Beautiful Budapest

If you read my December post, you’ll know that I took a getaway trip to Hungary and Germany before Christmas. I wanted to do a separate post (um, there will be multiples…) about Budapest, which I’d never visited before but am SO glad I did!

The city was the starting point for our Danube River cruise, but we arrived a couple of days ahead of time and stayed at the Budapest Marriott, right on the river. While not attractive from the outside (drab concrete), the rooms, service, food and location were perfect.

Angie from DreamVacations had arranged a private tour for us from Emily (who had also picked us up at the airport the day before). Emily is a long-time tour guide, with excellent English and an encyclopedic knowledge of Hungarian history and culture. She also provided us with headset receivers so we could hear her commentary, while wandering around to take photos, also making it easier to stay together in a crowd.

Emily arranged a guided tour of the parliament building, the spectacular white marble gothic icon on the river. This is the most famous building in Budapest, and the one you see in all the photos. It is probably the most spectacular building I have ever seen (yeah, I’m talking to you, Westminster Abbey and Neuschwanstein). And yes, I’ll brag – these are my photos….

It was built to commemorate 1,000 years of Hungarian history, and here’s what I think is really cool: it’s not built for a royal family, or for religious purposes, but to celebrate the Hungarian people themselves. Although a cornerstone of the Austro-Hungarian “empire”, it was a constitutional monarchy at the time, and celebrates their democracy with architecture.

From a tourist point of view, things are beautifully arranged, with a modern but welcoming visitor center hidden under the plaza, tours in different languages with headphones, coat check, good bathrooms, a great gift shop, and a wonderful display on how it was actually built. On a Friday in November, everything was sold out and we would have been out of luck without advance planning (which is probably true everywhere nowdays, right?!?)

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You enter through a fabulous golden staircase, which is like something from a fairy tale. The main entrance gallery would certainly have set the stage for occasions of state – this was no po-dunk country you were in! On display since 2000 is the Holy Crown of St. Stephen of Hungary, with which they crowned their kings since the 12th c. (no photos of it were allowed). It was smuggled out of the country during WWII, and kept at Ft. Knox (just down the road from me!) for safekeeping from the Nazis and then the Communists, and only returned in 1978.

I was most impressed with a hall full of statues of Hungarians in different professions – shepherd, fisherman, seamstress, weaver. They are life-sized and incredibly detailed.

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I am also a fiend for architectural detail, and the Parliament building, indeed, all of Budapest, was a feast for the eyes.

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A totally different experience was a visit to one of Budapest’s world-famous thermal baths. I went with 2 other women from our group on a Sunday morning to the St. Gellert Thermal Bath & Swimming Pools. Built between 1912 and 1918 in the art nouveau style, it was a gorgeous piece of art that also serves a health and recreation purpose.

Admission was a reasonable $18 for unlimited time. We paid a higher price for a ticket that included a locker, shower shoes (required), bathing cap and “biodegradable” robe and towel (that translates to paper and basically useless, but as we weren’t going back to our hotel, it was all necessary).

Getting to the lockers and changing cubicles involved negotiating a labyrinth of corridors and stairs, but the staff was helpful. Like everywhere we went, they seemed delighted to have tourists (and income) back again. The main pool with stained glass skylight and intricate tile patterns was gorgeous, but we were after HOT water….

We soaked in 3 different indoor pools, each close to 100F, then enjoyed an outdoor hot pool, with steam rising into the frosty air. I took a turn in the sauna, dunked myself in the frigid plunge pool (yes, my cardiac health appears good!), then a bit more hot water cooking. It was a delightful experience, and I’d recommend it highly.

Be on the lookout for my next blog post about this magical city…..