Five Countries in Five Weekends...

One of the things I love about Europe is the size. Within a weekend you are able to travel 4-8 hours and experience a totally different culture. The stye of homes change, the architecture changes, the language, the food, sometimes even the currency! So if we're over here...why not take advantage of it?


After this coming weekend I will have been in five different countries the last five weekends. Who needs sleep, right? Or a clean house for that matter. Oh the details!


The end of August my friend Sharity and I took an ITT (Information Tickets and Travel- base travel agency) trip to Budapest, Hungary. It was a trip that left on Friday night and we rode a Greyhound overnight and arrived in Budapest at 730am on Saturday. We had our snacks packed and I had my Simply Sleep ready. While it certainly was not comfortable I did get a little sleep, confirmed by Sharity telling me I started talking to her in the middle of the night on the bus! Oops! We had a guided tour of the city Saturday morning, a local lunch that afternoon, and then we had free time for the rest of the trip until we left at 2pm on Sunday.

Highlights of our trip/interesting information I learned included:

I was not aware that Budapest (pronounced by our local guide as Budapesh) was originally two separate cities, the city of Buda and the city of Pest. Each city developed on separate sides of the River Danube. Through legislative unification in 1873 the two cities combined into one and became Budapest. When the guide was describing the cities as we toured, she mentioned many times either being on the Pest side or on the Buda side.

Picture taken from the Buda side of the city on the Fisherman's Warf looking over to the Pest side.  You can see the Parliament building off to the left with the red rounded top.

There is a natural thermal spring in the middle of the city. They have built a building around it and use it as a spa or rather a "bath". Szechenyi Baths include 3 outdoor pools and 10 indoor pools with water temps that have to be cooled down from the natural 165 degree Farenheit! The pools are open through the winter due to their warm temperatures! Sharity and I headed to the spa curious to walk around and see what it was all about. We were a bit apprehensive as to the scene we were approaching. I mean, we are in Europe where nudity is not a rare occurance in public places. We walked in and were relieved to see all necessary parts covered...well if you consider Speedos "covered", but that's a whole other issue! We were not aware of this awesome attraction therefore, sadly, neither of us had our swimsuits. But it has been noted and swimsuits will be packed when we return there (which we both would like to do).

This is a picture of the Szechenyi Baths from the outside.

We toured through Szent István bazilika (St. Stephen's Basilica), Budapest's largest church. It was a gorgeous cathedral that reminded me of many of the Catholic churches in Italy. The ornate decorations and detailing with the gold and marble through out the church was just beautiful. It is named after Hungary's first King St. Stephen. It also holds and displays one of the country's most treasured artifacts, St. Stephen's mummified hand. As we were leaving we saw a table set up advertising an organ concert taking place in the basilica that night. We thought it would be pretty cool to go to an organ concert in this gorgeous church. So we bought tickets and attended the concert that night at 8pm. It was such a cool experience.

The view at night.

While sitting in the cathedral waiting for the concert to begin.

The organ featured at the organ concert.

On Sunday we went to the world's second largest Jewish synagogue. The first largest being located in NYC. I have never been in a Jewish synagogue before, so I had no idea what to expect. It was so neat and so different from all the other churches I have been to in Europe. Loved going in there and seeing the decor. I may be ignorant, but had no idea that all men were required to wear yarmulke when entering the synagogue. Those who were visiting were given a small paper one to wear while entering the building. And to make it even better while we were in there, there was a musical group playing traditional Jewish music with oboes, violins, and all kinds of stuff. So awesome, we loved it!

Besides that we walked all through the city to a few other big attractions like their Parliament building set right on the Danube River and the Fisherman's warf located on the Buda side of the river. We learned how to use the Underground, ate the popular cultural cuisine of goulash (a meat stew), browsed through tourist shops and markets, and took lots of pictures. Great trip and we hope to make it back there!
 

The Parliament building.

My travel buddy, Sharity!!  Taking a self timer picture trying to capture the whole scene!