Budapest was definitely an interesting city. It was my second least-favorite (Amsterdam is first), but there were still a lot of things I liked about it. For a bit of a historical context, Budapest used to be the capital of the Hungarian side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. So, while today we are familiar with Budapest as a backwards capital of a backwards country, the city used to be a thriving cosmopolitan metropolis back in the day (and to some extent, still is). The buildings are old, there are monumental statues everywhere and fantastic architecture. The language is nothing like I've ever seen, it's derived from Turkish so the alphabet, although Romanized, is still hard to learn, and I learned not a word of Hungarian while I was there. Communism definitely left its mark on the city, I would say more so than Prague.
My journey began with a seven hour train ride through the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and then on to Budapest. I planned on getting to Budapest around 10pm, but the train broke down somewhere between Prague and Brno (another large Czech city), so we were stuck there for a few hours. Finally we got going again, and the train ride finished around 3am. Walking through Budapest in the wee hours is not recommended. The hostel at least worked out well. It was a tiny hostel in an apartment building and themed like an African safari (and they had cocoa pebbles every morning).
My first day there started off kind of slow. I woke up late because I was tired, but it was also May Day (for those who dont know, May Day is like Labor Day, but a bit more intense in Europe, there are riots and protests and demonstrations in a lot of cities) so basically everything was closed. I did acquaint myself with the city a bit. I walked through the neighborhood I was in to the riverfront, then to the other side of the city (Budapest used to be two cities: Buda and Pest) where I tried to find a Turkish spa that I read about online, which was unfortunately closed. I rode the tram back to my hostel where I almost got caught riding for free, but a strange intervention took place (it was all in Hungarian, I can't really explain it) and I managed to save myself from paying a $100 fine. I went back to the hostel, met a few Brits, bought wine, bumped into my roommates from Prague randomly, and tried to find a place to go to, but everything was closed. So I planned my next day.
I decided to check out a famous spa called Gellert, on the other side of the river. It was a cloudy, cool day so it was probably a good day to spend in the hot steamy natural spring baths that are scattered throughout Budapest. The city is known for its natural hot spring baths, something developed by the Turks when they once held the city in their possession. Budapest was also a center for the Art Nouveau movement, and unlike other cities, the architecture and sculpture is still widely intact so I chose Hotel Gellert since it was a quintessential Art Nouveau building.
The bathhouse was something out of a travel brochure. There were meticulously decored mosaic walls, marble walls, elegant dome ceilings. For the price of about $10, you could use a natural spring pools, a heated pool nearby, and then separated by gender, two temperature natural hot spring baths, a mentholated steam room, cool dipping pools, hydro-massage room, three-tier sauna, a giant maze of massage rooms, and also areas you can rent to take a nap away from all of it. It was quite amazing.
I was so relaxed and complacent afterwards, I decided to head over the a museum. I wanted to check out this Asiatic Arts museums back on the main area of the city near one of the main squares. They had some incredible art work there (like the spheres carved completely out of ivory). Afterward, I walked into the square nearby. I would have gone into the museums there, but they were very crowded, so I walked to the random festival going on nearby. (actually, it was probably a May-Day weekend celebration).
