Budapest 22/03/19 - 26/03/19
Apr. 6th, 2019 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
satyricaOur flight to Budapest from Luton was early on the Friday morning and all was going remarkably smoothly negotiating the transport into the city, locating our Air B'n'B, following the Crystal Mazeesque instructions to access the keys until N broke the key in the lock of the front door. Impressively, despite being away in the Maldives, our host was a model of efficiency, arranging for someone to speed over with a spare key while we hung out in a nearby cafe. The flat was small and cute with a bizarre 4' high mezzanine where the bed was but gloriously central to Pest. We eventually sauntered out in the late afternoon, wandering around the city, watching the sun set over the Danube and having some traditional food, before heading back to crash fairly early.
On Saturday we crossed to Buda and took the short funicular up to the Var District, wandering around outside the Hapsburg palace, Fisherman's Bastion and the medieval streets in the glorious sun before immersing ourselves in the Hungarian National Gallery, showcasing (mostly) paintings by (mostly) Hungarian artists, which was pretty extensive and satisfying. We wandered down the hill then took trams along both sides of riverfront, separated by another sunset walk along the river. Time had dragged on a bit and restaurants were pretty full up on a Saturday night so we ended up devouring a burger before heading along to Szimpla Kert, the most well-publicised of Pest's Ruin Bars, a huge, vibrant, gloriously shabby warren of rooms and courtyards housing various bars and nooks, some with live music, some serving food, all thronging with people. We stayed for a couple of drinks then tried to track down a gay bar we'd seen in the guidebook, only to find it closed, and after some more wandering ended up just heading home.
Sunday morning we headed down to admire the massive Dohany Street Synagogue but didn't go in, then I led us on an unnecessarily circuitous route to the Hungarian National Museum which we managed to persevere around all of: there were loads of Roman gravestones and statuary in the basement and lots of interesting palaeo-/neo-lithic, then Dark Age rooms, which were actually our favourite bits, before we got to the arrival of the Magyars and the rest of Hungarian History. It was another sunny day and we headed over to Margaret Island, which we wandered the length of, taking in the ruins of the convent and some time lounging in the park along the way. We schlepped up to a quaintly wood-interiored traditional restaurant and had to beg them to let us wolf a meal down and be out in time for their bookings, then stumbled upon Heroes' Square as we headed back; sitting out with our dessert and a pianist tinkling away at one bar local to our accommodation, then having a drink up on a snug balcony at another.
Monday was our last full day and we negotiated some rather less tourist-travelled public transport to get up to the Citadella on the Buda side, which wasn't much itself but afforded some great views, then were thwarted trying to get over to a Cogwheel Railway, which seemed to be randomly closed for a couple of weeks. We also found that as we headed up to Obuda, the oldest of the three towns that had joined to form Budapest, to scout around for Roman remains, they weren't open to be accessed until April, however we got a pretty good view of Aquincum and the two amphitheatres from the outside. Trying to experience as many modes of transport as possible, we took a water taxi down the Danube, although it proved pretty blustery above deck. Having not had much downtime so far, I had requested a couple of hours chilling at the flat before we headed back out for food at Szimpla Kert, checked out another amazing looking bar, Fogas, which was quiet on a Monday night, then headed back to SK to watch some folk dancing by enthusiastic youngsters.
We started Tuesday by checking our luggage in somewhere and enjoying brunch, then went our separate ways: N to Memento Park, the resting place of all the Soviet-era statuary, and me back to Heroes' Square for the Museum of Fine Art. I could have never made to the paintings, the basement was taken up by an amazing (and brilliantly presented) collection of Egyptian artefacts and I had to race around the Classical Antiquities. The main collection of European Art was okay, although we can basically agree that painting didn't get interesting until about 1500 and the collection only went up to 1600, some nice El Grecos and Italian Renaissance portraits though; the building itself was grand with the whole ground floor taken up by cavernous, ostentatiously empty halls. We rendez-voused at the underwhelming Grand Bazaar, had a final wander around Pest, an afternoon tea in an empty bar then collected our luggage and had an untroubled journey home.
On Saturday we crossed to Buda and took the short funicular up to the Var District, wandering around outside the Hapsburg palace, Fisherman's Bastion and the medieval streets in the glorious sun before immersing ourselves in the Hungarian National Gallery, showcasing (mostly) paintings by (mostly) Hungarian artists, which was pretty extensive and satisfying. We wandered down the hill then took trams along both sides of riverfront, separated by another sunset walk along the river. Time had dragged on a bit and restaurants were pretty full up on a Saturday night so we ended up devouring a burger before heading along to Szimpla Kert, the most well-publicised of Pest's Ruin Bars, a huge, vibrant, gloriously shabby warren of rooms and courtyards housing various bars and nooks, some with live music, some serving food, all thronging with people. We stayed for a couple of drinks then tried to track down a gay bar we'd seen in the guidebook, only to find it closed, and after some more wandering ended up just heading home.
Sunday morning we headed down to admire the massive Dohany Street Synagogue but didn't go in, then I led us on an unnecessarily circuitous route to the Hungarian National Museum which we managed to persevere around all of: there were loads of Roman gravestones and statuary in the basement and lots of interesting palaeo-/neo-lithic, then Dark Age rooms, which were actually our favourite bits, before we got to the arrival of the Magyars and the rest of Hungarian History. It was another sunny day and we headed over to Margaret Island, which we wandered the length of, taking in the ruins of the convent and some time lounging in the park along the way. We schlepped up to a quaintly wood-interiored traditional restaurant and had to beg them to let us wolf a meal down and be out in time for their bookings, then stumbled upon Heroes' Square as we headed back; sitting out with our dessert and a pianist tinkling away at one bar local to our accommodation, then having a drink up on a snug balcony at another.
Monday was our last full day and we negotiated some rather less tourist-travelled public transport to get up to the Citadella on the Buda side, which wasn't much itself but afforded some great views, then were thwarted trying to get over to a Cogwheel Railway, which seemed to be randomly closed for a couple of weeks. We also found that as we headed up to Obuda, the oldest of the three towns that had joined to form Budapest, to scout around for Roman remains, they weren't open to be accessed until April, however we got a pretty good view of Aquincum and the two amphitheatres from the outside. Trying to experience as many modes of transport as possible, we took a water taxi down the Danube, although it proved pretty blustery above deck. Having not had much downtime so far, I had requested a couple of hours chilling at the flat before we headed back out for food at Szimpla Kert, checked out another amazing looking bar, Fogas, which was quiet on a Monday night, then headed back to SK to watch some folk dancing by enthusiastic youngsters.
We started Tuesday by checking our luggage in somewhere and enjoying brunch, then went our separate ways: N to Memento Park, the resting place of all the Soviet-era statuary, and me back to Heroes' Square for the Museum of Fine Art. I could have never made to the paintings, the basement was taken up by an amazing (and brilliantly presented) collection of Egyptian artefacts and I had to race around the Classical Antiquities. The main collection of European Art was okay, although we can basically agree that painting didn't get interesting until about 1500 and the collection only went up to 1600, some nice El Grecos and Italian Renaissance portraits though; the building itself was grand with the whole ground floor taken up by cavernous, ostentatiously empty halls. We rendez-voused at the underwhelming Grand Bazaar, had a final wander around Pest, an afternoon tea in an empty bar then collected our luggage and had an untroubled journey home.
