Last part of my Budapest series, I promise :) Anyway, I've probably mentioned this already, but we had such a wonderful time over there! Budapest was everything I imagined and more. I really recommend visiting Budapest! In three days we pretty much did all the important sights, but I think if we did five days or something it would've been even better. So our last day we spent checking off the remaining famous sights on our list.
Our last day we started off at the Gerbaud café for more cakes and ice cream :') Like the New York café we went to the day before, Gerbaud also has been around a long time (1858!). It's a true Budapest classic to visit.
Honestly? I thought this was even better than the cakes at New York Café :-O. Rich, dense, intense chocolate flavour, vanilla ice cream to lighten it all. A cognac cherry on top, which was to die for. Screw maraschino cherries, I'd rather have a can of these cherries any day. This dessert was 2650 huf, which is about €8,60. You can also have single cakes but then you would miss out on some excellent ice cream, haha.
A stone's throw away is the Vigadó concert hall, another one of these stunning Budapest buildings. This neoclassical one is from 1865. I love the sculptures, each of them playing a different instrument. Famous composer and Hungarian national hero Franz Liszt played here a lot.
This is Anker palace, like Fonciére palace, another swanky insurance company building. It wasn't in use for years I believe, but recently has been renovated and now houses a hotel and luxury apartment.
Then we headed to the Hungarian Opera House. a neorenaissance building. Budapest is just chock-full of gorgeous, dramatic buildings, I love it!
Statues of famous composers, like Beethoven and Mozart. Obviously very fitting for an opera building!
We didn't take a tour because we were lacking in time (take a five day trip people!), but the inside of the hall alone was beautiful and richly decorated.
I even liked the floor tiles :)
Then the sun bursted out all of a sudden and made walking very tiring haha. We went to Hősök tere, a huge memorial square, where you very conveniently can't escape the sun. This is the Hall of Arts, which I would like to visit next time (I have the feeling there are always things on every trip I want to do 'next time' haha).
We sat down at the Városliget Café & Restaurant hoping to have lunch there, but the waiter told us they had a huge party in a few hours so the kitchen was closed. Whomp whomp! Did have something to drink though, it was so hot outside! Then I accidentally knocked over Paul's drink, and the waiters were very nice about it and brought him some new lemonade (free of charge!) :).
View of Vajdahunyad Castle from the restaurant. The restaurant seemed pretty cool! Beautiful setting and there was a guitar player playing excellent music (I don't know if they have music more often or if he was just there for the party). I would totally have my wedding at the café New York and then have a reception here. Oh, if only I were rich hehehe.
The clouds came back, and we strolled through the park. This is the Jáki chapel, which is a replica of the Jáki church in the western Hungarian city Ják. The chapel is still in use.
Vajdahunyad (whadda mouthful) Castle! The castle was originally built for the Millennial Exhibition when Hungary existed a thousand years, and was meant to be temporary and was made with cardboard. It represented Hungary, with its many architectural styles and influences taken from other buildings in Hungary. People loved it so much, they decided to rebuild it to last. Good thinking.
Oh yeah, this is Széchenyi. I think this is Budapest most famous bath house! My mom actually went here once and said the bath was kind of dirty though. So I Googled it ahead of our trip and I indeed found more reviews like this. A shame, because it really seems a nice place otherwise.
By now we were starving but didn't really know where to go for lunch near the Városliget park, so we decided to be a little patient and take the subway to have some delicious lángos at the Retró Lángos büfé!
Here they have endless choices of regular lángos, stuffed lángos and even sweet lángos!
We obviously opted for savoury, and had the Made in Hungary lángos: bacon, cheese, red onion and sour cream. A light one, compared to the other one we had :D This was 750 huf, which is €2,4 and cheap affff!
And this little monster. The works! :D The stuffed langós is pretty much a fried pizza calzone. This one was the 'Full House': ham, bacon, sausage, cheese, chilli peppers, tomatoes, red onion and obviously some sour cream.
Only 850 huf, toootally worth your money!
Only 850 huf, toootally worth your money!
We ended our day at the House of Terror aka the Terror Museum. It's this amaaaaaazing "experience" (does that make sense?) museum. The museum takes you through these themed rooms, to show you the nazi and communist history of Hungary while also memorating the victims of these regimes. The building itself was indeed used to interrogate and torture people, by the nazis and the communists. The nazis called it their House of Loyalty, but the communists named it the House of Terror, to scare people even more.
The museum is set up so impressively but unfortunately I can't tell you too much because anything I'd say would be this huuuuge spoiler alert. I think it would take away from the overall experience, if you don't know what to expect. Cameras were not allowed, and understandably so. You have to take my word on it, it's really good and worthwhile!
The museum is set up so impressively but unfortunately I can't tell you too much because anything I'd say would be this huuuuge spoiler alert. I think it would take away from the overall experience, if you don't know what to expect. Cameras were not allowed, and understandably so. You have to take my word on it, it's really good and worthwhile!
Now even though this is one of the best museums I have ever been to, this museum does have a few downsides.
A big downside for me was that there are no seats, chairs or couches in the rooms. There's a lot on display, and I usually like to just sit down and take it all in. They also have tv screens that show short films, and the option of sitting down to watch would be nice (a few people sat on the floor, including me haha).
The second downside were the handouts. There are no English signs next to displays. Every room does have its seperate handout though with explanation in English. A handout usually constisted of one A4 page (completely filled with text), but sometimes there were more pages. So, every room, you have to read a bunch of text while standing up and I found that really exhausting. While I do appreciate that it's a way of learning more about the subject, it reall was a LOT of information to take in. Mind you we'd already been walking the whole day!
I read the handouts completely the first 5 rooms or so, but after a while I found it impossible to take all the information in. It really was a lot! After a while you realize you're just staring at a piece of paper instead of actively reading it. But when you don't read the handout, and you don't know much about Hungarian history, you really miss some context to understand the displays and the setting of the room you're in. And I'm someone who likes to read, so that says something I think.
My tip? Get an audioguide! Yes, it will cost you a little more (but come on), but there's no reading, just listening. And start off your day with this museum, so you're not too tired and you can soak up all the info.
A big downside for me was that there are no seats, chairs or couches in the rooms. There's a lot on display, and I usually like to just sit down and take it all in. They also have tv screens that show short films, and the option of sitting down to watch would be nice (a few people sat on the floor, including me haha).
The second downside were the handouts. There are no English signs next to displays. Every room does have its seperate handout though with explanation in English. A handout usually constisted of one A4 page (completely filled with text), but sometimes there were more pages. So, every room, you have to read a bunch of text while standing up and I found that really exhausting. While I do appreciate that it's a way of learning more about the subject, it reall was a LOT of information to take in. Mind you we'd already been walking the whole day!
I read the handouts completely the first 5 rooms or so, but after a while I found it impossible to take all the information in. It really was a lot! After a while you realize you're just staring at a piece of paper instead of actively reading it. But when you don't read the handout, and you don't know much about Hungarian history, you really miss some context to understand the displays and the setting of the room you're in. And I'm someone who likes to read, so that says something I think.
My tip? Get an audioguide! Yes, it will cost you a little more (but come on), but there's no reading, just listening. And start off your day with this museum, so you're not too tired and you can soak up all the info.
And that pretty much concludes our Budapest trip! We picked up our luggage at the hotel and took that bumpy bus ride back to the airport. Honestly, I was so so so impressed by Budapest. I know people had told me Budapest is awesome and that we would like the city very much, I was still blown away! Pretty much everywhere you look there's something pretty to see. There are trendy cafés and bars, delicious food, cheap food, and you're constantly surrounded by Hungarian culture and history. So please, do visit Budapest if you can! Can't rave about it enough :)