Budapest, Hungry

Following Paris, we went to Budapest, Hungry. This also was not one of the cities that I originally thought I would be visiting while studying in Madrid, but I ended up loving it as well.

The contrast between the extremely expensive Paris and the much much more reasonable Hungry was realized after our first meal. We decided to split two dishes and ended up with a feast of food that neither of us could finish. The currency in Hungry also made you feel quite rich as our extremely cheap meal cost over 4000 Ft.

Our first night we met up with Elena’s friend from home who was studying in Budapest for the semester and explored the famous Christmas Market. It was fully decorated with lights, there was traditional Hungarian music playing, and only traditional Hungarian food and drinks were being served. It was impossible to not stop at each tiny stand and look at the hand crafted goods being sold.

The next day we started exploring the city and first went to the “Pest” side. First we stopped in a the largest open market building in the city of Budapest. There were tons of small stands selling everything from produce to hand painted figurines. Then, we went to the Liberty statue (after a 40 min hike up the side of a mountain). There we got some great views of the city.

Then we made our way to Royal Palace which contained the Matthias Church. From this landmark we got some more views of the city and were directly across from the very impressive Parliament building. Sadly much of the inside of the church was under construction, but from what we saw it seemed incredible unique.

We crossed over the Danube River to go to the “Buda” part of the city and were getting hungry so we decided to stop in a recommended café, Café Kor. We ordered traditional Hungarian Goulash stew.

Afterwards we went to the famous Budapest St. Stephen's Basilica and walked around the market that was situated in front of it.

That night we came back and saw a holiday lights show that was projected onto the front of the Basilica and met up with a family friend, Augie. She is originally from Budapest and was back in the city visiting family. She showed us around and pointed out all of the hidden treasure of the city. We even went to a small bar and participated in some traditional Hungarian tree decorating (using cookie ornaments).

The lights around the city were beautiful and the Royal Palace lit up at night was breath taking. It reminded me of the Prague Castle lit up at night.

We walked down the main boulevard of Budapest to Heroe’s square that was located next to an ice rink. There were three main landmarks in this area and they were all lit up at night. 

The following morning we went to the Synagogue and took a short tour seeing the inside, the memorial of graves set up inside, the weeping willow tree (that contained all of the known names of victims of the Holocaust in Hungry on leaves and many blank leaves for those that we unknown), and finished with a very sad, but memorable exhibit. In exploring this beautiful building and learning more about the tragic events that took place you are left with a swarm of overwhelming feelings and it makes you appreciate life that much more.

We finished our visit off trying some traditional Hungarian Jewish flodni before heading to the airport. It is basically layered nuts, apple, and poppy seeds.

Visiting Paris and Budapest was the perfect way to finish my abroad experience and helped get me excited to go home and prepare for the holiday season.