The currents run strong in the Danube.
Any mental picture of a calm and serene blue river between
two parts of a city are quickly washed away in a turmoil of eddies and rips.
So, too, the history of Budapest itself.
Imagine what a castle may have looked like,
before the Turk invasion and subsequent damage to it after munitions storage
and fate. Now reconstruct it. 
Imagine what the beautiful and historic bridges joining the
low lying Pest with the hills and greenery of Buda looked like, before they were blown up in World
War II…and reconstruct them.
Imagine what the small and intricate streets and
architecture of low-lying Pest looked like before the flooding in 1838 and then
reconstruct it.
Imagine what a cathedral in the old style should look
like…and build one of that style.
For a place with two millennia of history to it and its
constituent parts, there is little that survives of that history and much has
been built or reconstructed in the last 200-300 years . Despite that you cannot help but feel the
history and ambience as you traverse the two parts of the city.
Budapest itself actually only came into being in 1873 with
the combining of the cities of Buda, Pest and OBuda (old Buda).
Arriving
I arrive at the central Budapest station via the overnight
train from Prague. It is 9.00am and I
need to contact my AirBnB host, Agi, to arrange to meet her at her local train
station.
Having no local currency (HUF the Hungarian forint – at the
stage I am travelling divide by 192 to get the NZ FX rate) and no cellphone, I
need to get sorted.
I am still getting used to withdrawing amounts from ATM’s
where the amount (were it NZ currency rather than local) would pay for a
mortgage deposit back home. I opt for
the HUF 50,000 option (around NZ$250).
Paying for a train pass for three days I get some change in coins and
attempt to use one of the payphones that happily takes my money and tells me
there’s no such number. The change/money
is not refunded and the phone seems happy that it has done its job for the
money in telling me that I must be a foreigner who needs to learn about how to
translate local cellphone numbers for payphone use. Lesson learnt.
I ask one of the local shops at the station where I can find
WiFi. “Over the road at Burger King” Ah,
some things are international! I cart my
backpack over, buy the obligatory drink so I can use their WiFi, cram my pack
and self between a fixed seat and a plastic table the distance between which looks
like it’s been calibrated to accommodate a fashion model or someone with an
eating disorder (somewhat ironic given the actual location) and get my laptop
out. Thank God for SKYPE and its SKYPE
Out service that allows you to call any phone.
I swear under my breath at Ortel (see separate post on
Telecommunications that aren’t) and dial
Agi. It’s now about 10.00 and she
expected me in around 8.30. She sounds a
little concerned “Where are you.” I reply “Long story but simple answer is I’m about to
catch the train to Racozi” (her stop).
Turns out it’s 2 stops on from the main station I am at and she meets me
there. We walk the 5 minute leisurely
journey to the apartment.
While I am sure that the Airport is somewhat more geared to
arriving tourists, the central train station is not. The actual trains and trams themselves are
easy to navigate once you get tuned into them (took me about a day). I bought a 3 day public transport pass (about
HUF 4150 = NZD$22) which, turns out I only used for a day and a half, such was
my central location and love of walking.
I l later rented a bike for HUF
6000 for 36 hours (NZD$31.00) and got far more use out of that.
Getting around
I opt for one of the hop-on, hop-off bus tours that has two
main bus routes in addition to a scenic river tour. It costs be HUF6,000 and can be used for 2
days. Armed with enough context both of
history and geography from that I then rent a bike for the remainder of my
stay.
Budapest is a cycling city.
Whereas Prague is dense in both population and much history in a small
area, Budapest happily accommodates its 2 million population in a serene city
that is comfortably spread out though not too sprawling. That said, the old city is really my focus
and the overall Budapest city spreads of 500 square km. You never seem to see traffic congestion
either of the car or pedestrian variety.
They are well geared for tourists here and have about 4.3m visiting
every year.
The best advice I can offer about getting a view of the city
that reflects its true splendour is to do it at night. I go around and get my bearings on the first
couple of days. The rhythm of the city
seems to be from 10.00am until about 10pm (at least for catering for
visitors). Then the camera comes out at
night. The lighting provides the beauty
of the buildings in relief of the night sky (and the hills on the Buda side of
the river).
Taking the waters
No trip to Budapest is complete without visiting one of the
spas ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spas_in_Budapest
) . Agi informs me that the Rudas spa is
closer to the apartment (just over the Elizabeth bridge), has more history (is
older) than the more popular and tourist visited Szechenyi (near Heroes Square)
and is where the locals tend to go. They
have a man’s day and a woman’s day and combine the two in the weekends. There are natural thermal springs in Budapest
that attracted the Romans . Two hours
later and two kg’s lighter I extract myself from the old-age Turkish baths of
Rudas. Whether it’s the steam room that
seems to separate each layer of skin and singe your nostrils, the central pool
under the beautiful Turkish dome or each of the natural thermal pools around
the pool that traverse 42, 28, 32 and 28 degrees respectively, Rudas is worth a
visit. Your soul will love you for it.
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