Magyarország-Day 4, 5, & 6-Budapest

While in Budapest I stayed with Andrea, Italy, and Marcos, Barcelona, through couchsurfing, which was great. Free housing and a few meals. They were fun guys and showed me some of the cooler night spots in Budapest. Day 1 I walked through City Park which has several museums, a bath house, a zoo and a castle. The Museum of Fine Arts had an exhibition called In The Wake Of Jesus, El Greco's Saint John. I haven't been a fan of El Greco but I think he is growing on me, especially his piece of Saint John. The permanent gallery was just some more tired old portraits of wealthy types with a small redeeming section of French Impressionists-Gaugin, Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Toulouse Latrec.

Hungary is well-known for vast amounts of geothermal mineral springs underneath it's relatively thin crust and if I get the history right, Turks love their communal baths. So when Hungary was under the Ottoman empire, those Turks threw up a bath house where ever they could. I took a dip in Széchenyi, which looks cool from the outside, but sterile on the inside. What the guide books had said and shown of the Turkish bath houses was different than the Széchenyi experience. I was hoping for the old dusky chamber of columns and archs. From City Park I walked down a main drag and visited St. Stephan's Basilica, a Synagogue and the Parliament.

Day 2 there was less time to see things because I had to catch a train in order to make my flight back to Sevilla from Bergamo. In the morning I made it over to Memento Park to see the statues and monuments leftover from the Communist region. It had teh run of the mill Lenin, Marx & Engles, Stalin's boots, and various other compatriots. It was cold as hell and slightly snowing, but come on, it's a communist park, "conditions were perfect." It wouldn't have felt authentic on a warm tanktop weather day. I also made sure there was time for the Rudas bathhouse on the Buda side of the Danube (Buda is west of the Danube river, Pest is the east). The Rudas bath house is the experience that I sought; sitting under 16th century Ottoman architecture in 42°C mineral springs wearing naught but the key to the locker.

Unfortunately, there wasn't time for the many other features Budapest has to offer; the Palace and the Citadel, Terror House (a museum dedicated to the victums of two different Jewish holocausts) the zoo, the Contemporary Museum, among many others. Another day perhaps.

The best thing about Budapest: Kebab/Gyro/Hummus places EVERYWHERE, and very cheap, like a Gyro, a feta salad, a slice of Baclava, and a coffee for under €5.

To see all of the Budapest photos CLICK HERE.

To see the Communist Statues CLICK HERE.