Day 8 – July 4th: Budapest to Vienna

Ours was this first floor balcony

 We were sad to have to say goodbye to our cool apartment and bud-iful Budapest, but we packed up first thing this morning, left our bags at the hostel, and set off to enjoy our final hours in Budapest.

  

On the way to the metro we passed the gelato shop that is just down from our apartment but we had never stopped at because it was never the appropriate time.  Though this too wasn’t the appropriate time -- it was just 10 am and we hadn’t yet had any breakfast -- we couldn’t let this last chance pass us by, so we got one cone to split for a pre-breakfast treat.

A metro ride and  a short walk down “Fashion Street” brought us the start of our Pest Town Center Walk, the central square of Vorosmarty Ter and the statue of the poet Mihaly Vorosmarty.  We ate breakfast in the square and started off on the walk which would eventually lead us to the main attraction of the day: The Great Market Hall.  We took a winding path avoiding as much as possible the more direct route of the elite shopping street Vaci Utca (Rick Steves is not a fan) and instead saw government buildings, the first McDonalds behind the Iron Curtain, waterfront statues, beautiful facades, flower-filled parks, and a Serbian Orthodox Church. 

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The water looked like turing the page of a book - hard to capture but very cool

We explored all three levels of the Great Market Hall – the produce, bakeries, and butcher stalls of the main floor; the crafts and prepared foods on the top floor; and the pickled products and live fish in the basement.  Our only take-away was a small tin of spicy paprika.

     

After the market we walked down to Liberty Bridge to see the views of the Buda side.  This is the most southern we had been in the city so we could see the Gellert Bathhouse and the Cave Church.  By this time we needed to get back to the hostel to get our bags and to the train station.

The tram stops under the bridge, so we got on that and for the very first time in all of our transit travel we were asked to see our tickets.  We had bought 72-hour passes when we first arrived and unfortunately the girls and mine had expired a couple of hours before.  Rather than just give us a warning or ask us to leave the tram, the three fare police took my passport and escorted us to the ATM at the next stop.  The fine was 8,000 forint for each of us – Jim’s pass was still valid since he arrived later. It was a bummer of a mistake!

 But, we put that behind us, continued on to get our luggage and got to the train station in plenty of time to spare.  We sat at a little café in the station and ordered some drinks and a bowl of fruit soup.  That is one Hungarian specialty we can really get behind!  Last night Rachel ordered a fabulous bowl of peach soup.  Today’s was more mixed berry.  It is essentially a smoothie in a bowl – no surprise we are fans.

We boarded the train and turned out to be sharing a compartment this time with a lovely, bright young woman from Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Melina has just finished studying English and working as an au pair for six months in Dublin and is doing some final traveling before heading home to start a Master’s program in education.  Can you imagine going to a place to learn English where even us native speakers have trouble understanding the accent??  But, her English is absolutely wonderful!  She was very inspiring and full of tricks and great ideas for the girls if they want to become truly fluent in Spanish (which they both do).  She misses her family and is feeling very ready to return home. (Of course my favorite part was how much she loves her mom, texts her regularly, and likes traveling with her the best…I have no doubt her mom is very proud of the daughter she raised!)  She painted the best picture of Brazil and of Brazilians, making us anxious to visit her country some day and experience a real barbecue!

Our inverse 4th of July outfits!

 When we arrived in Vienna we parted ways and we made our way by metro to the Hilton Danube Waterfront, where we are using points. It is quite a change to be in a chain hotel after our two hostel experiences. I think I prefer a hostel for this sort of travel, but there is something nice about the free happy hour and breakfast in the executive lounge and other amenities (like air conditioning) that you won’t find at a hostel.  This hotel is a little more out of the way and it was after 8:00 by the time we settled in.  Rather than head back into town we decided to just eat in the hotel restaurant out by the water.