I had 3 full days in Prague, which gave me a chance to see a ton of the city. The first day I was still a bit exhausted from my rushed pace in Moscow and St Petersburg, so I just chilled at a cafe in the morning, and in the afternoon I went to one of the many thermal Turkish baths that Budapest is famous for (among other things). I've gotta say that the baths were absolutely incredible. There was a huge hot pool outside that could probably fit 30 people sitting in the pool on its built in benches. You could probably fit in well over 100 if you had people standing in the middle part of the pool as well, but I imagine that would get a bit awkward. They also had a huge outdoor wave pool which was fun, but a bit too popular (by which I mean I couldn't really body-surf the waves without being in danger of crashing into someone). And then of course there were the steam rooms and saunas. Oh, and everything was all fancy looking. The point is, the baths were awesome.
The next day I did a huge walking tour of the city - I went up into the hills on the Buda side (back in the day Buda and Pest were separate cities on opposite sides of the river, but eventually they merged. The city was even called Pest-Buda for a bit), and explored the palace, enjoyed the views of Pest across the river, and found a museum entirely of Marzipan sculptures. Yumm. I then made my way over to the Pest side where I saw, among other things, this really cool museum called the House of Terror, which was all about the reign of terror of both the Arrow Cross Party (Hungarian Fascist/Nazi-supporting), and then the Communist party. Very disturbing, but incredibly informative. It was very interesting to learn more about life behind the iron curtain while in a city that had actually experienced it.
My final day was spent hitting up the stuff I'd missed in the first two days, culminating in a relaxing evening at another one of Budapest's baths. No, wait, that's how I'd have liked it to end. Unfortunately, while I did make it to the baths again, my last real event in Budapest was a mad dash to catch my bus to Prague. I had discovered as I was about to leave for the bus station that it wasn't a 15 minute walk like I'd thought, but instead was an 80 minute walk (and I didn't have 80 minutes before my bus left). So the people at my hostel helped direct me to the appropriate public transportation (tram then subway), but thanks to me losing my subway card and having spent all my Hungarian money, I still had to walk/speed-walk a mile and a half. I still nearly ran out of time, and eventually just ran as fast as best I could while carrying my big backpack on my back and my day-pack on my front, and made it to the bus 3 minutes before it was scheduled to leave. Not so fun. But I caught the bus, so it's all good. And it makes for a pretty funny story. Bonus!
Anyways, it's photo time! Enjoy.
view of the Pest city-scape from the hills of Buda
cool stone gargoyle-thing
ummm, yeah, I think it's safe to say that the baths in Budapest are just a bit nicer than the health clubs I've seen in the US. This is a pic of the wave pool in the Gellert baths.
cool statue up in the hills of Buda
artsy pic of flowers
a giant marzipan model of my favorite building! Yummmm!
cool castle in the hills of Buda
look! It's 123456 O'clock!
Budapest's parliament building
locals playing chess in the Szechenzyi baths
night view of the outdoor pool at the Szechenzyi baths
the hero's square statue lit up at night
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