Hungary 01: Budapest - The 'Pest' Side

Thursday, January 16, 2025

Today we departed Vienna to head to Budapest! After checking out of the hotel, we took the U-Bahn back to the main train station. When we reached the train station, we took the escalator up from the U-Bahn. I turned around to ask Thinh a question and suddenly he was falling backwards with our large suitcase! Thankfully this was just as we had gotten on the escalator, so he didn’t fall far or get hurt, but it was scary seeing him fall like that – especially on an escalator! After that incident, I insisted on taking the large bag on the escalators myself (I was worried that it could happen again and he’d get hurt!).

Before getting on the train, we grabbed some doughnuts and butter pretzels for breakfast at the station. Our seats on the bus were both window seats facing one another across a table. At 10:45 the train departed from Vienna for the three hour journey to Budapest. I watching NetFlix on my phone to pass the time, while Thinh got some more sleep.

We pulled into Budapest at 13:45 and quickly made our way to the subway. Our hotel was located only a couple of subway stops from the train station. It was another bitterly cold day today and we hurriedly walked over to the hotel after we got off of the subway. The room was very nice and comfortable, slightly better than the hotel in Vienna. There was a café in the lobby of the hotel as well, which we planned to make use of during our stay.

Thinh and I both needed to get some laundry done and the hotel had a self-service washing machine for guests to use. After dropping our bags in the room, we went down to the common room so we could wash our clothes. As we waited for the washing and drying to finish, we hung out in the common area. Thinh went to the café and bought us some drinks as well. It wasn’t the most exciting of afternoons, but we both enjoyed having the down time to relax.

When the laundry was all done, we decided to head out to dinner. The area around the hotel had countless restaurants to eat at and it was difficult for us to decide what to eat tonight. Thinh eventually found a Vietnamese restaurant nearby that had great reviews, so we decided to give that place a try. He had a bowl of pho, while I had bun bo nam bo. The food was very good and tasted just like it does back home in Hanoi! The staff running the place were all Vietnamese as well, which was rather surprising. There were several other Vietnamese restaurants in town – we hardly expected to find so many in Budapest!

Back at the hotel, I played around on the computer for a little while as I wasn’t tired enough for bed yet. Thinh was exhausted and fell asleep on top of the covers while doom-scrolling through social media. He is so peaceful and cute when he’s sleeping (though he hates when I take pictures of him sleeping!). I woke him up when I came to bed so he could get under the covers and stay warm. While today had been uneventful, we would begin a full day touring around Budapest in the morning.

 
Friday, January 17, 2025

Our sightseeing of Budapest began in earnest today. After grabbing a quick breakfast at Starbucks, we began to explore the ‘Pest’ side of the city. Budapest is made up of two different sections: the ‘Buda’ side and the ‘Pest’ side of the city, which are separated by the Danube River. With so much to see in the city, we had decided to focus on ‘Pest’ today and the ‘Buda’ side another day.

We took the metro further into the city and began our own walking tour. Our first stop was at Liberty Square, where several memorials are located. At one end of the square is the Memorial for Victims of the German Occupation during the Second World War. This is a controversial memorial because it fails to fully acknowledge the role that regular Hungarians played during the Holocaust, and some claim that the memorial suggests that all Hungarians were innocent victims, which was definitely not the case during the war. Directly in front of the memorial is a much more impressive Citizens’ Holocaust Memorial that sprung up as a way of protesting the occupation memorial behind it. Photos, news articles, personal statements, and various artifacts have been placed along the memorial in an effort to display the truth of what had happened during the Second World War. It was a very moving display and inspiring to see such a living protest.

At the other end of the square was the Soviet War Memorial to remember the Russians who served during the war. It was erected during the Cold War, after the Soviet Union had imposed a communist government upon Hungary. Memorials such as this one sprung up all over the countries of the Eastern Bloc. Just behind the Soviet memorial is a state of US President Ronald Reagan.

Thinh and I headed towards the Hungarian Parliament (Országház) next. Located along the banks of the Danube, this is one of the most impressive buildings in the entire city. This magnificent building was built at the end of the 1800s and it was meant to resemble the Palace of Westminster in London. Kossuth Lajos Square is directly in front of the building and contains several statues of important Hungarians, along with a flagpole with a huge Hungarian flag. Thinh and I spent some time walking all around the parliament building, stopping to admire the architecture – everywhere we looked, we found something new and interesting to see on the façade.

We walked around to the side of the building and headed for the river. It was freezing cold and the wind off of the river only made us feel colder, but we pushed through it so we could walk along the river. Across the river we could see the Buda side, shrouded in a bit of fog. Our walk took us along the back of the parliament building before reaching another memorial. The Shoes on the Danube Bank is a series of shoe sculptures along the river that serves as a memorial to the Jews who were killed at the riverbank. They were forced to take off their shoes before being shot, with their bodies falling into the river to be carried away. Several of the shoe sculptures had flowers placed in them by people visiting the memorial.

We spent some more time walking along the river before going to a Starbucks nearby to warm up. Thinh had found another Vietnamese restaurant in town and this one served my favorite Vietnamese food, bun cha. It was a short walk away from the Starbucks, so we headed that way for a late lunch today. The restaurant, Pho-Astoria Bistro, was nice and resembled restaurants back in Hanoi in its simplicity of decoration. The staff were all Vietnamese and quite friendly. When the food came out, I was overjoyed when I saw that it was indeed traditional bun cha! It was incredibly delicious and I told Thinh that we would have to come back again before we left Budapest!

Down the road from the Vietnamese restaurant was a pastry shop called Gelateria Pichler Fagyizó which sold chimney cakes. I had forgotten about this dessert until we had arrived in Budapest and I insisted that we go there after lunch so Thinh could try one of the cakes. It was crowded when we arrived, but by the time we had ordered our chimney cake (with cinnamon sugar), a table had opened up. The chimney cake was fresh and was very good! Thinh was pleasantly surprised by the cake and agreed that it was a very good dessert. We could have added Nutella or even ice cream to the chimney cake, but we both agreed that the normal cinnamon sugar one sounded best.

It was late afternoon by the time we finished lunch, but we still had a few more things to see in the city before it got dark. We hopped on the metro and rode it further out of the city center, exiting at Hero’s Square. This large square is flanked by Museum of Fine Arts and the Palace of Art. The impressive Millennium Monument stands at the end of the square. This huge monument contains statues of the seven Magyar chieftains who led the Magyar (Hungarian) people into the Carpathian Basin over 1,000 years ago. In front of the Millennium Monument is the Memorial Stone of Heroes which commemorates all of the Hungarians who gave their lives for the freedom of the country. The entire square was very impressive and we both enjoyed having a walk around to see the various memorials.

Behind Hero’s Square is a large park where Vajdahunyad Castle is located. This fantasy-style was built at the same time as the Millennium Monument, at the end of the 1800s, to again commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of the Hungarians conquering the Carpathian Basic. The castle complex contains multiple buildings from different time periods in Hungarian history, showcasing a myriad of architectural styles.

Thinh and I walked in the direct of Vajdahunyad Castle, passing by an ice rink where several speedskaters were practicing. I had never seen speedskaters live and it was actually quite a bit of fun – I even suggested that Thinh and I could try getting tickets to the speedskating when we attend the Winter Olympics in Milan next year. Thinh and I were both impressed with the castle itself, stopping several times along the way to take photos of some new aspect of view of the building.

We walked across the small wooden bridge and through the main gate to enter the grounds of the castle itself, which was free to visitors. Inside we had a short walk around the grounds so we could see the various buildings. The different building styles made the visit all the more interesting because each one was unique. The Baroque-style Museum of Hungarian Architecture was particularly pretty. At one end of the complex was a statue that reminded me of the Grim Reaper – it was very ominous!

We quickly went inside the small gift shop and bought some postcards to send to my sister and parents. By the time we came back outside, it had gotten dark and we could now see all of the buildings illuminated at night. We walked back over to Hero’s Square and then made our way back to the subway. When we were boarding the train, the doors started to close and only I was able to make it aboard – Thinh was left at the station! The next train was only a few minutes behind mine and he took that one and met me at the station where we needed to change metro lines.

For dinner tonight we decided to try eating at a Ukrainian restaurant near the hotel. We decided to share two entrees, and I had borscht for an appetizer. The two entrees we ordered were pirozhkis and pelmenis. They were both flavorful and very filling! This was Thinh’s first time trying Ukrainian food and he liked it very much. We then walked back to the hotel to rest and relax for the rest of the evening.