Budapest Day 2

We woke up late since it was pretty noisy last night, between the street noise (we are on the first floor, and had the windows open) and the opera music blaring next door. Not sure what that’s about but not going there.

Internet is down so unfortunately I can’t research the things we saw today.. we got breakfast which was great. There was actually champagne for mimosa, though we didn’t partake. We headed out down Adrassy, the “Rodeo Drive” of Budapest, and walked around 30 minutes to Heroes Square, an areas with a bunch of statues of the different heroes for the various wars fought here. We then walked to a castle, which was a replication built to celebrate the 1,000 years of this city over a hundred years ago. There was a beautiful and very simple church, and the buildings were stunning. It was worth walking through.

Then we hit our destination: the Szechenyi baths. After 8 days of walking the cities non-stop, we were ready for some R&R. It didn’t disappoint. We got our ticket at the hotel which we turned in for a watch that operates the entrance and the lockers. There are something like 15 baths inside and several outside. It was magnificent. They range in temperate from 19 degrees celcius to 38 degrees  and also have saunas as well. We bounced between them heating up and cooling off. We rented a towel which took some work, finding where to go.

In the large outdoor pool, there is a table with three chess boards set up. Over a dozen old men were clustered around them playing chess, which was fun to see. We stayed for close to two hours then decided to get going to grab lunch. We found a cute little Turkish place called Café Kara and enjoyed our meal. We got a salad with herbs, chicken, red peppers and cucumbers, and a plate of cold dips including a chilli, hummus, eggplant and tzaziki. I got a Turkish milk drink which was sweet and interesting.

We walked back to the room and rested a bit, then got ready and went to the bar in the hotel to meet the manager, a local Hungarian guy who was very nice. A little later, a friend of mine joined us and we headed out on the town. We grabbed a drink at a place Kim’s friend recommended, then found a cute little restaurant called Bouchon. Louis took great care of us, and we had a really great meal. Pretty “happy” on wine/alcohol, we made our way back. What a fun day!!

We’ll have a busy day tomorrow so today was a nice departure and relaxing.