Hello! For those following along in real time (which may just be my sister who gets on my case to get blog posts done), it’s been a few days since I’ve posted. It’s been busy, but today I’m on a gorgeous train from Salzburg to Saint Anton am Arlberg, so I’ve got a few hours to catch up.

We also have a long train ride back to Vienna in a couple of days, so I believe I’ll get it together in the end.

This post I’m actually really excited about, as this day is probably my favorite so far.

Today the crew all woke up long before dawn, and caught a train to spend the day in Budapest. Hungary is a new country for all of us, so we were anxious to spend every moment there we could… in one day.

We arrived in Budapest in the morning, and walked from the train station to the touristy area of Fisherman’s Bastion. Rick Steve’s calls it “soulless”, but it’s popular for a reason, and that reason is that the views are incredible

To get to that area from the train station, you are walking up some steps, so just be prepared. There is a sweet little cafe halfway up if you need a break, but honestly it was nothing to a Seattleite who has to walk up hills to get anywhere.

At the top you get what is a basically rebuilt fortress area with perfect little charming buildings. It is also so perfect because it is all new. Rick Steves reported the rebuilding of this area is controversial, but happening nonetheless. There’s also a large, beautiful church.

There was a cute little Christmas market at the top, so we stopped to get a Hungarian Langos and Goulash. The Langos is the cheesy bread. The stand had a pretty amazing collection of meats, and smelled amazing.

I know this very controversial, but I was also taken in by the giant marzipan balls in dozens of flavors. I love the stuff, but it know a lot of people can’t stand it. More marzipan for me!

We wandered the area a bit, taking pictures as each view seemed better than the next.

You can take Jimmy out of Seattle, but you can’t take Seattle out of Jimmy. Hungarian Starbucks.

After doing some wandering, we decided to head to the Market Hall. To do so, we hopped on a bus to a bridge, then walked down a lovely shopping street. Public transportation was pretty easy overall in Budapest, and they have an app that seems great as you can route plan and buy tickets on it. They even had a great deal on a day pass for up to 5 people, which was perfect for us. The only hitch was that it uses a QR code you’re supposed to scan when you get on the bus, but I could never get to work properly. It was never actually checked so we just hopped on and off the transit modes, and I decided not to feel bad because we had actually paid and had valid tickets. I wouldn’t have been as worried about that in other European countries, but because of the political climate of Hungary at the moment it did make me nervous to follow all of the rules perfectly.

The market hall was really pretty, and was a bit like a Hungarian Pike Place Market.

The Market Hall was fun to wander, but we finished there a bit early (we’d planned to eat lunch there, but we were all still so full from goulash) so we just walked around a bit instead.

After a while, the temperature started to drop a bit, and I really wanted to try some Hungarian hot chocolate (they put paprika in it), so I looked on Reddit for the best places for hot coca in Budapest. It felt like fate that one of the most recommended places was on the way to our next Budapest destination, so we headed off, taking one of the cute little trams away from downtown.

Now, I knew there was a quirk to the cafe, as Reddit had talked about it, but I decided not to let anyone else know about it so it could be a fun surprise. Even I didn’t expect exactly how quirky this place would be.

The quirk is that it was teddy bear themed, and boy did it deliver in a big way.

The gentleman running the shop was able to seat us right away as another party was just leaving. So we settled in amidst all the bears.

There were debates about if the bears were cute, creepy, or both. Meanwhile, after being seated we never see the server again. His cafe was very busy, and he was going slow. For 45 minutes we waited for him to take our order, staring at other patrons who were also waiting for there orders to be taken or waiting for their coca. Some people were getting into the theme and holding the teddy bears.

We started joking that if you stay too long in the cafe you also will turn into a teddy bear, and all of the bears are just people who didn’t get out. After 45 minutes of waiting, we decided to just leave as we had timed reservations for our next destination, so we headed out of the cafe. The server (who I think may have been an owner) met us at the door, apologizing profusely that it was taking him so long, and saying that his help had not shown up so he was extra slow.

Honestly, we weren’t too upset because we knew it had turned into a fun story from the trip, and it was a warm place to sit with a clean bathroom, which was really what we were looking for. We essentially spent 45 minutes in the living room of someone’s Hungarian grandma who is disturbingly dedicated to their teddy bear Collection. My only disappointment is that we were never able to make it to another cafe for coca. We will endure.

After our adventure in bearland, we headed to the famous Széchenyi thermal bath. Budapest has a thriving thermal bath culture, with many locations all around the city. Széchenyi is by far the most famous, and is predictably full of tourists like us.

This is a thermal bath spa that was built in 1913. Honestly, the actual spa amenities were pretty bare boned and rugged, but the baths themselves are very ornate and a gorgeous background. The warm outdoor pools were perfect for the cold winter day. I did notice we all went into the hot baths and saunas, but none of us chose the cold plunge pool. Waking from the outdoor pools to the indoor space was enough of a cold plunge for me.

After doing some relaxing, we headed into the old Jewish quarter to find some dinner.

The Jewish quarter in Budapest is steeped in history, including serving as a ghetto for Jewish people who were persecuted and killed en mass by the Nazis. The community suffered tremendously, but survived and has been able to rebuild. Today it’s a vibrant community with three synagogues and arguably some of the best food in Budapest. It’s also home to the famous Ruin Bars, which are funky bars and night clubs housed in old buildings that loom dilapidated. These buildings were set to be demolished, but the community saved them and has created the trendiest area of town out of them.

We wandered a bit looking for someplace with room for our larger group.

We eventually landed at a place called Mecesz Bistro, which had great Hungarian Jewish style food and a very friendly server.

First off, he recommended a great Hungarian red wine, which was delicious and smooth to enough to be enjoyed with each of our orders. I’d never tried Hungarian wines before, so it was fun to try some.p

Maybe we were all just so hungry since it had a been a bit since our last meal, but the food was amazing and definitely hit the spot.

The waiter talked with us about famous Hungarians (he mainly liked Hungarian poets I’d never heard of, but should), and agreed to take a pic of the group if he could also be in one. Here are the results:

My favorite part of dinner was when we were trying to decide on a dessert, and Jimmy piped in with “what if we just get all three?” This was especially surprising because Jimmy isn’t usually a big dessert person, but we all heartedly agreed, and enjoyed them all.

After dinner it was time to head to the train station to catch a train back to Vienna.

The train ended up leaving about 45minutes late (my first late train in Europe I think) so we didn’t get back to our room until nearly 1am.

I fell asleep in my clothes, not even bothering to put on jammies.

Goodnight.