in Budapest. Nothing was planned so a walk along the River Danube and back along the Chain Bridge was in order. It was a lovely, albeit cold, night to be out. As there was plenty of time to kill I spent some time mucking around with my camera... as i've not really had the opportunity to use my SLR at night thus far. Taking long exposure photos in the evening was actually quite fun - little did I know that I was out for over an hour just taking photos!
That's all there is for Budapest. Back to the hotel to get some rest, up early for a morning flight (which was delayed)... followed by a pleasant flight back to London!
Costs Snapshot
- Return Economy Flights with Malev - £88
- Walking Tours - Free* (if you're happy with what they provide you can tip, I sure did!).
- Frici Papa (Dinner) - 4375HUF for 3 (~£14 for 3)
- Gatwick has 2 terminals, North and South. Trains take you to the South Terminal! You can check which terminal that you need to go to so that you can plan accordingly.
- Make sure your passport is valid for travel - you may laugh, but it may cost you!
- Small change is required for the Metro - ATMs give big denominations, you'll need small change for the Metro.
- Book early to get massages at the Spas.
