Budapest, Hungary - Day 3

Location: Our room in 2night Home Hostel

hiii! Such a tiring day with lots of exercise as we explored most of Budapest on foot, with quite a bit of climbing!

We started it off with an attraction really close to our hostel - the Great Market Hall. From the guide books, it sounded like a huge place piled with tons of groceries and souvenirs, and Matt told us it would be good. So we set off after our last breakfast at 2night Home and walked about 5 minutes towards the city and found the sprawling hall.

It was, as the guide books described, primarily for food. The whole ground level was made up of food stalls selling mainly fruits and vegetables, but there was some other stuff too. Like a Paprika stall! Where they hung strings of chilli and garlic around the shop. We found it really interesting and took turns to take photos there.

Check out the interesting decor of the shop!

While doing that, we even ran into Matt who was doing grocery shopping there. So got a group photo in front of the Paprika stall. We so wanted a photo with him! But none of the passers-by wanted to help, so he just said he'll take one with us when we got back from our touring.

I was craving for a nice, juicy citrus fruit, so got an orange to munch on the way before heading to the second floor which was packed with souvenir stalls, and Hungarian snack stalls. I decided this was the best place to get a Hungarian doll for the golu so got a cute lil thing for a decent price. They had lots of cute stuff! My favourite was a horse hanging on a spring with a cigar in its mouth, and if you light up the candle inside, it actually smokes! Very cute, but I didn't buy it.

After some light shopping, we headed for Gellert Hill. To get there, there's no proper public transport (kind of like how most of the parks in Singapore are not really accessible unless you manage to get the NParks bus) so we decided to exercise and walk all the way up. So we crossed the Danube and walked uphill all the way, taking some breaks in the middle to take photos. Especially when we finally saw the first sign of the peak of the hill after about an hour. The Liberation Monument showed us that we were heading the right direction.

Group photo with the Liberation Monument

The monument was built to commemorate Hungary's liberation from Nazi rule. But it wasn't such a big deal so we leisurely explored the area. The view was absolutely fabulous. In fact there was also a Citadel there which we could've climbed for a better view, but we didn't want to pay extra for it :P This place was actually used as a fort before, so there were some cannons and other artillery here and there. We eventually found a spot overlooking the Danube, with the beautiful Hungarian Parliament building in the background.

Neela and I with the Danube River and the Hungarian Parliament along the river bank

It's not so obvious here in the photo. The weather was really nice and windy too so we decided to relax there for a while, with the stunning view in front of us, and munched on our packed-up breakfast/snacks.

Our next destination was Castle Hill. I forgot to mention that the Danube River splits Budapest into two countys, Buda and Pest. The latter is where we stay, where most of the city is, which we covered day before yesterday, and is on flatter terrain. On the contrary, Buda is mostly hilly, with the two main hills being Gellert Hill and Castle Hill. So we decided to cover both sides of the county today.

Buda Castle was unlike the other castles we had seen so far. The architecture adopted here is Baroque-style: squat and round, rather than the tall, lean, Gothic architecture we saw in Vienna and Prague. But despite the un-impressive height, this seemed the most castle-like to us, with its stone walls and pointed towers. Could totally imagine Rapunzel letting down her hair here!

Us three in front of Buda Castle, atop Castle Hill

The lack of people made a difference too. The castle stood there, lonely and deserted in the gloomy weather (this kind of affected my mood too heh). And there were no signs to take us to the popular areas as we entered from the side, rather than the main entrance. So it really felt like a castle adventure, exploring the place and imagining how past-dwellers would have roamed around.

Soon we found the more popular areas, Matthias Church (which was closed) and Fisherman's Bastion.

A statue of Stephan I of Hungary at the Fisherman's Bastion

The view from here was even more amazing than that from Gellert Hill. We could see a lovely panorama of Pest, including a much closer view of the Hungarian Parliament.

The Hungarian Parliament along the Eastern bank of the Danube

Again, we took a break here to take in the view and take some picture. The breeze was lovely too so we stopped to rest for a while before heading to the most recommended place in our guidebook, the Castle Labyrinths.

The guidebook told us to go there after 6pm for a spookier adventure, as the lights are turned off then and explorers are equipped with just one oil lamp and nothing else. So of course, we waited till 6pm to go in.

It was such a rip-off. Entrance fee was 1500 Ft (about S$12) and what the guide book failed to mention was that half the chambers would be closed during the night-time experience!! We were SO annoyed. And Neela had to stay back to answer a call so Krups and I were all alone in the dark (and I'm pretty scared of the dark coz of dumb Haunted Houses that I've been to before sigh) so I just clutched her arm tightly and we walked through the deserted labyrinths. It was definitely spooky for the first 10 minutes or so, but after that, there seemed to be no purpose to this place. There were no panels giving us historical information, but just random statues with no explanations.

Random Horse statue

Maybe it is interesting that this stuff has prevailed over the years, but with no history, we just could not appreciate it. There was also this really random statue with a wine fountain. It really stank. After some time, we ran into Neela who was exploring ON HER OWN omg. And the three of us left, pretty disappointed as we thought this would be the highlight of the day.

Anyway, it wasn't all bad as we crossed the Chain Bridge back to Pest watching a gorgeous sunset. And since we didn't have anything else planned, we just leisurely strolled back to our hostel, making many stops. Like a still-open-at-9pm clothes shop! We needed some retail therapy to raise our spirits!

Looks like a kaleidoscope!

Neela bought the purple pair of pumps :) And yes, we did feel better after that quick spree. We had to get dinner on our way back and found a Burger King open along Vaci Ut, near our hostel. And they were showing a Euro match! Nederlands vs Italy. It was awesome to watch, with a whole bunch of locals cheering and jeering at the TV screens :D We just cannot wait to catch the other matches, especially after tomorrow when we will be in Austria and Switzerland after that!

Anyway, on our way back, we were taking photos and the male half of a couple offered to take a group shot of us (obviously to impress his gal, concluded Neels and Krups :D).

The Orchard-Road-like Vaci Ut, on our way back to the hostel

I was more worried about him running off with my camera heh. But anyway, it turned out to be a nice atmospheric shot. Unfortunately, we reached our hostel only after 10pm, and Matt had already slept off by then, leaving us a really sweet note saying goodbye. We were really sad, as we'd missed the chance of taking a photo with the nicest hostel owner we've seen so far, and the nicest hostel we have stayed in :( But oh well, there is no choice. We have to leave for Salzburg by 6am tomorrow so there's no way we'll ever see him again.

Anyway, sad stuff aside, Salzburg looks absolutely BEAUTIFUL from what I've seen in the guidebooks and websites. And Sound of Music sites! I'd watched the whole movie in Singapore so that everything will be fresh in my head, so just cannot wait to go there! And from the little preview of Euro 2008 that we saw earlier, I think watching an actual match amidst all the fans would be an incredible experience, and there's a chance for that coming up! So goodbye Hungary and Eastern Europe, and hellooo again Austria! Goodnight.