Pest and Buda, Hungary AKA Budapest

     Budapest is an exotic name for a city, I love saying it! The origin of the name is simply the unification of the town of Buda on the west side of the Danube River . . . (below is the Buda Castle)

. . . with the town of Pest on the east side of the river . . . (below is Hungary's Parliament Building on the east side of the Danube River) . . . 

. . . and both historic towns are connected by the iconic bridge, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge.

     One year ago when my sister Vicki and I were planning our European destinations, she asked me "Where do you want to go?" my first reply was "Budapest!" Maybe those WWII movies and travel shows influenced me, but Budapest has always charmed and enticed me.

And I was not disappointed; it's now my favorite European city. 

     The city doesn't skimp on preserving its historic buildings, nor its nighttime lights. Above photo is one of its historic train stations with very modern commuter trains; below photo is the very same train station's exterior domes. For a fuller affect of Budapest at night, click here for a video of Budapest Nighttime Domes.

Vicki and I walked at least six miles every day. We walked everywhere downtown; only one mile from our boutique hostel (in a historic building). It was gorgeous weather for city walking; four coolish-days during the first week of November 2018. I will let these photos do the talking . . . 

We stepped inside the iconic St. Stephen's Basilica, too.

Outside view of the Basilica . . .

The Dohany Street synagogue wasn't open to the public when we were there . . . click here for info about its weeping willow sculpture below, and why the Jewish cemetery is here.

Many plazas downtown . . .

. . . and tiny historic streets with limited traffic.

     Every street was fascinating, but the most exciting thrilling and satisfying visit for me was the Great Market Hall. From the outside, it doesn't look impressive . . .

But inside, wow! all the sights, smells, restaurants, produce stands, music, historical architecture, crowds of people mingling around . . . just the combination of everything gave me a natural high.

We ate lunch at the Fakanal Restaurant, one of the numerous places to eat inside the market . . . Hungarian Goulash soup of course!

There was "Gipsy Music" there too, which brought back a flood of memories. About 55 years ago when I was practicing my piano lessons, I joyfully played Brahms "Hungarian Dance" which was played staccato (lively foot tapping music). These guys played staccato!

Directly across the Danube River from the Great Market Hall is the famous Hotel Gellert.

This historic hotel has an impressive lobby . . . . 

. . . and a bath complex built from 1912 to 1918 (destroyed during WWII but rebuilt).

Next to this historic hotel was a steep hill (Gellert Hill) which required a couple rest periods while walking up the winding path, but once at the top, there was a wonderful view of Pest.

Nearby was the Citadella and a park on top of the hill. It was windy and chilly on top of the hill and we were wearing winter gear, caps and gloves. Vicki was wearing white gloves. All of a sudden (because she was wearing white gloves) Vicki breaks into a Michael Jackson Moon Dance in a park on top of the hill overlooking the river and the city, which totally surprised me.  It was one of those rare delightful surprises -- I would have never guessed she'd do a really good Moon Dance :)

     After walking another couple of miles up and down cobblestone paths . . . .  when we had just completed up/down about three hills, we'd see another hill in front of us which was totally discouraging. Tour busses by the way are numerous and very busy; most folks don't walk. But fortunately, we both agreed we'd rather walk than take a bus.

     We visited the Halaszbastya which is sort of like a Walt Disney Fantasy Land of Hungary's medieval history. It was built in the 19th Century to celebrate Hungary's history; it's located in the Buda Castle area.

 It's an impressive complex with wonderful views of both Buda and Pest across the Danube River.

Vicki took this shot below of me with my camera. All these photographs in my European posts are my sister Vicki's photographs; unbeknownst to me at the time, my micro-SD card had malfunctioned.

The Matthias Church is another iconic Buda landmark.

We walked another couple miles through Buda's delightful business district . . . 

 . . . had dinner in a loft area at a cute little mom and pop restaurant, got wonderfully lost on the subway back to the hostel, got wonderfully lost again on the streets around the hostel, whew! I'm thinking "traveling is like a full-time job with overtime!" Good thing we got some rest on our flight to Krakow, Poland (next post) because that city was almost as enjoyable as Budapest.

Bulgaria's Capital City - Sofia

     My sister Vicki and I had made plans to go our separate ways for a few days after a month of traveling with a small group in Israel and Jordan. The plan was to meet in Bulgaria, at Sofia's airport lobby on November 2, 2018; she'd be flying from Dubai, United Arab Emirates and I'd be flying from Aqaba, Jordan where I was SCUBA diving for three days. After a month of looking at sand and sand-colored buildings . . .

. . . I was looking forward to trees and colorful autumn leaves in Bulgaria's capital city of Sofia. My flight arrived about three hours before Vicki's flight.

     Our plan was to spend a couple days touring downtown Sofia including an overnight visit at the Rila Monastery in the mountains southwest of Sofia. Then onto Budapest, Hungary.

     While I sat in the airport lobby waiting for Vicki's flight to arrive, I studied Sofia's public transportation map, figuring out the best way to get downtown to our hotel room. I also had a chance to observe many people at the airport. Without knowing a thing about Bulgaria or even its political history, I observed that Bulgarians are not animated or gregarious, nor demonstrative in their interactions with each other. People didn't smile. When Vicki arrived and we found our subway, I mentioned this issue to her when we were sitting in a subway car full of non-smiling, non-communicative people. She too had noticed that folks were a bit too subdued and withdrawn. The movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" did cross my mind . . . but fast forward about two months, a friend of mine in Austin upon hearing I was in Bulgaria, said "The most unhappy people in the world!" What??! Yep, polls and criteria for "happiness" rank Bulgaria low on the list of countries. So there ye go :) un-tainted observations, I kid you not.

     There may be a reason why Bulgarians seem subdued; click here for an explanation of its pattern of unstable governments. But regardless of their culture and history of Communism, Sofia's architecture and downtown government buildings are a wonderful place to explore for a few days.

Sofia's smog is supposedly a huge European problem, but we didn't notice any smog November 2018.

We visited most of the historic sights in Sofia.

Including the outside of the residence of the country's President.

     Sofia is a fun-city to walk around and visit; there's a Huawei office here (if you're into world affairs and controversial business relationships, you'll understand). We did a tremendous amount of walking in Sofia to see all its downtown historic sites. And I felt wonderfully planted in this city in a good way; sort of like Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore Show) when she tosses her hat downtown Chicago with this huge smile because she's feeling like she owns the city. 

     Vicki and I needed to catch a couple of city trams with transfers and an intra-city bus to the Rila Monastery which would be an all-day adventure. Our hotel clerk at Sofia told us no tram driver would speak English, so she wrote two notes for us in Bulgarian, instructing the driver where to tell us to get off the tram. We'd board an electric tram, I'd give the driver my note written in Bulgarian (my notes were numbered so I'd know which note was which) and after three transfers and some walking, we managed to get to the Monastery via a beautiful two-hour bus ride (our third ride) on a colorful-fall-leaf rural mountainous road in the Rila Mountains.

     It's a huge complex; our room for one night was on the top floor. We ate at a restaurant nearby with a wonderful view of the mountains and a wood-burning fireplace near our table but with the most disagreeable non-smiling wait staff (by now we were accustomed to this behavior). The restaurant was selling "Monastery Bread" (no description on the menu) so we asked to see it (what the heck is Monastery Bread, eh?). Our waitress (with dyed red hair, lots of women in Bulgaria dye their hair red), said "No" with authority (and a frown of disdain). I don't think she liked us. We opted out of the Monastery Bread.

     The bus back to Sofia the next day traveled through several small towns; one town had quite a few huge stork nests built on chimney tops. These storks (click here for a touching stork story) are unique to European countries. Back in Sofia, on a tram-ride back to our hotel, an automobile hit our electric tram! Police arrived to do a report; it was pretty exciting for a country gal like me :)

     Across the street from our downtown hotel in Sofia was a Japanese restaurant that we frequented. Vicki was surprised I had never drank Sake!  Living in rural Texas for 27 years can be somewhat limiting . . . . so this was my first taste of warm Sake in these little itsy bitsy cups. And on a fall crisp blue-sky day in Sofia, Bulgaria after a tram accident, a monastery stay, and a couple of cold days walking around a historic Communist city where folks don't smile, it was the perfect time in my life for a warm rice wine with a distinctive memorable taste.

We visited the nearest farmers market of course, and the walk there was wonderfully European (hard to explain, there's no comparison to USA cities at all).  I bought eight Asian persimmons here for the same price that the USA sells one persimmon! Felt like I had won the lottery; they were all gloriously ripe :) like eating nature-made candy.

     The people of Sofia may seem subdued, but Vicki and I had a wonderful time laughing and smiling at everyone. We made a game of it . . . we'd see unsmiling folks and chuckle and smile, hoping it would be contagious and they'd return our smiles (it wasn't contagious, but it was fun trying) and then we'd laugh together because it was an inside-sister-joke between us :)