I woke up in Vienna and went to the train station to travel back to Budapest. I suppose the story of how I made it make to Budapest foreshadowed the rest of my trip there. I boarded the train for Bratislav and we departed East. When the conductor came to check my ticket, he looked at me with a straight face and informed me that I was on the wrong train. I laughed, thinking he was joking (you know how sometimes people will see someone foreign and joke about something like that). He did not laugh and I said, "you're kidding right." He said he wasn't. Apparently, Bratislav is a different place than Bratislava. As a non-native German speaker, I assumed that since the city names were in German, that Bratislav was just the German name for Bratislava (just like Wein is Vienna in German). I asked him if it was possible for me to get off the train (since we were undoubtedly still in the suburbs of Vienna). He told me that it was an express train and that was not possible. I was to get off at the next station, about an hour to an hour and a half away and would have to find my way from there.
I left the train at a place called Breclav. I had crossed from Austria into the Czech Republic. Luckily, I was on the same train line as Bratislava and only had to wait about an hour or so for the Prague-Budapest train. I boarded the train and arrived in Budapest three hours later.
I went to the hostel and put my stuff down and went out to explore. The Danube River divides Budapest into Buda and Pest, which have since merged to form the city Budapest. I decided to explore Buda first. From my hostel the walk was probably about a mile to the river and I crossed the bridge. My first stop was the largest hill in Buda. At the top of a steep and tiring climb is a statue. It is to the left of the Buda Castle when looking at the river. At the foot of the hill, I encounter some gypsies. I ended up getting robbed. I won't go into detail about how it happened exactly because it is an aspect of the trip I would like to forget. Upon visiting the ATM, and getting awat from these gypsies. I climbed the steep hill to sulk angrily about what had happened.
I stopped about halfway up and started talking to this girl who was also alone. I can't remember her name (which is actually kind of sad) but she had an interesting story to tell. She was originally Russian but had moved to Australia and gotten Australian citizenship (her English accent was also Australian). She was doing what many Australians have done and decided to travel around the world. I told her about the incident and asked her if she wanted to hang out. Truthfully, I was getting tired of traveling alone and with the incident that occurred, I especially did not want to be alone. She was also alone and agree to hang out. She was going to be in Budapest for a few days at least before she made her way to her next stop. From what I understood, she was spending a little bit of extra time in Eastern Europe because it was cheaper and she had to take care of something at the Russian consulate.
At any rate, she told me that she didn't want to climb to the top so that I should go check it out and come back down when I was finished. The hill was the highest in Budapest and you could see the bridges that cross the Danube and the rest of the city perfectly and it was absolutely beautiful (see my Budapest pictures). I climbed down the hill and found my new friend (I forgot her name unfortunately).
We walked together along the river and made our way to Fisherman's Bastion. It was a reconstruction of a fortress that was pretty much destroyed in WWII. The Fisherman's Bastion has 7 towers that represent the 7 Magyar tribes that settled in the area in the late 800's. After hanging out there for a little while, we continued up Castle Hill to the famous Buda Castle. The castle was a very ornate structure, but unfortunately we could not go inside. There was some sort of art gallery there but we weren't too interested. We walked around the top of the hill looking at the statues and enjoying the park. At some point, she needed to go to the bathroom and I decided I would walk around a bit more up there and we would meet back at a meeting point in 15-20 minutes. When I returned to the meeting place, my new friend wasn't there. I decided to wait for her for some time. The sun was setting on the other side of Castle Hill and I took pictures of it. Because I was in one of the highest points of Buda (I believe it was technically the 2nd highest), it made for a great view. Unfortunately, my new found friend never returned. I stuck around the castle and took some night photos of the area and then made my way back to my hostel around 10pm. There was also some sort of labyrinth on the guide map that I really wanted to see, but I walked all around the area and could never find it.
Day 5: Budapest
The next day, I had decided that I would explore Pest. Pest had a lot neat historical places to see. One of the most interesting areas was the Jewish Quarter and the synagogue. The synagogue in Pest is supposedly a great place to see. I woke up around 9am, hoping that I would be allowed in for the 2nd part of services (this was a Saturday morning) to see the interior. Unfortunately, when I arrived, the metal detectors were off and no one was outside. The synagogue was locked up tighter than Ft. Knox. So instead I just walked around the Jewish Quarter a bit. I was a bit disappointed. I decided to backtrack to a place near my hostel where the Budapest Holocaust museum was located.
The museum was open and I went inside. I will say that this museum was one of the better Holocaust museums I've seen and I thought it was really well done. It was neat how the museum was specifically about the Jews and what happened in Hungary rather than the entire Holocaust in general. After I spent a couple of hours there, I walked over to the Parliament building. As if I hadn't been disappointed enough with the synagogue and the robbery, I discovered (contrary to what Brooks and Tyler told me) that I did need an appointment for a Parliament tour and that the tours were sold out when I got there. Just as I did with the synagogue, I admired the Hungarian Parliament from the outside.
I decided to move on and went to St. Stephens Basilica. It was a nice, typical European church. The one cool thing was that you could pay a couple hundred Hungarian Forint to climb to the top of the church and see all of Budapest from the Buda side. The inside of the church was really pretty just like any other European church.
After the church, I made my way to Heroes' Square at the edge of City Park. In the center of the square is the Millennium Monument to commemorate the Hungarians living there for a millennium (hence the name). I also walked around the city park (which had some sort of festival going on and there was even a medieval looking castle inside). After the park, I went to one of the city's islands (Margaret Island) which is covered with parks. I decided to sit in the grass, relax and enjoy the view before I ended the day.
I finished by heading over to get some pizza across from the city market (which was also closed for the day by the time I got there). The pizza and beer was good (Hungary has some really cheap beer!). Overall, I thought Hungary and Budapest was beautiful with a lot to offer. Unfortunately, my experience wasn't that good because I was robbed and I missed out on some of the highlights. I hope one day to return to Budapest and tour it properly. All in all, it was a nice introduction to Eastern Europe and I hope it will not be my last trip there.
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