A week-end at Budapest
From the view of Eloi
This weekend we went to Budapest with our friends from ESAIP. We left on Thursday evening to take the train to Brno (second largest city in the Czech Republic) which is located further south and close to the Austrian, Slovak and Hungarian borders. We arrived in the middle of the night and wandered around the city as we had to catch a bus later that night. I had never done night tourism before and the cities really have a different charm; you really feel this notion of getting lost, the colours are inevitably different with the darkness and the lighting brings a very beautiful glow.
Brno cathedral by night
At the end of this walk, we got on the bus to Budapest via Bratislava. We arrived around 6am and started to visit while waiting for the Airbnb to open at 3pm. We then toured the city centre which was also where we were staying. We were able to see a number of embassies, the parliament and we also climbed up the museum of ethnography where we had a very nice view of the Heroes' Square and the tourist attractions around (gardens, tourist towers). We rested in these gardens, following our not very restful night. In the evening, we looked for a restaurant that served typical local food. Despite a number of touristy restaurants, we found one! We finally got into a gourmet restaurant which only cost us twenty euros as everything in Hungary is much cheaper. So we went in and had a nice Budapest evening. The next day we went to another restaurant which offered us a more substantial meal but just as typical. On the menu: goulash soup, duck breast Hungarian style (with ratatouille, and pommes paillasson) and a typical dessert made of raisins, ginger cake, a scoop of vanilla ice cream and chocolate coulis. In the afternoon, I went to visit the Budapest Palace. It is high up and offers a breathtaking view of Budapest and the quiet Danube.
View of Budapest
I was also lucky enough to see the mounted guard riding past in traditional dress.
mounted guard riding in traditional dress
I then decided to go to the other side of Budapest to have a closer look at the Heroes' Square and its two art museums.
Heroes' Square
So I went by tram in front of the opera, the city centre, ... What I told the others in the group was that unlike Prague, Budapest is not a beautiful city but very impressive with long alleys, long boulevards that never end, ... but the touristic tour of Budapest is quickly done. On the way back, we went by train via Vienna and Brno. It was a weekend mixing the air of holidays, beautiful days and the discovery of historical capitals that we know relatively little at home.