We are up with the sunrise…well, not really. Think we are up around 6:30 or so, but we have a kettle! Yay! so we can have coffee in our room and not worry. Breakfast is included (as is parking) with our incredibly cool and modern Euro accommodations (did we tell you about the wicked cool bathroom with doors to the the shower and toilet that can also be used as doors to shut off the whole bathroom form the bedroom?), so we head down to the restaurant to get a snack before we leave. Oh heavens! The food. This is a buffet! You name it, it’s there. I opt for fruit and prunes (yep, you can guess why) – Ed has meats and cheeses (no problems on that side of the table). More coffee and we are ready to roll.
Car loaded up in the garage, we head up to ground level, wait for Alice to find the satellites and….recalculating. Oh for God’s sakes! That thing is so annoying. Long story short – she wanted us to turn left – but we couldn’t, so we turned right and we think we completely shorted out her circuits. The poor thing didn’t even talk to us – just said to go 6.8 KM to 2 South. Well, yeah, but how??? She didn’t even have us on a road – just some large pink line that didn’t match the roadways. Fortunately, CPS is onboard and with the help of paper maps and Ed’s cellphone map app (love that thing!!!), we made it out of Bratislava (in horrendous traffic, I might add), across the Danube and onto the M1 with only slight difficulties. Alice did finally sync back up with us on the highway. Thanks sweetie!
After initial agida, the drive to Budapest was quite easy. Only 2 hours on good roads. The Hungarian border crossing was interesting – all these empty toll booths, and only one little window to buy your e-vignette to drive in the country. Interesting concept – 1 pass for the entire year (or for us tourists 10 or 20 days, or a month), and that’s it. No more toll booths. We like it, but don’t know how well received it is with locals. We get our receipt, put it in the car documents and off we go. But, we do see an e-vignette check point at a rest stop we use for gas and bathrooms. They waved us through…but…lesson to anyone trying the skirt the program.
On into Budapest we drive. Our accommodations here are out in the Buda hills, about 6 Km from the city. Alice – per usual – takes us through every goat path on the planet to get to the apartment – we should have followed the instructions the hotel gave us – but we get to the Helios with no problems and it is so cool! Out in the middle of nowhere – back lanes and country – this old Hungarian house converted into self-catered apartments. Neat!
It’s early, but we can still check in. We have a 2 room apartment with separate bedroom (really large!) with a Juliet balcony and a separate large living/dining area complete with full (albeit small) kitchen – and the largest balcony/patio we’ve ever seen! Too bad it’s so cold! We’d be out there all night for our 2 night stay! Here’s the view from the Balcony….
We immediately head to the grocery store for supplies, then come back, park the car and dump everything in the room. We buy bus tickets from the hotel and head down the lane….
…to the #8 bus into town. 15 minutes later we are in the middle of Pest! How cool is that? Our plan is to go to the Great Market Hall for lunch – it is supposed to be amazing – and then meet up with the free tour in Vorosmarky square at 2:30.
We hop off the bus after crossing the Danube and walk down the sidewalk closest to the water looking at all the river boats. Holy cow –there are so many! And the buses! We are so glad we did this trip by car on our own – there is no way we’d get on that boat (sort of like Anthony Bordain’s “don’t get on that bus!”). We just shake our heads and make our way down to the market. Which turns out to be a nightmare!
You can not even believe the crowds. Downstairs where the meat and vegetable venders are located wasn’t all too bad, but upstairs where the souvenir and food stalls were located – nightmare city. You couldn’t move! We were so disappointed! We really wanted some good Hungarian food and I wanted a Langos – described as a elephant ear but savory. it was such a nightmare, we just turned around and left. There was absolutely nothing that could have made us stay. Even the Boqueria in Barcelona was never this bad. Sad.
So – we head back toward Vorosmarky square – checking out the restaurants on the Vaci street (pedestrian area that is “chi chi” but more “relaxed” near the market). We need something to nosh before the tour, so, even though we are short on time, we stop at one of the places that advertises 6Euro Tourist menus – ok – we’ll bite! Turns out to be a lovely restaurant called Grill Point with white linen table cloths and good wine and beer. We opted for the touristic menu – I could have Goulash and Langos (yes!!! Langos) and Ed ordered chicken soup and Chicken Papriskash (in memory of his mom who used to make the dish and even gave me the recipe!).
Beer and wine (while the more expensive items) were very good – and the soup and goulash were excellent as well.
The problem came with the mains. My Langos was incredible – carb hell – yes indeed – but oh gosh – so incredibly worth it!
Ed’s meal came and it was Paprikash – a pepper stuffed with rice. Um. No. Not what he ordered. At all. He doesn’t eat peppers – ever – and we avoid rice as well…so, while it looked lovely, he’s not eating it….
The waiter took the heat – got all irritated and pissy. Well, too bad – there was no question what we ordered – Ed even pointed to it. So. Whatever. He sent the pepper thing back and we shared the Langos – which was enough, to be honest. I figured – screw it, if we’re charged for it and we don’t have anything, it’s done. We have to go to the meet the tour.
But, lo and behold, the Chicken Paprikash is delivered to the table, not with anything less than surliness, but it is delivered nonetheless. And it is quite good. We both share and manage to finish it all off (although no pictures – I was too busy watching the clock!)
Done with lunch we head out onto Vaci and fast walk through all the stores, shops, restaurants and other chain retailers to get to Vorosmarty square in time for the walking tour. Phew – made it!
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