Budapest

• Introduction

I have passed many times through Budapest during my travelling years, but I've never knew it was so beautiful. If I knew, maybe I would have stayed longer last times I was in transit.

Last ten years of my life I have traveled approximately through 25 countries and lived in 5. I'm not one of those "travel addicts" who think everyone should travel and is not aware that most people either cannot afford or don't have the time. For my case, it was context. It was the need to "escape" my home-country, knowing that it doesn't have many opportunities to offer. All the money for my travel experiences was either borrowed or saved by my parents, and eventually my own budget after I successfully found a job abroad. As long as your mommy and daddy aren't rich, you're going to have a hard time going somewhere abroad year-by-year. 

I never had the desire during these ten years to keep a travelling blog, due to the fact that my travels were mostly with an academic or professional context. But in the last years, after I found a job abroad, my travel experiences became more and more diverse thus, I decided to start a travelling blog, with the last place I have visited which is...Budapest!

The City

Budapest is, as it was called by many, a relaxed city and it gives you a bohemian vibe. I'd say I've felt the same vibes in cities such as Belgrade, Krakow or Thessaloniki. All of these cities are different in nature but they all contain that relaxed vibe. The kind of city you'd definitely want to visit in the summer time. I'd not even recommend using the usual transit in such places If you are there just for pleasure. Just grab yourself a Kürtőskalács with ice-cream from Molnár's kürtőskalács (Trip Advisor), and have a walk along the Danube river, right under the citadel and along the bicycle lane, towards the beautiful Margaret park and Island.

.

The city is fairly cheap, drinking and eating is very accessible compared to "big boy" cities in Western Europe, such as Paris, London or Madrid, as well as taxi (or Bolt) rides and Metro. The city has many cafe's, restaurants, bars and pubs as well as plenty of places to visit so I'd say Budapest is a city for all tastes and personalities

Train Ride

This is the 3rd or 4th time I have been to Budapest, but the 1st time I had a real tour of this city. The way I got there is worth a mention. After visiting my folk's hometown as well as my girlfriend's parents (Bucharest and Oradea), we decided to take a train, traveling most of the Panonian plains to the Hungarian capital. Nothing interesting to see on the window as almost all of Hungary is covered by plains, but the train was very interesting, as it was an old one, most probably from the 90's, still having a "smoking" compartiment sign, even though it is strictly prohibited to smoke in any train all over the European Union states. It also showed the contrast between what I was expecting and what I got! 

From a nostalgic train which I used to ride when I was a little kid in the 90's with my parents, on some dull plains with nothing interesting to see to the middle of Budapest, in their main train station!

The Metro

One of the perks of my travel through Budapest, was of course, the Budapest metro which is the oldest electrified underground railway system on the European continent, and the third-oldest electrically operated underground railway in the world, predated by the 1890 City & South London Railway and the Liverpool Overhead Railway in 1893-96. Its iconic Line 1 was completed in 1896, more than 123 years ago!

If you travel with the metro in cities like Bucharest, Lisbon, Paris, Rome, or similar, you will certainly feel a significant difference when you go on Budapest Line 1 underground! It's almost as you are travelling by an underground tram. Everything is so small and fancy and it really resembles a time when there weren't so many people in need of transit, and everything was more relaxed. Maybe due to the bohemian vibe the city preserves through it's locals, it is also one of the reasons why there are no security bars for checking tickets when you enter this historical jewel. I'll be honest I did not even feel like travelling the metro, compared with a couple of months ago when I was in the Rome sub, and a simple train rain simply exhausted you with lack of air to breath. 

New York Palace Café

One of the other perks of my travel to Budapest, was visiting what has been called my many other travelers as "Europe's fanciest cafe' with the fanciest desserts". Although to be honest the reviews on google for anything else other than desserts were pretty low.

New York Palace Cafe is a luxury hotel on the Grand Boulevard of Budapest's Erzsébet körút part.

Previously known as Boscolo Budapest from 2006 to 2017, the building was constructed in 1894 by the New York Life Insurance Company as a local head office. It was designed by architect Alajos Hauszmann, along with Flóris Korb and Kálmán Giergl. The building opened on October 23, 1894. The cafe has been a longtime center for Hungarian literature and poetry.

Upon entering this wonderful building, I could not ignore the beautiful Cimbalom (Țambal - Romanian instrument) standing on top of the staircase, watching over the usual customers, or curious tourists like me. I was told that there is always live music playing in this beautiful cafe', and the servants always smile and try to offer the best services an eating place can offer in all of Budapest. The prices weren't so high either (compared with what I was expecting). I only had a plateau of cakes, not too many, 3-4 and I paid around 10 Euros. That is not a lot for a place which looks like this. Customers are of all the nationalities you can imagine, the music is always suave, the the desserts are one of the best I ever had in my life. This is indeed an experience one shouldn't miss when in Budapest. It even has a hop-on-hop-off station right in front so it is very accessible for any tipe of lazy or energic traveler. I could not stop thinking while I was there "I wonder if anyone had a birthday party in this place!".

Terror Háza Múzeum

Two of the things I was really looking forward to visit in Budapest was the Terror House and the Holocaust Memorial. Living in Poland, and being a Romanian, I was inevitably influenced by Nazist and Communist history and I was always interested in reading or watching documentaries about these two dreadful periods in history. Living in Poland I had the chance to visit the famous Auschwitz camp or visit Schindler's Factory in Krakow, but I've heard a lot of stories about the Terror House.

This museum is also a memorial to the victims of these regimes, including those detained, interrogated, tortured or killed in the building.The museum opened on 24 February 2002.

Much of the information and the exhibits are in Hungarian, although each room has an extensive information sheet in both English and Hungarian. Audio guides in English and German are also available.

The memorial is very moving, from outside to the interior. On the outside walls there are pictures with a part of the victims who suffered by the "Hortist" or "Communist" movement in that building, and inside there is a tank under a huge wall with all the names of everyone who was ever detained in that building. As I mentioned, most of the information is in Hungarian but there are audio guides in English and German and there are also sheets of paper with English writing. Even though, you don't need an audio guide to understand what happened on the underground floor. The floor is filled with detention cells, from large to extremely small, and the museum kept those rooms intact just as they were during those times. Similar thing I saw in the detention cells at Auchwitz or at the Communist prison in Sighet (Romania). It is very moving to see how such a relaxed city used to be ruled by people who were able of such violent acts.

Holocaust Memorial Center on Páva u., 1094

The last, but not least place I wanted to visit in Budapest, was of course the Holocaust Memorial Center, which is dedicated to all of Romani, Jewish descent, as well as all Jehovah Witnesses, Homosexuals and Political Prisoners residing within the Hungarian state during WW II (Including Romanians, Slavic minorities, Slovaks, Croatians, Serbians, Austrians, Hungarians, and others).

The museum is also part of a complex which contains a renovated synagogue that dates back to the 1920s. It is the first Holocaust Memorial Center in Central Europe founded by state. Architecturally, the building is asymmetrical. A set of stairs lead visitors to the exhibitions, meant to "symbolize the distorted and twisted time of The Holocaust. 

The feeling you get while visiting the museum is very deep, as you are accompanied by deep and sad music in all rooms. Most of the exhibits contain a lot of writing in English and Hungarian and you need a lot of patience to read a lot to understand what you are seeing, but it is worth the walk and the lecture! Being a Romanian myself, I also learned about a pair of Romanian female twins which ended under Doctor Mengele's terror. The museum doesn't have interesting or shocking exhibits, but as I mentioned, having the patience to read, you will learn how the Austro-Hungarian empire came to end, and how that affected the Hungarian state to enter WWII on Hitler's side and eventually leading them to lose land as well as committing harsh crimes, such as the Ipp Massacre in Romania, by the Hortist troops (More info).

In conclusion.

In conclusion, I have included Budapest in top 5 of the best cities I have ever visited, after Istanbul, Lisbon, Florence and Dubrovnik and I really think it is a must if you want to get a deeper vibe and understanding about Europe in general, especially if you are not from Europe. It is also, like I mentioned, way more chill compared to other "big cities" I've visited, such as Rome, Paris, Vienna, Athens, Istanbul. The city is also well preserved and keeps their recent 200 years history roots in terms of architecture.

I also grant it as a must if you want to visit something interesting in general, regardless of your place of origin and I think it is one of the great starting points for someone who wishes to travel and doesn't want to spend a lot of money.

10/10 I would came back here in the future.