After a seven hour bus drive, we were more than ready to explore Budapest. We headed straight to our hostel to meet up with the rest of our group and get the night started! We stayed at Bazar Hostel , which is on the Pest side, in Budapest and actually enjoyed the hostel. It was in a location that was great for walking to the sights, bars and restaurants and it was clean and comfortable. Add it to you list of must’s for Budapest.
Another two places to add to your must do list are Szimpla (above) and Instant. They are the two bars that we went to in Budapest and they were awesome. Szimpla was a funky bar that had an indoor and a huge outdoor area. Good music, cheap drinks and fun people. Instant was a little more interesting. It could be called a club, pub or bar depending on what room you found yourself in. It without a doubt was the strangest decorated bar I have ever been too; but I won’t give it all away and will save some for you to discover. These were suggested to our group and we 100 percent would suggest them to anyone visiting, we had a blast at these places.
Now that I have the night life out of the way I can talk about what was the “best” of Budapest. Simple answer, the views. The way the cities, Buda and Pest are split by the Danube river creates the most magnificent views. You see the castle, the Hungarian tiles and you can’t miss the Parliament building. We went on the hop on hop off bus tour and I think that was a great way to see the city and learn all the history. Plus you got a free boat tour with it so that was a good bonus. The city sites really speak for themselves, the pictures prove it.
Besides amazing views, Budapest is also known for their thermal baths because of the natural hot springs. We went to one in city park and thing that amazed us the most was the “watch technology” they had. Instead of having a key for your locker you would wear a “watch” (it wasn’t an actual one but it looked like it). You would put the face up to the locker and it was your key, sounds weird but it was amazing!
Now, we of course were hungry in Hungary, I’ve been waiting to use that line. In Budapest we had one of the best, if not the best dinners of the whole trip (it’s still in debate). We ate at a traditional Hugarian restaurant and had cream of garlic soup with cheese bread and a hugarian appetizar plate with meats for the appetizer. This was the best garlic soup we had period! We then had goulash with dill and cottage cheese potato dumplings and a side of sztrapacska, which was like a noodle dumpling with a creamy blue cheese flavored sauce. The food was delicio, wine was flowing and it was just an amazing meal.
We also got to taste the street food of Budapest. We had langos, which is Hungarian fried bread and sometimes called Hungarian pizza. The crust tasted like an elephant ear, that was topped with sour cream, red onions, cheese and ham. It was to die for. I love anything with sour cream so I knew I was going to love this. It was hot from the bread and cool with the sour cream and onions– so tasty.
We were sad to leave Budapest but had to keep going on our journey. Next stop Bratislava.
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